Levi Figueira

Taken during our honeymoon in Madeira, Portugal… It was...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:26:00 +0000

Taken during our honeymoon in Madeira, Portugal… It was incredibly windy that afternoon but the clouds were perfect for some “dramatic” shots… I managed to snap this one. :)

Giving it Away: How Free Music Makes More Than Sense

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:35:43 +0000

Giving it Away: How Free Music Makes More Than Sense:

derekwebb:

(…) I actually prefer illegal downloading over Spotify because when you get music illegally it’s at least implicit in the transaction that what you’re doing is potentially harmful to the artist. But with Spotify, your conscience is clear because you’re either enduring ads or paying to use the service and access the music. But from the blue-collar artist’s perspective, they’re not receiving any meaningful payment (there’s little discernible difference between $0.00029 and $0.00) and they are learning nothing about their fans, not to mention that music readily available on Spotify for little to no payment completely poaches the record sales upon which middle-class musicians are depending for survival (which is why I will withhold any new releases from Spotify in the future).

Couldn’t agree more…

choochoobear: Here’s a link to the original - always give...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:43:00 +0100

choochoobear:

Here’s a link to the original - always give credit where it’s due.

http://www.docpop.org/2009/11/the-greatest-halloween-costume-ever/

rosalarian:

translunar:

equivoque:

goulcher:

best trick or treat ever?

This is what brilliance looks like.

Someday before I die I need to do this.

Why is the internet so good tonight?

Maniacal Rage: Gowalla 4 and Loss of Personal Milestone Data

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:52:00 +0100

Maniacal Rage: Gowalla 4 and Loss of Personal Milestone Data:

maniacalrage:

I take for granted often how fleeting these services are. Whether they go out of business, get acquired, or simply change their feature set, any service you trust to hold your data is possibly temporary. The only real way to secure future access to your important moments is to keep them yourself, or at least back them up in a way you’ll be able to continue accessing.

What he said.

viafrank: Top: Boston.com, free access.Bottom:...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:11:58 +0100

viafrank:

Top: Boston.com, free access.
Bottom: BostonGlobe.com’s redesign. Pay-for-access, $4 a week.

I’m having a super tough time choosing here, guys.

The OCD Chef Cutting Board

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:21:11 +0100

The OCD Chef Cutting Board:

cameronmoll:

“Terrific for persnickety perfectionists.”

whatkaythinkstoday: So much fun! AWESOME… unless you’re...

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:18:23 +0100

whatkaythinkstoday:

So much fun!

AWESOME… unless you’re claustrophobic! :p

New Year's Resolutions Are Worthless

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:53:00 +0000

New year’s resolutions are worthless. Unless you lay out the plan for achieving your goals, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration.

Truth is, setting up a solid plan for achieving your goals is not easy. I know that… very well. One of the main reasons that compelled me to write this was having that exact problem. Every year, I use this “socially acceptable season” to think about goals for the next year. Every year, I commit to a few things. I dubbed 2010 Operation: Action (following a weak attempt at Operation: Focus in 2009). How much did I get done? Not much other than stress about not achieving those goals.

So don’t just set goals: make plans.

Incorrect: “In 2011 I want to lose 15 pounds.”
Still incorrect: “In 2011, I’ll sign up for a gym membership so I can lose 15 pounds.”
Correct: “In 2011, I’ll sign up for a gym membership and work out at least twice a week, no exceptions, so I can lose 15 pounds as soon as possible.”

Incorrect: “In 2011 I will redesign my site.”
Still incorrect: “In 2011, I’ll buy a book about design so I can learn how to redesign my site.”
Correct: “In 2011, I’ll buy a book about design, and spend at least 6h a week redesigning my site, learning along the way.”

Incorrect: “In 2011, I will learn Ruby on Rails.”
Still incorrect: “In 2011, I’ll subscribe to Railscasts/Peepcode/whatever and learn Ruby on Rails.”
Correct: “In 2011, I’ll commit to spending at least 10 hours per week working on an idea I’ve had about a web application, using Ruby on Rails, watching screencasts and reading books along the way.”

On all these examples, I could’ve set a deadline. On all of them, deadlines wouldn’t make a difference if you’re struggling with getting things done. Focus on delineating a daily/weekly plan of how you intend to achieve those goals. If you stick to that plan, reasonably factoring normal life unexpected situations, you will achieve your goals in reasonable time, you’ll have a blast learning new things and you’ll feel overall more motivated and happy.

In conclusion, I’m writing this primarily to myself. I need to get away from New Year Resolutions and focus on monthly reviews of my goals and plans of how to achieve them, and I think you should do the same. Besides, any day is a good “resolution’s day”. Just set/plan and then review/iterate.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to reply on Twitter or comment on this Hacker News thread. Upvotes/retweets are always welcome… ;)

Oh, and happy New Year everyone. :)

"Sketchbooks are not about being a good artist, they’re about being a good thinker."

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:25:08 +0000

“Sketchbooks are not about being a good artist, they’re about being a good thinker.”

- Jason Santa Maria (via mmarfil)

The Pursuit of Education

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:57:59 +0000

Over. Done. Finito. My first semester back to school has ended today after taking my last final.
I can’t really express the kind of feelings that going back to school have given me: frustration, anger, excitement and enlightenment are just a few that come to mind.

There’s a lot wrong with the current institutional educational model. Promoting instructor satisfaction over discussion and intellectual argument promotes intellectual laziness. Students go through pain and stress to satisfy the teacher and get a good grade. Attendees (what I’ll call “students” that are not really motivated by school, both lazy or smart) become frustrated and give up. A huge, foundational reform to the education system is urgently needed.

Well, the way I dealt with going back to school after 10 years was to take the most of it by focusing in class, soaking every bit of knowledge and wisdom from the instructor, and promoting discussion and participation by setting an example whenever I get a chance (which most instructors appreciate it if done sensibly). But I never forced myself into doing something I can’t do well: memorization. Studying, for me, is done in class, while reading the material and having concepts and considerations pop up; not by attempting to memorize all concepts. Whatever I can get that way, sticks with me lifelong. Memorization is temporary and usually gone after a few hours or days. I’m back to school for lifelong learning. My grades may not be the greatest but I’m happy with them and glad to see some instructors focus on that a bit more than 10 years ago (and not the youngest ones, actually).

All in all, I’m glad to be back in school. Full-time student along with full-time job while trying to kickoff an entrepreneurial career is not easy but pays off every time you learn something new that can be put to work in understanding other people or yourself better and better. It has, so far, solidified my desire to take on my unique abilities and put them to good use, maximizing my talents and acquired skills.

Can’t wait for the Spring semester. :)

ajdesign: difted: 10 years (by brett jordan) Wow

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:48:20 +0000

ajdesign:

difted:

10 years (by brett jordan)

Wow

thedailywhat: Post-It Packaging of the day: “Vintage Twitter”...

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 07:35:43 +0000

thedailywhat:

Post-It Packaging of the day: “Vintage Twitter” by JMW — “a loving homage to Twitter, with a reminder that the short message is not a new invention,” handed out to web developers at September’s Disruptive Code conference in Stockholm.

[dyt.]

“Life… simplified.” — Soup von EvrydayJunglist

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:20:10 +0000

“Life… simplified.” — Soup von EvrydayJunglist

"If you’re in one of the non-Valley and non-Alley cities, your team will have a lower cost of..."

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:03:00 +0000

“If you’re in one of the non-Valley and non-Alley cities, your team will have a lower cost of living, a better quality of life and less distraction from recruiters. You’ll have the time to build an authentic culture, based on a four-year plan and loyal team members (loyal to each other).”

- by Jason Calacanis in “The Trouble with Bubbles (talent, angel & incubators… oh my!)”

I usually don’t line up with Jason in a lot of his thinking but he’s a really smart and experienced guy I respect professionally. He really hit home on this one. I really hope a big decentralizing movement, creating new hubs of talent and money outside of Silicon Valley gets underway…

Is “Undesigned” the Next Great Web Trend?

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:02:27 +0000

Is “Undesigned” the Next Great Web Trend?:

The only difference between these “undesigned” tools [Instapaper, Readability, etc…] and the Flash-addled screenjunk they replace is that one is optimized for what we want to do with text—read it—and the other isn’t. Neither is “less” or “more” designed. One is simply better designed for its function than the other.

Spot on!

Amazing Sunset (Taken with instagram at BILD International)

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:26:44 +0000

Amazing Sunset (Taken with instagram at BILD International)

wearethedigitalkids: “The advice I like to give young artists,...

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:28:20 +0000

wearethedigitalkids:

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and somthing else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

-Chuck Close

Image from Wisdom

jonduenas: remixartiscollective.com

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 21:37:59 +0000

jonduenas:

remixartiscollective.com

Pop (Counter) Culture

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:56:00 +0100

Update: After some feedback, I realized I might’ve not made clear where my analogy is. It is not between design and music, but how popularity affects the value of each. Besides, there’s plenty of bad popular music and not so much popular bad design. But that sparks the centennial discussion: is design art or science? ;)

We all have the “hip” friend, right? The guy/gal who listens to bands nobody else has heard yet. That could also be true for any other form of art. Or politics. Or anything. But I’ll focus on music because I believe that’s where it hits the hardest.

The interesting thing is the passion they show when promoting that unknown band. They attend all their shows, they’ll spam their Twitter/Facebook account with pictures and other praises, they’ll buy their hand-pressed merchandise, etc… Or they might not go to shows or buy merchandise but will offer to send you MP3s of it because “it’s awesome”.

Then, if the band is really that good, it will obviously pick up in popularity. That’s great, right? Not for the “hip” folks. They feel ownership of that band drifting away and now everyone else hears what they thought was awesome. That doesn’t set them apart anymore. They are no longer “special”.

Social Ownership

A more interesting happens later. In the hipster brain, the band had to clearly give up making their own “heartfelt music and had to go with what the big corporate label told them to write”. Sound familiar?

I’m guilty of the same problem. I’ve done it countless times internally. I’m pretty eclectic so I do listen to pretty everything from pop to post-rock, from classical to (some, not much) rap. I have music I love in all quadrants. I have music I dislike in all four as well. Here’s an example: I love Coldplay. I’ve loved them since before they were mainstream. I watched them live in the Madison Square Garden back in 2003 and it was quite possibly one of the best concerts by all measures. They are talented musicians who write good music. My favorite album is still Parachutes but I like some songs from more recent albums. Some songs I love, some songs I don’t. That is also true about pretty much every other artist I listen to more than once. But after the band got popular, I started hearing a lot of people I knew liked them initially starting to say they “lost it”. And the “hipsters” that only heard about them after they were already popular judging them based on “pop fever”. What a sad way to (over)generalize.

Social Evil

I believe this goes back to one of the darkest aspects of our society: we don’t like other people’s success, particularly when it comes from talent not “hard work”. We want to believe that if you work more ours you’ll make more money, get promoted and become rich. We hate the fact that some people are just more talented than we are and will require less effort in order to be successful. It’s a really sad thing and also very true in the webesphere. A designer is good until he goes work for some big company we don’t particularly like. 37signals was great until they started having big clients, got a new amazing office or DHH bought a custom-made, one-of-a-kind Zonda. They got rich and popular

The Point

Seriously people: get popular, get rich, get whatever you like, or just don’t. As long as you’re doing what you love, listening to what makes you happy and are surround by those you love, you’ll do just fine. And stop hating other people’s success. That hate will infect all other areas of your life and no matter how much you work or how much money you make, you’ll never be happy.

"Mischel argues that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids..."

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:59:58 +0100

“Mischel argues that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework. “What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power or self-control,” Mischel says. “It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.”

- The secret of self-control : The New Yorker - Amazing article! (via Instapaper)