Category Archives: Quotable & Notes

Seth Godin: “small is the new big”

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Just received my copy of Seth Godin’s new book, small is the new big and flipped it open to page 155:

“The number of channels of communication is going to continue to increase. And either you’ll have a channel or you won’t. Either you’ll have access to the attention of the people you need to talk with (notice I didn’t say “talk at”), or you won’t. So the real question to ask isn’t, “How much will I get paid to talk with these people?” The real question is, “How much will I pay to talk with these people.”

The title of the book refers to a blog post from June, 2005. Godin talks about the new book in a half-hour, moderated Skypecast this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. CDT.

Update: Poor old Seth had to introduce himself because the moderator has tech issues and was late getting into the Skype call. Looked like about 25 or 30 folks on the call and they never got around to taking questions. Typepad — which sponsored the Skypecast– plans to post portions of the audio on their blog.

Weinerschnitzel adjustment

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“Now sometimes a pair of briefs – for reasons I cannot understand – have the most annoying characteristic you could ever imagine: In the course of normal walking and sitting, the wearer’s weinershnitzel ends up poking halfway through the flap hole like a turtle coming out of its shell. And before long, the most sensitive part of your body is wedged between your briefs and the harsh denim material of your pants. As I walked toward the departure gate, I was choking Private Johnson and giving him a noogie at the same time.”

— Scott Adams

Phone Whores

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In case you are not familiar with a term that I just made up, a phone whore is a woman who goes to the airport with no magazines, laptops, books, puzzles or other means to entertain her. All she has is a phone, and she’s going to use it, no matter how many people are annoyed.

The phone whore is motivated by the desire to talk with people. The phone asshole (male variety) is motivated by the need to have everyone on the flight know he’s negotiating important business deals and that he has staff members that must receive his wisdom.

— Scott Adams

 

Fictional passwords: Western concept of Self

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John Burdett’s second novel, Bangkok Tattoo, was as good as his first (Bangkok 8). Both stories are set in (you guessed it) Bangkok, where Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep solves bizarre murders. Sonchai is a devout Buddhist and the plot is laced with Eastern religion. I especially liked this description of the Western concept of Self:

“…a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all, everything depends on everything else, your body depends on the environment, your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the media, your emotions are largely from the reptilian end of your DNA, your intellect is a chemical computer that can’t add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator, and even your best side is a superficial piece of social programming that will fall apart just as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in the joint account, or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack, or you get conscripted into some idiot’s war, or they give you the news about your brain tumor.”

Ouch. The wannabe geek in me also enjoyed this password to a CIA online database:

AQ82860136574X-Halifax nineteen [lowercase] Oklahoma twenty-2 BLUE WHALE [all uppercase] Amerika stop 783

Won’t even fit on a Post-It note.