Shortmail

Shortmail.com is designed to create a digestible inbox. By limiting messages to 500 characters, Shortmail is “stressing conciseness.” Like Twitter, Shortmail features a character counter which tracks each letter typed–reach the max, and Shortmail will not allow you to send the message. The same restriction applies to messages received. — More at FastCompany

You can Shortmail me at: smaysdotcom@shortmail.com

Your business card a billboard for your brand

“In my universe a powerful brand should be able to explain their mission in a single paragraph–the fewer words, the better. But what most brands forget is that their business card is indeed their ‘napkin,’ a blank canvas enabling them to communicate the essence of their brand (or fail to do so).

We live in a super-cluttered world where no one has time for anything. We’re bombarded with text messages, TV commercials, billboards and online ads, and so companies need to know what they stand for. It’s a fact that you cannot remember more than three television commercials in a row, let alone recall the design of your average business card unless they manage to rise above the cacophony and stand out in a way that’s completely relevant.”

—Fast Company

nd.

Einstein on Buddhism

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.” 

Stories we told ourselves

“History in the older sense was narrative, stories we told ourselves about where we’d come from and what it had been like, and those narratives were revised by each new generation, and indeed always had been. History was plastic, was a matter of interpretation. The digital had not so much changed that as made it too obvious to ignore. History was stored data, subject to manipulation and interpretation.”

— All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson