Vanity, Doubt, and the Perils of Self-Publishing

Last year a good friend of ours decided to take on San Francisco’s public transportation problems and run for BART Board. Of course, he also needed help designing his campaign logo. With a $500 budget, we could either help him find a design student, find a designer good samaritan, or… do it ourselves!

Tenderfoot was a pedicure parlor on Main Street near Channing. Two reclining chairs — usually only one was in use — faced the street through a large plate-glass window. And so customers, alone with Paige, got a kind of public privacy — anybody could see them, no one but Paige could hear them. Paige was an expert listener — rarely commenting on what she heard, never repeating it.

In a way that feels depressingly American, the scourge of police brutality, militarization, corruption and racism, the horror of black bodies lying murdered on the ground has transformed into a battle of symbols and pageantry.

In the end, every election comes back down to economics. If only the same could be said about electoral campaigning.

A little piece of Argentina thrives in the Sinking City

The Presbyterian College head basketball coach had just seen his team lose its season opener to Duke, 113–44.

An old encampment for religious recluses wasn’t what I originally had in mind for my birthday blowout.

Let’s say you’ve built the next big thing. You’re ready to take on the world and make billions. Your product is amazing and you’re convinced you’ve bested the competition. As a point of fact, you know you offer the very best solution in your market. But here’s the rub. If your competition has established strong customer habits than you have, you’re in trouble.

A chapter from One Nation, Under Gods by Peter Manseau

News is a stream of events, questions (and sometimes answers), debate, increasing information, and evolving understanding. News became a product only because it had to — to fit into publishers’ and then broadcasters’ space and time and production schedules.

One of the best things in the world is kissing the person you love just as they are waking up.

Growing up, and indeed, well into adolescence and adulthood, this has been a message I’ve heard from a number of angles (my mother,cartoon characters, and official guidelines, to name but a few).

For the last few weeks of December, and deep into January, the secular greeting resounds everywhere in the land.

There is still lots of work to be done

Cyberwar will be the defining story of our generation, but right now we’re dangerously unequipped to report on it accurately.

Maura Boland, owner of Alaskan Premium Seafoods in Traverse City, Michigan, is, in her own words, all about selling fish.

This is a version of the notes that I wrote for a speech that I gave in December at the Medill School of Journalism in Chicago.

Over the last few days, dozens of people have sent me a link to Andrew Watts

Aaron was one of my closest friends

A gifted songwriter with a cheeky aesthetic embodies a new model for musical success

From Cello to Investment Banking to AltSchool

Anyone can create products with care and respect, for anyone, not just the few, to use and enjoy. It takes commitment.

Here comes champagne rap, blissfully-ignorant rap, gangsta rap, conscious rap, emo rap, trap rap and “real” rap

News is a stream of events, questions (and sometimes answers), debate, increasing information, and evolving understanding. News became a product only because it had to — to fit into publishers’ and then broadcasters’ space and time and production schedules. Now news can revert to nature. News never starts. It never ends. In the image of technology pioneer Dave Winer, news is a river. It flows.

In September 1997, three months before our twin boys were born, my Dad died of complications following cancer surgery. In 2004, my Mom called to let me know she had cancer, too. She fought it through a round of chemo but in August 2005 I got another call.