Original caption reads, “Dennis Stock’s famous image of James Dean in Times Square, marked with Pablo Inirio’s printing notations.”
via the literate lens

—Jean-Michel Basquiat

Clay Christensen recently spoke with Jeff Howe at Wired and shared his thoughts on what industries will be disrupted next by the Web (via GigaOm):

Journalism, certainly, and publishing broadly. Anything supported by advertising. That all of this is being disrupted is now beyond question. And then I think higher education is just on the edge of the crevasse. Generally, universities are doing very well financially, so they don’t feel from the data that their world is going to collapse. But I think even five years from now these enterprises are going to be in real trouble.
Some people love to claim they’re all about innovation and disruption. Very few actually are, because when real disruption occurs, entire industries get upended and lots of people lose money. Just look at what the iPad is doing the “traditonal” PC industry.
It takes real balls to embrace disruption, but the alternative is worse—Falling to the wayside and becoming irrelevant.
As someone who has been designing websites for over 13 years (and most recently mobile applications), things are constantly in flux for me. I used to make most of my living designing and programming sites with Adobe Flash. Now we’re not only in a post-PC world, but a post-plug-in world.
I always keep this quote by Charles Darwin in my head:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
I don’t care what industry you work in. If you live by those words, you’ll be in good shape.

photographs of the Sun by Alan Friedman
Via PetaPixel

Stephanie Smith, writing for NBC affiliate KXAN in Austin, Texas on a scan that may detect brain disease in the brains of NFL players:

An insidious, microscopic protein that has been found in the brain tissue of professional football players after death may now be detectable in living people by scanning their brains.

Researchers say they found tau protein in the brains of five living retired National Football League players with varying levels of cognitive and emotional problems.
Research like this is great and should continue, but I have a better idea.
How about dudes stop running full speed at each other and smashing their heads together?
It might, just might, get rid of that pesky, “insidious, microscopic protein.”
Call me crazy.
Thought: I’d be interested to see if anyone has compared the condition of brains between NFL players in the United States and brains of rugby and Gaelic football players. Given the latter two don’t wear helmets during game play my guess is they’re much less likely to smash their heads into others’ and thus be less likely to get brain disease later in life.

Dan Eden wrote an essay about what it takes to be a designer. It’s sound (and raw) advice.
It’s a great compliment to my piece, Don’t, on Stemmings.
Note: Dan has a dirtier mouth than me. He drops three f-bombs in his essay. I only drop one “bullshit” in mine. Just saying.

#waterbreak

—Andy Warhol

via Instagram

Dustin Curtis on using “your” versus “my” in user interfaces:

After thinking about this stuff for a very long time, I’ve settled pretty firmly in the camp of thinking that interfaces should mimic social creatures, that they should have personalities, and that I should be communicating with the interface rather than the interface being an extension of myself. Tools have almost always been physical objects that are manipulated tactually. Interfaces are much more abstract, and much more intelligent; they far more closely resemble social interactions than physical tools.

The answer for me, then, is that you’re having a conversation with the interface. It’s “Your stuff.”
It’s funny how subjective this stuff is.
For me, I’m on the opposite side of the coin as Curtis. As he mentions in his post, because I think of my device as an extension of myself, “my” is the most appropriate modifier to use within applications and settings on my devices.
“Your” seems foreign.
Think about how invasive it feels when someone inadvertently grabs your phone at a party thinking it’s their’s and starts rummaging though it. “That’s my phone!” is the first thought in your head.
Dustin is wrong.
Is’s My Stuff.

Hey developers, you’re probably already reading Hacker News on YCombinator.
Hey designers, do you know about Designer News on Layer Vault?
Maybe you’re like me and you read both.

via swissmiss

The Verge: BlackBerry Creative Director Alicia Keys tweets from iPhone, pins blame on hackers
Haha. What bullshit.
I wonder how much money is really enough for celebrities like Keys. It’s not enough to be a multi-millionaire-dollar-making musician. You have to get more money being a puppet “creative director” for a mobile phone company that’s circling the drain.
While on this topic, Justin Timberlake was just named creative director of Bud Light Platinum. Really? Bud Light? You’re seriously proud of being creative director of Bud-friggin-Light? If you’re not going for a delicious microbrew, at least go for Samuel Adams or something European like Stella Artois or Heineken.
And isn’t “Bud Light Platnium” an oxymoron?
It’s like saying “Premium Cow Manure”.
Update: In related news, Bryan just informed me Beyonce was just named Head Receptionist at Pepsico, and I got an anonymous tip Cheech Marin was named Head of Quality Assurance for Marijuana at Corona.