“I'd always meant to become a musician. I'd just never gotten around to it. And my daughter being born, I was like, Okay, this is seriously the last chance. And also: Do you really want to be a dad who never did what he wanted to do? You've got to set an example now. You've got to do this.” WantWantedLastsBornChanceExampleDadMusicianDaughterOkayMy DaughterMeant To BeLast Chance Author:Jonathan Coulton
“Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority. It wasn't like somebody told me about it and I said, "I don't know how to spell that." I said, "Yeah, I've got that on my list, so I'm okay." But there came a point when we realized it was happening faster and was a much deeper phenomenon than had been recognized in our strategy.” KnowsSaidSometimesKnow HowTakenExampleInternetHappeningsOkayYeahStrategySurpriseDeeperListsPrioritiesFasterPhenomenonSpellsFifth Author:Bill Gates
“I live up in the hills, and I don't have any cable, and I have really slow satellite, so that does it - because being on the Internet is okay, but it takes a long time. I have a prediction that at some point, there will be a backlash. Like at the end of the '60s, there was that back-to-the-land movement, and I'm guessing that people will start consciously saying, "I'm not taking the phone with me," or "I'm only checking email x number of times a day," or "I'm not ever gonna self-Google," for example.” PeopleLongDoeEndsSelfNumbersLandExampleMovementInternetLong TimeOkayPhonesHillsGooglePredictionsEmailCablesGuessingSatellitesBacklash Author:George Saunders
“Except in a few cases like Music for Airports, which was a very clear case of noticing a niche [and] saying, "Okay, there's this situation in which people always play music, and nobody has written music for that situation so I'm going to." So, that was a very clear example of spotting a niche and working for it. I have done that occasionally.” PeopleDonePlaySituationCasesClearWrittenExampleOkayAirportsNicheNoticing Author:Brian Eno
“I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.” PeopleThinkingWantSpeakGivenCan DoExampleOkayWorth ItYou Can Do ItGiven UpSpeaks OutNot Worth It Author:Ai Weiwei
“If you look at the portion of the GPU available to compute throughout the frame, it varies dramatically from instant to instant. For example, something like opaque shadow map rendering doesn't even use a pixel shader, it's entirely done by vertex shaders and the rasterization hardware - so graphics aren't using most of the 1.8 teraflops of ALU available in the CUs. Times like that during the game frame are an opportunity to say, 'Okay, all that compute you wanted to do, turn it up to 11 now.'” IfsLooksDoneUseWantedTurnsOpportunityGamesExampleShadowOkayAvailableInstantMapsPortionsVaryHardwareRenderingOpaquePixels Author:Mark Cerny
“I'm interested in the way the whole cultural landscape can shift over time. Okay, this will seem like a silly example, but look at the whole discourse around "selling out," a concept people say is irrelevant because there's no more distinction between mainstream and underground, inside and outside (which I don't really believe, but that's another issue).” PeopleWayBelieveLooksWholeSeemsIssuesExampleConceptsOkaySillySellingLandscapeDistinctionMainstreamDiscourseIrrelevantSelling OutInside And Outside Author:Astra Taylor