Colm Smyth's Weblog
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20041119 Friday November 19, 2004

A bridge to the future

A lot has been written on the subject of innovation, but the heart of it is the drive to create the future -  not just the future that comes at you one second at a time, but a future where looking back you say to yourself: how did we ever survive without that?

Innovating starts with the will to destroy the inadequate present:

  • G. K. Chesterton said "a yawn is a silent shout"; don't be dissatisfied, get downright angry with limitations and wrongs; kick, scream and do something about it
  • Socrates said it best: "To find yourself, think for yourself"
  • However innovation is about the doing that comes after (and before) the thought; Picasso expressed this as "inspiration exists, but it has to find you working"
  • GKC also said "a sage feels too small for life, and a fool too large for it"; the fear of inadequacy (or even mere adequacy) is a powerful motivator
  • Don't be a "consumer" in the sense of the article Death of the Future - create the future you aspire to
  • A "refactoring" of two great calls to action: "ask not what the future can do for you; ask what you can do for the future" and "the more you do, the more you know what you haven't done"

I'll leave you with a challenge, take it or leave it :) The internet; the web; search engines; Google; ---. Finish that sentence.

(2004-11-19 10:51:26.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Is it real enough yet?

Bloody chainsaw "joystick"

Evidently there was not enough joy from the standard GameCube controller - the new one promises more realistic mayhem. Bags of fake blood are optional.

And no, you can't get one to replace your USB mouse - yet.

(2004-11-19 10:01:57.0) Permalink

This IsNot Serious

Some days, Slashdot rules: the follow-ups to MS has patented BASIC's IsNot operator" are laugh-out-loud funny [the first link in the initial post will take you to the patent].

Some times, patents != intellectual property; patents := joke.

BTW, if you are really curious, you can find out the "rationale" for IsNot; it's actually syntactic sugar to accompany some syntactic sugar to work around some syntactic sugar in VBA; I kid you not...

(2004-11-19 09:18:27.0) Permalink


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