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Lately I’ve been Googling some song lyrics, clicking on the YouTube video that I am pleasantly surprised is the first result, then returning to one of my 743980214 browser tabs. Whenever I do stick around, to me, in 2015, YouTubeVEVO feels like how 80′s kids describe MTV coming on air for the first time. All of my radio stars live in Rdio, Spotify, SoundCloud, Pandora, and Songza; so I almost never see an Official Music Video. When I do, I’m shocked or delighted or disgusted by what these artists have done with MY songs. I know that’s like George RR Martin wrote the script for HBO’s Game of Thrones and I can’t believe how much “they” missed the mark.

Anyway, to be honest I was searching for Cut Copy’s song with the same name, but once this started I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I don’t actually care for this song, but it’s one of the best videos I’ve seen in awhile. Alexis Taylor (lead vocalist and video’s protagonist) is smart and creative* and I couldn’t wait to see where he (all of them) was going. 

YouTube commenter(!!) Jee Charns describes it better than I could have.

Genius. His girlfriend leaves. First he grieves. Then he looks back on himself and and gets angry because he didn't do anything about it. Then he looks back on himself again and accepts what has happened and does whatever it takes to get his girl back. At each stage he's chasing his future self who is one step closer to solving the emotional problem. And once he sees the past version of himself who was upset or angry he avoids them.

I see it as about the learning process of heartbreak and how we get through it. There's no way to change the way you feel. Just have to run towards solving the problem.

*I was lucky enough to see Alexis Taylor perform alongside David Byrne et al as part of Atomic Bomb!, the ephemeral supergroup dedicated to the music of William Onyeabor, the obscurely legendary Nigerian funk musician no one can find. If someone landing here out of mutual interest has a recording of Alexis singing “Good Name” at the Greek, please send it my way. It was memorable.

[amritrichmond-blog]

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

— Steve Jobs in Wired, February 1996

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"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."

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The New Yorker on Silicon Valley

On the New Yorker's "Out Loud" podcast, staff writer and author of the new book "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America" George Packer and tech writer Ken Auletta discuss "Change the World," Packer's latest piece in which he asks tech leaders why the vast profits of the tech world have paralleled a growing disparity between rich and poor, and how they think about their social and political roles.

  Auletta: Take the question that you've been asking everybody else for the past couple of months, and let's hear your own answer: Why is it this technological revolution has coincided with this great change in the American economy leading us to a more unequal place?

Packer: Tech created immense wealth for a small number of people, and is still doing it, on a scale that just keeps defying belief. That alone is going to sharpen inequality greatly, regardless of what's going on at other income levels. But it's not an automatic transfer. I think people in Silicon Valley assume there is; that great innovations in technology in the virtual world are bound to transfer to economic growth and to rising of the standard of living across the board. But we just haven't seen it. And it may be that there is something about the virtual world that doesn't transfer to the world we actually live in as easily as the [manufacturing era] assembly line. I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that changing lifestyle versus changing standard of living in this country is a different thing, and the latter has lagged far behind the former, which is something that people have not thought very much about."

Auletta: Technology allows what they call "more productivity," which means fewer jobs are required...

Packer: We used to think that productivity automatically led to economic growth. That was an article of faith, and in the last couple of decades we've seen great gains in productivity because of technology and it has not led to economic growth, in fact it's been a very sluggish period. . .Tech needs to think hard about how rapid innovation can bring the rest of the economy with it. The tech revolution has coincided with a period of real economic decline for a lot of parts of the country and wildly unequal incomes.

Auletta: Why are more people here not engaged with poverty?

Packer: It's a combination of arrogance and ignorance. So many of these people work 20 hour days, and they go to work and they live in a tunnel, and they don't see the rest of the world and they really are ignorant of it. And in many ways, the ignorance is stronger than the arrogance. They don't have time to keep up with the news, they read tweets from their friends. It's real intellectual isolation, and it's not enough to change the world.

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Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts. Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.      Although practicality beats purity. Errors should never pass silently.      Unless explicitly silenced.

In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it.      Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch. Now is better than never.      Although never is often better than *right* now. If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea. Namespaces are one honking great idea — let's do more of those!

— Tim Peters, "The Zen of Python"

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Australia's Army chief, Lieutenant-General David Morrison, responds directly to revelations of "explicit and repugnant" emails and images demeaning women members of its military. 17 are under investigation.

"On all operations, female soldiers and officers have proven themselves worthy of the best traditions of the Australian Army. They are vital to us maintaining our capability, now and into the future. If that does not suit you, then get out.

You may find another employer where your attitude and behavior is acceptable, but I doubt it. The same goes for those who think that toughness is built on humiliating others. Every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our Army and the environment in which we work.

If you become aware of any individual degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it. I will be ruthless in ridding the Army of people who cannot live up to its values and I need every one of you to support me in achieving this. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept."

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What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me... is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

This American Life's Ira Glass on Storytelling

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Is there a sadder song with a melody more sublime? No, probably not.

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Bored on a conference call.

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Today's Dilbert cartoon on startup talent acquisitions.

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What new a difference 8 years makes. St. Peter's Square in 2005 vs. 2013.

- NBCnews's Instagram

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Actual first thought: "oh no! what if I'm a ghost?!"

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Just watched Michelle Obama present Argo with Best Picture at the Oscars, and I'm convinced 1. America secretly wants a monarchy. 2. This was a thinly-veiled threat to Iran. 

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Flattered to be considered among some of my mentors as one of Silicon Valley's Best Recruiters.

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Obama's Inauguration entrance rehearsal at the podium. My little brother's a House staffer so he took me here and on the floor, really cool. at US Capitol Building – View on Path.

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Spoke at The White House today! at The White House – View on Path.

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Going back on the grid for 2013. at Lightning Tavern – View on Path.