Magician Jamy Ian Swiss talks about empathy, a critical aspect of UI design and crafting a user experience.

In printing, a cliché was a printing plate cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype. When letters were set one at a time, it made sense to cast a phrase used repeatedly as a single slug of metal. “Cliché” came to mean such a ready-made phrase. The French word “cliché” comes from the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a printing plate.

— Wikipedia

A peek inside the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne’s house, courtesy of Fitzsimmons Architects.

Seems like some are trying out standards-based alternatives to replace Flash for video content.

All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

— Conan O’Brien

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That’s heaven. That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.

— Cormac McCarthy

Ken Carbone tries to fix some of the worst helmets in the NFL. The Patriots are at the bottom of the list, where they belong.

Examples of how designing a fun experience can influence people for the better.

When we are hungry for food, we follow similar patterns as when we are hungry for information. Similar, infantile patterns. At both times, we fall into a mode of dull impatient demand. We want everything immediately with as little interaction as possible…. when we are hungry for knowledge, we inevitably become mentally passive and use all our energies to receive information. Because that’s how our brain works. And that’s why we blindly return to Google search when looking for data.

— Oliver Reichenstein

This is a graph showing the way people rate videos on YouTube’s 5-star rating system, with almost no votes for 2, 3, or 4 stars. Looks like a reinforcement of the thumbs up/thumbs down model in this case.

The best way to graduate from beginner is to get in way over your head. Nothing makes you better faster.

— Jason Fried