WHAT'S THE CONCEPT BEHIND CONCEPT

Concept, is the new business-word utterly devoid of meaning. It's no longer about a vague idea. Now it's a football play-calling scheme, a bunch of wireframes thrown out by a designer, or a business pitch. I was kinda OK with "concept albums", but it's a specific thing now. Why's it gotta be that? I was pretty happy when a concept was simply a mush word, one that was used to say "I've got an idea" and not "I've got this high-minded thing, now pay attention!"

Get these MBAs off my etymological lawn.

EDITING A PORSCHE

Have you ever been a teenage boy, or enthusiastic about cars? Either way, you want to watch this video about making a Porsche 911 that's suitable for both every-day driving and racing. What this fellow's done is take various parts from 911s over the years to create his ideal car. And then he built his own garage around it, part-by-part, so he could work on the car himself and make it a car for the ages.

What I like most about this is the idea of shaping and editing a car, and the environment in which you work on it, for your own specific needs. It's a bit crazy these days of sealed-off engine compartments and ubiquitous electronics, isn't it? But this is a whole experience around the car. Working on it, tuning it, choosing its components, driving it, racing it, etc. It's rad.

INTERNET WISELY

Pal Jerry Chen recently shared the results of doing little to no of the social networking. His results match what a lot of people found: more concentration, time to do the things that are important. More importantly, you can keep reaping the benefits even after you uncloak; you just have to be mindful of succumbing to the machine and resist its demands.

MY BEST INTERNET HABITS

• It's OK to fall behind and "mark-all-as-read" once you get back
• Don't read or waste much emotional energy on the upvote/commenting crowd, i.e. Reddit and Hacker News
• When you find someone doing awesome things on the internet, do a deep dive and then tell your friends about what you found
• Keep your internet apps at arm's length such that you're happy; e.g. if having the Facebook app on the first screen of your phone makes you anxious, put it on the second screen
• Think about how things on the internet make you feel and do less of the things that don't make you feel good
• Negative people get three strikes and then they're out of your feeds; the exception is to allow in the people who punctuate incredible insight with occasional grumpiness

WON'T YOU PLEASE, PLEASE SIR PAUL ME

A great mix from the DJ who "opens" for Paul McCartney. Therein, an Otis Redding cover of "A Hard Day's Night" I'd never heard. Do like.

Your pal in internetting,

~akk