Kernel Panics & Shredding Cellos: What I Learned This Week

• On the same day the PC was demoted my main desktop computer at home had a kernel panic. Heat is not the friend of technology. It also means backup often, then backup again, especially now that so much of what we create will live on the cloud. Think about how you work and how you use your files and put a backup strategy in place, because the cloud will crash and the PC, demoted and all, will have a kernel panic attack. 

• It's easy to forget how satisfying a great meal with smart colleagues can be, especially when there is no work talk and instead people enjoy each other's company. 

• Yes, it's true, people that waste my time with inconsiderate email etiquette drive me crazy. And I'm not the only one that feels that way. Let's work together on an Email Charter (to learn more see this post from last Thursday.)

• Thank you John Gruber for inventing Markdown.

• The post on this blog that so far has been retweeted, liked, commented on and shared the most this year features two classically trained cellist playing the hell out of a classic rock song. (See the post here.) Rock enthusiasts went crazy for it. Classically trained musicians enjoyed it. It was deemed cool, better than the original and as a whole really made a profound impression. 

I discovered 2Cellos performing "Welcome to the Jungle" via the blog Cover Me, a fantastic blog that finds some of the best covers available on the internet. What I particularly love about the site is that they showcase artists that are not remixing, sampling or mashing up the original, they are instead creating a brand new interpretation, making new art from something that already existed without really changing it.

What We Learned This Week

• The past and the future are colliding: Friday morning, on a platform waiting for a train to go into New York, people watched The Royal Wedding on their iPads. An event happening thousands of miles away, in very old buildings, was casually watched in real time by people simply waiting to go about their days.

• It is possible to be immersed in a Shakespeare play and experience the intentions of the characters up-close. There is such a thing as wordless Shakespeare. 

What We Learned This Week

• The cloud is were turbulent weather happens. 

• iPads are more widely used than Linux. 

• Quinine causes tonic water to fluoresce under ultraviolet light. 

• Caring is daring. 

In The Art of War Sun Tzu wrote "he who dares wins."

Many years ago, before reading the book, I misheard a lecturer and for days went about my business thinking how profound it was The Art of War said "he who cares wins."

Days later, when I finally read the book, it became obvious that I had confused 'cares' for 'dares', a rather important distinction. 

In the battlefields of creative work sometimes what is expected of you is to not care. To not care about the details, about collaboration. To not care about executing your best work. One is led to believe that in order to survive the war one must dare to not care. 

And to that I say the most daring act of all is to care. Care about the details, about collaboration, about executing your best work. 

What We Learned This Week

• Steve Jobs has approved an official biography, written by Walter Isaacson, and I can not wait to read it next year. 

• When Adobe is not fighting with Apple over Flash they actually create really innovative apps for the iPad.

• Hard to believe, Quark is still around. 

What We Learned This Week

• Atari released a greatest hits app with 100 classic games for iOS. Though some of the games may not necessarily translate very well to a touch interface, for a generation, myself included, these games were part of the reason we fell in love with technology. 

• After using the iPad 2 for a while, the original iPad feels heavy and slow. How quickly we forget.

• Merlin Mann is scared, but he loves it.