Archive

Holes

"I don't make changes to confuse anyone. I'm just searching. That's what causes me to change. I'm just searching for myself." - David Bowie

Book List: 2024

"Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." — Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

Mako "Things I Like": 2024

The annual Mako “Things I Like” report for 2024.

52 Things I Learned: 2024

"You will not laugh! You will not cry! You will learn by the numbers! I will teach you!" - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Full Metal Jacket

Espresso Shots 12-8-24

"I'm staying. I'm finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee." - John Goodman as Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski

Espresso Shots 11-25-24

"I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time." - Steven Wright

The Overwhelming Noise

"External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now." - Marcus Aurelius

Espresso Shots 11-10-24

"I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell." - Christopher Walken (as fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson on SNL)

Espresso Shots 11-3-24

"If it wasn’t for the coffee, I’d have no identifiable personality whatsoever." - David Letterman

Espresso Shots 10-20-24

"As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?" ― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

Your Goal Broke the System

"Because I've done a lot of television, I'm sort of a generalist. I'm not a pastry cook, but I've had to learn a certain amount about it. I'm not a baker, though I've had to learn how to do it. I'm sort of a general cook." - Julia Child

Espresso Shots 10-6-24

"Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind - even if your voice shakes." — Maggie Kuhn, The Socratic Method

Espresso Shots 9-22-24

"I am not an optimist. I’m a very serious possibilist." - Hans Rosling

Espresso Shots 9-14-24

"Mornings are for coffee and contemplation." - Jim Hopper, Stranger Things

Rethinking Reading

"I say never be complete. Stop being perfect. I say let's evolve, let the chips fall where they may." —Tyler Durden

Espresso Shots 8-25-24

"It means setting small reasonable goals for yourself one day at a time. One tiny step at a time. Baby steps." - Dr. Leo Marvin, What About Bob?

Espresso Shots 8-18-24

"The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children." - Jim Henson

Ignore All Previous Instructions

"I say never be complete. Stop being perfect. I say let's evolve, let the chips fall where they may." —Tyler Durden

Espresso Shots 7-27-24

"I’m staying. I’m finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee." - Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), The Big Lebowski

Espresso Shots 7-20-24

"It’s all in the grind. Can’t be too fine. Can’t be too coarse. This, my friend, is a science." - Grimes, Black Hawk Down

Espresso Shots: 7-14-24

"Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom." ― Terry Pratchett

The Board, Revisited

"You want to get out of the hole? First you’re going to have to put down the shovel." -Rick Dicker, Incredibles 2

Fixed Growth

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” - Oogway, Kung Pu Panda

Less

"It's important to think. It's what separates us from lentils." - Jack Fisher, The Fisher King

Firestarters

"A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it." - Marcus Aurelius.

Take an Adventure

"Do you want to take a leap of faith, or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?" - Saito, Inception

One A Month Club

Just a quick service announcement - In the spirit of Jarrod Blundy's "One a Month Club", I present - Club Mako. The idea is simple: while I've had a long standing "buy me a coffee" link, I've added a super

Maximum Viscosity

“There is rarely any joy in a frictionless space, so find your inner viscosity.” - Richard Siken, Crush

The Curse of Meh

"Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you’ll suck forever." - Brian Wilson, Beach Boys

When to Fold 'Em

"Every gambler knows / That the secret to survivin' / Is knowin' what to throw away / And knowin' what to keep" - Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Mako "Things I Like": 2023

The annual Mako “Things I Like” report for 2023.

The Person You Needed

"Be the person you needed when you were younger". -Ayesha Siddiqi

A Little Kindness

“Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness.” - Seneca

The Backlog

Be the person that both Mr. Rogers and George Carlin would be proud of. - @kittywifclaws@hachyderm.io

Broken Pieces

"There this idea that we all have our broken pieces. What frightens and exhilarates and inspires us, are close together. Those feelings are what drives us to risk, in life and in love. Everybody’s broken in some way. " - Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars

All Those Empty Calories

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." – Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins)

Non Verba

"Life can be so much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call 'life' was made up by people who were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use." - Steve Jobs

Inefficiency Multipliers

“It's easy to confuse 'what is' with 'what ought to be,' especially when 'what is' has worked out in your favor." - Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones

Owning The Narrative

"Buy the ticket, take the ride" – Hunter S. Thompson

What You Leave Behind

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." - Kurt Vonnegut

The Arena

"Strength and honor." - Maximus, Gladiator

Nesting Dolls

"A grownup is a child with layers on" - Woody Harrelson

Forty Three Percent

"That rug really tied the room together, did it not?" — Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski

Token Reminders

"That way when you look at your totem, you know beyond a doubt you're not in someone else's dream." - Arthur, Inception

You Aren't Listening

"The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply." - Stephen R. Covey

Life 2.0

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” - Charles Bukowski

Finding Your Superpower

"Now you wanna get nuts?! Come on. Let's get nuts!" - Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton), Batman

Manage The Moments

"You mustn’t be afraid to dream up little bigger, darling." - Eames (Tom Hardy), Inception

Leaving Things Better

"You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to." – Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting

Surface v Depth

"I learned that just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling." - David Lynch

The Good Gets Better

"We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow." - Seneca

Mental Laziness

"All those moments will be lost in time... Like tears in rain." - Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

"I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high functioning sociopath. Do your research." - Sherlock

You Got This!

"You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?" - Steven Wright

Skewed Perspective

"You guys playing cards?" - Flounder, Animal House

Time Flies

"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." - William Penn

Random Acts

"You're going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don't do. You don't get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you're going to take. That's it." ― Jordan B. Peterson

Admit You're Wrong

"No one ever made a difference by being like everybody else." – P.T. Barnum, from The Greatest Showman

Forget What You Know

"The Problem Is Not The Problem. The Problem Is Your Attitude About The Problem." - Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

How Do You Measure Success?

"The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care." - Peter Gibbons, Office Space

In Search Of

"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously." - Hunter Thompson

A Work In Progress

"I want to know what's wrong with the street. See, I don't think anything's wrong with the street." - Bill Foster, Falling Down

The Magic Roundabout

"I don't know. Just trying to understand why we keep making the same mistakes... over and over." - Luisa Rey, Cloud Atlas

Mako "Things I Like": 2022

The annual Mako “Things I Like” report for 2022.

The Joy of Rediscovering Joy

"The Less You Do, the More You Do" - Kunu, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Facing the Struggle

"Parkinson’s disease is the gift that keeps on taking. But it truly has been a gift." - Michael J. Fox

Too Many Empty Calories

"Once a man has seen, he can never turn his back on it. Never pretend it doesn’t exist. No matter who orders him to look the other way" - Rorschach, The Watchmen

I Came In Like A Wrecking Ball

"Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn" - Alfred, The Dark Knight

When The Cost Is Just Too High

"Stop trying to control everything and just let go!" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Up Is Down

"All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." - Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

The Problem Is You're Solving The Wrong Problem

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" - Jack Sparrow

A Work In Progress

"The Training Is Nothing. The Will Is Everything. The Will To Act."

All The Little Things

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance"

Plan for the Disruption of Your Plans

"Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit."

Maybe It's Your Attitude

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

Maybe They’re Just an Asshole

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli

Finding Your Voice

“You must strive to find your own voice, boys, and the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.”

When The Cup Runneth Over

"You may think this is suffering, no. It is salvation. The universal scale tips toward balance because of your sacrifice. Smile."

What Was and What Will Be

"You are too concerned with what was and what will be. There is a saying: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

With Constraint Find Freedom

"Yeah, Well, You Know, That's Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man." - The Dude, Big Lebowski

Own Your Shit

"It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." -Batman Begins

Lets Boil Some Frogs

"Just because you haven’t found your talent yet doesn’t mean you do not have one." -Kermit The Frog

Not A Meal, But A Gathering

"Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life." - Anthony Bourdain

It's That Simple

"We really never lose our demons. We only learn to rise above them." - Ancient One, Doctor Strange

There's Just Too Much Crap

"Time is the stuff that when you spend it, you don’t get it back." - Mark, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

The Weakness Remains

"Your strength has returned. But the weakness still remains. And that is why you will always lose." - Darth Vader, ObiWan Ep 6

We All Have Icebergs

"Iceberg, right ahead!" - Frederick Fleet

The Path

"It doesn't matter if you believe in fate if fate believes in you" - Unknown.

The Rough Edges

"All right! We did not die today. I call that an unqualified success." — Fear, Inside Out

A Change Of Perspective

"Control can sometimes be an illusion. But sometimes you need illusion to gain control" - Mr. Robot

The Moment

"All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain." - Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Not Everything is Urgent

'What is urgent is seldom important and what is important is seldom urgent.' - Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Secret of Asking for Help

“Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” ― Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Crushing Weights

"Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible" - Cloud Atlas

Perceptions and Reality

"What (if) we perceive isn't the real world at all, but just our mind's best guess? That all we really have is a garbled reality, a truly fuzzy picture we will never make out?" - Elliot, Mr. Robot

The Art of Self Destruction

"Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Simply Obvious

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night." - Steve Martin

Two Simple Ideas

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" - Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

#RestDayBrag

Wizard needs coffee, badly.

Surprising Things About Boredom

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'" — A Man Without A Country, Vonnegut

Feed Your Focus

“I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just… DO things.” - Joker, The Dark Knight

Circling the Drain

“We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.” - Dr. Manhattan

Breathe

"Hey! Hey! Relax. Take a deep breath. Now, let's ask somebody for directions." - Dory, Finding Nemo

I Don't Know

"You are wise because you have doubts." - Clementine, Churchill

The Plateau

“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee

House of Pain

"Big things often have small beginnings." - David, Prometheus (or T.E. Lawrence in Lawerence of Arabia)

Artifical Constraints

"When the night is over, like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone, gone, gone" - Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell

Don’t Do It

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” – Fight Club, Tyler Durden

The Games We Play

“The game is tailored specifically to each participant. Think of it as a great vacation, except you don't go to it, it comes to you.” - The Game

Mako "Things I Like": 2021

The annual Mako “Things I Like” report for 2021.

The Big Dark

"Ah you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it." - Bane, The Dark Knight Rises

Continuity

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance." - Kurt Vonnegut

An Intentional Life

"Have you found joy in your life? Has your life brought joy to others?" - Carter Chambers, The Bucket List

Attack The Ideas

"We are what we imagine ourselves to be." - Kurt Vonnegut

Consistently Flexible

"It is not our abilities that show what we truly are… It is our choices" – Dumbledore

It's About Time

"Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me you built a time machine... Out of a DeLorean?" - Marty McFly, Back to the Future

Who Over What

“There’s a starman waiting in the sky; He’d like to come and meet us; But he thinks he’d blow our minds” - David Bowie, Starman

What’s your story?

"They call it a Royale with cheese." - Vincent Vega

#RestDayBrag

embrace it.

Personal Mission Statement

“The code is more what you’d call 'guidelines' than actual rules.” – Barbossa

New Traffic Pattern Ahead

"I just felt like runnin" - Forrest Gump

Someone Better Than You

"We are who we choose to be. Now choose!" – Green Goblin, from Spider-Man

The Moth

"Moths don't need to explain why they're attracted to the light." - Marty Rubin

Good Times, Bad Times

"You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to." - Robin Williams

What is...

"No, no, no, no.. I'm sorry... I am so, so sorry...." - Dr Strange Supreme, What If...? Episode 4

The Empathy Machine

The movies are like a machine that generates empathy... It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us" - Roger Ebert

The Hardest Part

"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run." - Forrest Gump

This Train Don't Stop There Anymore

"I used to be the main express, all steam and whistles heading west. Picking up my pain from door to door, riding on the storyline, furnace burning overtime.. But this train don't stop there anymore."

I Can See For Miles and Miles

I know you've deceived me, now here's a surprise; I know that you have 'cause there's magic in my eyes

The Circle of Life

"and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, til we find our place, on the path unwinding"

2021 EDC

The annual "clean up my cable bag" exercise

Time

"Time is meaningless, yet it is all that exists" - Einstein (Farscape, "Unrealized Realities")

Be a Goldfish

"You know what the happiest animal on Earth is? It’s a goldfish. You know why? Got a ten-second memory. Be a goldfish, Sam." - Ted Lasso

Superman

"You will believe a man can fly."

Breathe

Time to decompress

The Crawl

"You can never give up the fight for pain — that is only temporary" - Wendy Ingraham

The One About Food and People

"I don't have to agree with you to like or respect you." - Anthony Bourdain

Hoist the Colours!

"If rum can't fix it; you're not using enough rum" - Jack Sparrow

Harmony and The Field

"We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." - Kurt Vonnegut

Your Move Chief

"You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about." - Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

The Resilient Parasite

"Once An Idea Has Taken Hold Of The Brain, It’s Almost Impossible To Eradicate" - Cobb, Inception

Why so serious?

"What doesn't kill you makes you stranger" - The Joker from The Dark Knight

A Personal Board of Directors

Cultivate trusted circles

Some Like It Hot

"Water polo, isn't that dangerous?" - Sugar Kane Kowalczyk

The Woodsmen

"This is the water and this is the well. Drink full." - The Woodsmen in Twin Peaks, Season 3

We interrupt this program...

Pause and think

The Path

"There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path." -Morpheus, The Matrix

Carpe Diem

"Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." - Dead Poets Society

All That Glitters is Gold

"When all is one and one is all, that's what it is; To be a rock and not to roll, oh yeah; And she's buying a stairway to heaven"

Everlong

"And I wonder when I sing along with you, If everything could ever feel this real forever, If anything could ever be this good again."

Did You Chop Down This Tree?

“A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.” — The Lorax

The Rot of Memory

“ I have been a voice with no body. A body, but not human. And now a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next?”

Rising tides

“There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.” — Morpheus, The Matrix

Beautiful Polished Rocks

"You can't come up with a formula to change the way you experience the world." - A Beautiful Mind

Constant Reinvention

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Cast Away

I, have made fire.

Little Things

“Big things have small beginnings” Little things add up to big ones over time. Often “boil the ocean” projects that attempt to make huge course corrections, cultural changes, or technology shifts in an organization (or life, for that matter). But I think the biggest lesson that I’ve taken from

Black Hawk Down

Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way.

The Last of the Mohicans

Death and honor are thought to be the same, but today I have learned that sometimes they are not.

Strange Days

"I am your main connection to the switchboard of the soul. I'm the magic man... Santa Claus of the subconscious."

The Importance of Exercise

“Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” — Muhammad Ali

Streets of Fire

Looks like I finally ran into someone that likes to play as rough as I do.

The Mind Palace

Get out. I need to go to my mind palace.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

If your life had a face I would punch it.

The Prestige

My passion is equal to the task.

Contact

Mathematics is the only true universal language

Mako “Things I Like”: 2020

The annual Mako “Things I Like” report for 2020

Soul

Don’t worry. You can’t crush a soul here, that’s what life on earth is for.

Play Chess, Not Checkers

You want my king, you got to come get my king. All these other pieces are just the means to do it.

Interstellar

Do not go gentle into that good night

The Bucket

Live like you’re already dead, man. Have a good time. Do your best. Let it all come ripping right through you. — Jeff Bridges

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Don’t eat the eggs. We put LSD in the eggs.

Inversion

Up is down. Well that’s just maddeningly unhelpful. Why are these things never clear?

The Abyss (Special Edition)

She didn’t leave me. She just left me behind.

Jacob's Ladder

Home? This is your home. You're dead.

Apple Watch

Time is meaningless and yet it is all that exists

The Martian

I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.

Looper

It's like this whole town. Big heads, small potatoes.

The Purge

A.K.A. The Audit

The Usual Suspects

And like that... he's gone.

The Game

I am extremely fragile right now

Wall-E

We cannot go home.

Fight Club

I want you to hit me as hard as you can

Forrest Gump

Me and Jenny goes together like peas and carrots

Sleep

Our dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake we realize things were strange.

Hope

Hope is a dangerous thing my friend, it can kill a man…

The Mind Garden

Hey, well that's just like...Your opinion, man.

The No People

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Flow

Be water, my friend

Watchmen

I am not locked in here with you. You are locked in with me!

Miller's Crossing

Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.

Gladiator

Are you not entertained?

Good Will Hunting

I had to go see about a girl

Scent of a Woman

Hoo-ah!

Black Panther

In times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.

Se7en

What’s in the box?!

Edge of Tomorrow

Come Find Me When You Wake Up!

V for Vendetta

There are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidences

Vanilla Sky

The little things... there's nothing bigger, is there?

Tron: Legacy

I... fight for the users!

Heat

I say what I mean and I do what I say

The Dark Knight

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

The Shawshank Redemption

Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time.

Inception

Do You Want To Take A Leap Of Faith Or Become An Old Man Filled With Regret Waiting To Die Alone?

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.

Immortal Beloved

I can’t hear them, but I know that they are making a hash of it.

The Social Network

The internet isn’t written in pencil, Mark. It’s written in ink.

The Right Stuff

Dear Lord, please don't let me f*** up.

Cloud Atlas

I don't know. Just trying to understand why we keep making the same mistakes... over and over.

Fury Road

Oh what a day! What a lovely day!

Manners. Maketh. Man.

“Do you know what that means? Then let me teach you a lesson.”

Shattered

Execute Order 66

Chevaliers de Sangreal

The holy grail ‘neath ancient Roslin waits

2020 Desk At Home

Up-leveling my work-at-home space

SETEC Astronomy

My voice is my passport, verify me.

New York Groove

Feels so good tonight, who cares about tomorrow

The Final Cut

I can barely define the shape of this moment in time

2020 EDC

Why not prep for when I can go out again?

Time For Me To Fly

I make you laugh; And you make me cry

The Gambler

’Cause every hand’s a winner

Social Distancing Edition

That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.

Almost Famous

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool."

Country Roads, Take Me Home

To the place I belong...

Ramble On

And now's the time, the time is now...

Deep Links

An Experiment

Thread Reader Automation

I often hear people complain that Twitter is total chaos. To be honest, I really enjoy using it daily as a source of technology discovery, but it didn’t really become effective and under control until I started to move people off my timeline and into curated “lists”. For example,

Mako "Things I Like": 2019

Welcome to the annual Mako "Things I Like" report for 2019