Jason Fried

May 9, 2021

Heard Something, Read Something, Saw Something [#1]

This is the first post in a new series I'm calling Heard Something, Read Something, Saw Something. I'll post these periodically whenever I can fill up three slots — one for something interesting I recently listened to, one for something I read that I liked, and one for something I saw that caught my eye. Let's see how this goes.



Heard Something
Really enjoyed this 30 minute excerpt of an interview between Lex Fridman and Noam Chomsky. They covered interesting ground on mathematics and common language, the scope and limits of human cognition and intelligence, linguistics and language structure, and AI, among a few other things.
Hear it: https://lexfridman.com/noam-chomsky/

Read Something
This interview with the reclusive John Swartzwelder is just spectacular, clever, and funny as hell. John was one of the original writers on "The Simpsons", and the most prolific — he wrote 59 episodes. When you read the interview, you can see why the show was such a marvel. The story about his application to write for Letterman is also just great. I also loved his thoughts on self-publishing. Amen. So much good stuff in this one.
Read it: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/john-swartzwelder-sage-of-the-simpsons

Saw Something
Who doesn't like an early 911? But one of my favorite bits is the angled emblem on the earliest mid-60s cars. It's just such a charming, quirky touch. Love the angle, but also love the type — especially how the bottom of the 9 breaks below the baseline. I saw one recently and it caught my eye again. I didn't get to snap a picture, so here's one I found on CarType:

1966-911-emblem.jpg

About Jason Fried

Hey! I'm Jason, the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY. Subscribe below to follow my thinking on business, design, product development, and whatever else is on my mind. Thanks for visiting, thanks for reading.