Project Oriel

still moved

2008-08-03T08:22:00.001-05:00

This blog moved! Find me over at www.edstrom.net/blog. Please update your RSS feeds, bookmarks, etc. Go to the new site for any new posts.

If you're having trouble with the RSS feed, I found the new feed @ http://www.edstrom.net/blog/feed/ to work well most of the time, but if that doesn't work, go ahead and use the FeedBurner version.

Thanks for reading!
Peter

Get over to www.edstrom.net/blog !

2008-06-09T19:01:00.000-05:00

Have you switched your RSS feed yet?

2008-05-30T18:46:00.002-05:00

This blog is moving sites. Find me over at www.edstrom.net/blog. Please update your RSS feeds, bookmarks, etc. Go to the new site for any new posts.

If you're having trouble with the RSS feed, I found the new feed @ http://www.edstrom.net/blog/feed/ to work well most of the time, but if that doesn't work, go ahead and use the FeedBurner version.

Thanks for reading!
Peter

I'm Moving - Reminder

2008-05-28T21:49:00.001-05:00

This blog is moving sites. Find me over at www.edstrom.net/blog. Please update your RSS feeds, bookmarks, etc.

Go to the new site for any new posts.

Thanks for reading!
Peter

I'm Moving!

2008-05-26T07:41:00.001-05:00

This blog is moving sites. Find me over at www.edstrom.net/blog. Please update your RSS feeds, bookmarks, etc.

Thanks for reading!
Peter

Quotes: Haste, Delete, Touchy-Feely, Corp Culture, Principles, Fear, Change

2008-05-21T20:42:00.003-05:00

"Haste is a form of violence" Sarah Hatter

"With my patented “Ignore for a Week, Then Just Delete” system, you’ll get through your email faster than with any other system, guaranteed." John Gruber via Twitter

"Let's just have some ridiculous touchy-feely resolution." Merlin Mann MacBreak Weekly #42

Aaron Mentele via Twitter

"A great way to think about what your principles are is to complete this sentence: "I would give others totally free rein to do this as long as they ..." - what?" Getting Things Done by David Allen p66

“Fear, in other words, is a tax, and al-Qaeda and its ilk have done better at extracting it from Americans than the Internal Revenue Service…Never before have so few terrorized so many with so little.” Here's How America Looks to the World By Josef Joffe

"everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change." Robert Rauschenberg

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." George Patton

Warm Sunny Day

2008-05-19T23:23:00.001-05:00

Now that we are reliably having warm days, I find We The Robots strip "Warm Sunny Day" to be quite fitting for those of us stuck in an office. At least I have a very nice big window for when I can't get out to work on the garden.

While I'm talking about weather, I've discovered that the National Weather Service has a hourly forecast page. Pretty pictures and useful info too!

Tom Friedman on Education in the ‘Flat World’

2008-05-16T23:02:00.005-05:00

The School Administrator published a discussion with Tom Friedman, author of The World is Flat, in regards to education. Since I just recently linked to him, I thought why not do it again? I read his book last year and have been amazed at how many times I find reason to reference his thoughts and insights in conversation.

Here is a snip from the interview:

Daniel Pink: Tom, in the newest editions of The World Is Flat, most of the additions have to do with education. Why is that? [...]

Friedman: It’s really several things. In the latest edition, I added a whole section on why liberal arts are more important than ever. It’s not that I don’t think math and science are important. They still are. But more than ever our secret sauce comes from our ability to integrate art, science, music and literature with the hard sciences. That’s what produces an iPod revolution or a Google.

---

Pink: [...] Are we asking too much of schools?

Friedman: Absolutely. My wife and I talk about this a lot. Someone asked her the other day if she were to write a book on education what would it be about? And she said: It would be a book on parenting.

Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

2008-05-16T22:03:00.002-05:00

Gore recently gave a new talk at TED about the climate crisis. TED has this to say about the talk:

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act.

A must see.

Van Halen to Horses

2008-05-12T16:49:00.005-05:00

Merlin Mann is the guy behind Inbox Zero who ponders Personal Productivity, Time and Attention, and shorter meetings. He writes 43 Folders, and was featured in the book Presentation Zen.

If you like Van Halen and think your next computer might be a Mac, be sure to check out the MacRumors Buyer's Guide for the right time to purchase. If you are unsure, check out Apple's Get a Mac Guide it answers just about every concern you may have about the platform.

Work or Sleep?

2008-05-11T21:03:00.001-05:00

In my continued fascination with 37signals, David has this to say on going the extra mile instead of getting some sleep:

Software development is rarely a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s multiple marathons, actually. So trying to extract 110% performance from today when it means having only 70% performance available tomorrow is a bad deal.

Frontload Design or Keep the Cost of Change Down (Waterfall vs Agile)

2008-05-10T22:12:00.002-05:00

Matt Bauer made an interesting comment in his presentation at MinneBar today.

Front-loaded design [The Waterfall Model] only makes sense if the cost-of-change later is high.

I've liked Agile for some time now (despite having no significant opportunities to use it) and Matt's comment finally crystallized the whole Agile vs. Waterfall issue for me: It isn't that corporations think Agile is a bad idea. They don't think it is possible. And they are absolutely right! Most legacy applications have a huge Regression Deficit. Every change comes with huge risks, and huge risks require huge testing efforts. That all then translates into a very high cost-of-change. You simply can not iterate as fast as Agile suggests if the risk and effort to change are big.

You can however be agile when you are using modern design and development processes. If you get tools like CI, VCS and processes like TDD up and running, you can think up an idea at 8am, design, code, test and publish it by 10:30am and roll the whole thing back by noon because something wasn't Just Right. That's Agile. In my own environment the fastest we can deploy any change into production is 4 hours and sometimes it takes us as much as 3 weeks to get everything prepared. Rolling back is another story all together.

Anyway, the Corporation would probably like Agile if it was given the chance. The Legacy Software however, will never be friends with Agile.

Home Coffee Bean Roasting

2008-05-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

Most of you like a fresh cup of coffee, and some take it up a notch and grind your own coffee beans. How many roast your own coffee beans?

It's a lot easier than you think.

Tools: You need next to nothing. You could by a roaster for just about any budget, but my favorite is a cheap and simple popcorn air popper. The only catch is that the air vents need to be on the side, not the bottom (chaff falls off the beans and could catch fire otherwise)

Beans: There are many places to find un-roasted beans on the internet. Search for Green Coffee Beans, Fresh Coffee Beans, etc. I've done all of my ordering from the Fresh Coffee Beans Company and just last week I ordered their 4lb Variety Pack at a very reasonable $4.50/lb (compared to $9.95/lb for Starbucks House Blend). Start with something cheap and see how you like it.

Roasting: Put the green coffee beans into the air popper, and turn it on. That's about it. Like popcorn, you won't want to fill it up too high. Timing will vary by bean, air popper, and the roast you want. I like a dark roast, so I tend to wait for the "Second Crack" (which makes more sense once you've done this once). Seven Bridges has a nice Basics of Home Roasting.

Oh, and do this outside. As wonderful as coffee beans smell when they are done, the Great Disappointment is that they don't smell so great while roasting. Let the beans cool and off-gas overnight.

My last batch looked like this, and I'm trying the first cup in a couple minutes here.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

I'll drive by while you "politely" stay in line

2008-05-08T18:57:00.007-05:00

If you are traveling to Hastings on the down-to-one-lane bridge, and you see me pass you on the right instead of "kindly" being "polite" and getting into the long line, here is what the DOT says in their latest email newsletter (subscribe here or check out their project web page, Highway 61 Mississippi River Bridge at Hastings).

Motorists reminded to use zipper method to merge during single-lane traffic on Highway 61 bridge at Hastings

Extraordinary law enforcement planned for traffic control

ROSEVILLE, Minn. - Motorists traveling across the Highway 61 Mississippi River bridge at Hastings are encouraged to use both lanes of the roadway until the merge point at each end of the bridge, according to state transportation officials.

Using both lanes of Highway 61 when approaching the bridge and then merging at the bridge will allow more traffic to cross the bridge in each cycle of the portable signal system. This "take turns" technique, known as the zipper method, is used when traffic is congested. In this instance, drivers should use both lanes all the way to the designated merge point and then take turns merging.

Drivers are also reminded not to play vigilante by blocking or denying access to other drivers who are using the other lane of traffic prior to the bridge. Minnesota State Patrol officers will patrol the work zone to enforce traffic laws and respond to incidents. Extra law enforcement throughout the construction zone will increase safety for the traveling public and construction workers on site. Drivers also are reminded that fines are doubled for infractions in the work zone.

I don't know about you, but I've always felt a bit guilty when I passed up long lines prior to any kind of merge, but no more. If there is an open lane I'll fly right by, guilt free. Sit in line as long as you like.

Moms and Dads

2008-05-06T17:50:00.004-05:00

Sweet Juniper, a "Daddy Blogger" has this to say on the unfair expectations between moms and dads:

Mothers, I've learned from floor polish commercials, have to give 100 percent. Fatherhood is not unlike the Special Olympics. Sometimes you get a medal just for showing up.

MinneBar

2008-05-04T21:19:00.005-05:00

MinneBar is coming up again this weekend on May 10th and in traditional internet connected fashion, there are lots of posts about it already.

After going last year, I am really looking forward to going again this year. There are many many good sessions lined up!

For a bit more about the event, check out minnov8's nice writeup which holds "'Minnebar' Becoming Top Event for State's Internet/Software Developers and Entrepreneurs"

By 8:00 am, somewhere between 300 and 400 software developers, startup founders (and hopefuls), web designers, interactive marketers, local media reporters, angels, VCs, and other investors will start converging in one place as they seldom do in any venue in these parts, at any other time throughout the year.

Nation Building

2008-05-04T20:23:00.003-05:00

Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World Is Flat is the Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times. His latest op-ed discusses nation-building in America: Who Will Tell the People?

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”

RSS

2008-05-02T17:37:00.005-05:00

So What is RSS? Google has a good explanation at Feed 101 but my favorite so far is RSS in Plain English from Common Craft (linked just for Tim):

Update: fixed link to video

Juggling Crises

2008-05-01T21:40:00.003-05:00

Some posts I've enjoyed reading recently from Signal vs. Noise:

Urgency is poisonous
"One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic."

Why I love working with family people
"This is what companies need, startups or not. They need constraints and especially constraints on how often you can play the hero card to Get This Very Important Project Done."

Why do we plan up front?
"Plans are a strategy against uncertainty. The problem is, they only make you certain of your imagination."

Game: Splume

2008-04-27T15:42:00.007-05:00

I just ran across the game Splume from Flashbang Studios. A very very fun game. It's weird - sort of like sticky water balloons with an eye. Connect 3 of the same color and ... pop! Easy to learn, tough to master. Sort of like the classic Bejeweled game.

This started eating up hours of my weekend in no time, and I got up to level 29 (or there abouts). I highly recommend checking out the great game play.

Splume requires a browser plug-in (Unity), but once you have it, there are other great games like Off-Road Velociraptor Safari (drive over dinosaurs with a jeep). What's amazing is really just how great of a game you can load up inside a browser window.

Video Chat - it's here, now what?

2008-04-24T20:16:00.005-05:00

Video Chat technology is finally easy enough and available enough for the masses. It isn't the phone replacement everyone thought it would be. But like SMS, IM, Twitter, Email, Snail Mail, Land Lines, Cell phones, Newspapers, etc: more communication is generally a good thing and using the right format always enhances the message.

This week I got to catch up with the family and even read the kids a bed time story from half-way across the country. It was nice to have a few minutes that felt "at home", and this was certainly the right format for the "communication" today (it sounds so cold when I say it like that!).

So my question is:

1) For those of you using Video Chat on occasion, when do you use it? When do you skip it even though there are no technical reasons preventing it?

2) For those that never use it, why? Is it a lack of video camera? No one to talk to? Prefer the phone?

Library of Congress Photos

2008-04-22T21:21:00.007-05:00

Recently read about Color photos from the 1930's & 40's which linked to the Library of Congress's own Flickr account. There are 1000's of photos that will keep you mesmerized for hours. Highly recommend checking it out.

Right field grandstand at Polo Grounds - 1912 World Series (link)
Burman & his "Benz" (link)
J.M Johnson in Bleriotype [plane] (link)

Baby Three On The Way

2008-04-22T19:21:00.004-05:00

Cut to the chase: We have two adorable kids already (ages 4 and 2) and Number Three is on the way. Estimated due date is November 7th.

The first trimester has been hitting Sarah pretty harshly this time around and we'll all be glad when Three settles into a nice easy pace for growing. After all, November is a long ways off still. No need to rush.

While we wait for Three to arrive, I follow a number of baby/parenting sites. If you have kids or grandkids, I think you will find something interesting here too:

Babygadget - "contemporary finds for modern tots"
Clever Parents - "for moms and dads who are figuring out ways to get the most out of every day and every dollar and who do it in a way that’s healthy, fun, and… clever. "
Daddy Types - "the weblog for new dads"
Parent Hacks - "parenting tips from the real experts: actual parents"
BabyCenter - "baby, pregnancy, toddler, baby names, and parenting community" (good for weekly updates)
Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager - "visualizes a century of baby name trends" (try it out- it's pretty cool)

Bank by Text Messaging

2008-04-16T22:00:00.004-05:00

In yet another way to eat up my limited 200 text messages a month, I can now check my checking account balance by text message. Not sure how long this service has been around, but it was new to me. Thank you Wells Fargo!

Beyond generic text messages with your friends, getting your schedule from Google Calendar, being reminded of tasks in Backpack, researching the price of homes, or asking Google just about anything (weather, directions, showtimes, flight schedules, etc)... What do you use text messaging for?

What are you doing?

2008-04-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

What are you doing? Over at Twitter, the site is being used by a lot of people to answer this very question. So much so, that despite the 140-character limit, TIME pondered Why Everyone's Talking About Twitter and rated it one of the best 50 websites for 2007.

I post regularly on my Twitter Page for now, but it isn't just the 1.2 million individuals who have found Twitter to be entertaining. Big companies like CNN are reporting breaking news. Little companies like 37signals are reporting product updates or system status. Politicians like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain are all using it. To echo another sentiment (was this O'Reilly?): There is something interesting happening with Twitter. I'm just not sure what exactly.

The services that have been plugging into Twitter have been expanding weekly. The base account will let you post via a text message on your cell phone, the web site, or your IM. You can also use one of the many mobile web clients. You can eve post with a quick phone call via my favorite Jott.com service.

Photo journaling is within easy reach with TwitPic, which I've only recently tried out. Then there is Tweet Clouds which will make a tag cloud of the things you most commonly tweet about. Twitterholic will tell you just how many people are following you over time. And as you can reply to people directly in an almost IM like way, Quotably will put it into a nice format to see how the conversation unfolded. You can even use Twitter to track your MPG performance with My Mile Marker. For a truely mind-bending experience, check out what the whole world is thinking with Twittervision.

The best argument I've seen for Twitter was linked to by David. Watch Twitter in Plain English on why you might want to give it a try.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

2008-04-11T21:38:00.004-05:00

After falling out of the reading habit for a couple months, I am happy to report that I just finished Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It was given to me by a good friend and was an excellent read while waiting for flights to and from Chicago.

From Wikipedia:

The book continues the idea of "stickiness" popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, seeking to explain what makes an idea or concept memorable or interesting. A similar style to Gladwell's is used, with a number of stories and case studies followed by principles. The stories range from urban legends, such as the "Kidney Heist" in the introduction; to business stories, as with the story of Southwest Airlines, "the low price airline"; to inspirational, personal stories such as that of Floyd Lee, a passionate mess hall manager.

The book outlines six key qualities of sticky ideas. From the back cover:

Simplicity: How do you strip an idea to its core without turning it into a silly sound bite? See how Army commanders force simplicity into their battle plans.

Unexpectedness: How do you capture people's attention . . . and hold it? See how Nordstrom managers shock enw employees into embracing high customer-service standards.

Concreteness: How do you help people understand your idea and rember it much later? See how an elementary-school teacher cured her students of racial prejucide.

Credibility: How do you get people to believe your idea? See how NBA coaches engineered an experience that made the dangers of AIDS more palpable to their players.

Emotional: How do you get people to care about your idea? See how Texas persuaded truck-driving young men to stop littering.

Stories: How do you get people to act on your idea? See how the Jared campaign for Subway became a huge hit, against the wishes of the top Subway marketers.

Be sure to check out the book web site and their blog*.

* I like this blog. But does anyone else think it is a bit weird that a plain, physical, book have an accompanying active blog online? Maybe I'm starting to show my age. After all, I still don't have a myspace account.

Time and Attention

2008-04-06T19:40:00.004-05:00

If you liked Merlin's Inbox Zero then you might like his more recent talk about Time and Attention he gave at Google earlier this year.

Who's on First

2008-04-05T17:06:00.002-05:00

Abbott and Costello classic "Who's on first" routine. Just Plain Good Fun. My brother and I tried to memorize this when we were young. We got part way, but never quite made a solid show of it.

The Western Nostril

2008-04-02T22:43:00.003-05:00

I wasn't so sure about The Western Nostril till I came across this strip and decided that yea, I like it. Thanks Dan!

So here's the question: Does any one know of an rss-like reader that is tuned to work nicely with web comics? Think funny pages powered by your selection of comics on the web. It seems like these things are hit-or-miss if you put them into a traditional rss reader.

Unphotographable

2008-04-01T21:22:00.003-05:00

"Unphotographable is a catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter." - Photographer Michael David Murphy

Todays Unphotographable:

"This is a picture I did not take of a homeless man who was a daily visitor to our dumpster, right outside the apartment where a burglar had stolen all my cameras a few months ago, rendering everything unphotographable, and the man had retrieved a chair from the dumpster, a chair we'd thrown-out because it was broken and we were moving and had no more use for it, and the man was sitting out by the dumpster, reclined in the chair, slowly paging through my catalog from KEH Camera Brokers."

Declaration of Independence on Display in St. Paul

2008-03-31T20:04:00.003-05:00

"An original copy of the Declaration of Independence will be part of a display at the Minnesota History Center near downtown St. Paul May 6-18, coinciding with Minnesota Statehood Week, commemorating the 150th birthday of Minnesota. It is one of only 25 remaining original copies of the Declaration printed on the evening of July 4, 1776, and the only one that travels for exhibition." [via Explore Minnesota]

I'm sure you know plenty about this historic document already, but if you'd like a refresher, check here or jump straight into the annotated text.

More Apple Goodness

2008-03-31T19:46:00.001-05:00

Survey says Apple brand has biggest consumer impact

According to a survey conducted by brandchannel.com, “the Apple brand has the biggest impact on the world’s consumers,” reports Rachel Sanderson (reuters.com). Asked “to identify the brands with the greatest impact on their lives,” respondents named Apple [the] overwhelming winner. The creator of the iPod and Mac computer triumphed in six categories including most inspiring brand and the one readers cannot live without.” [via Apple Hot News]

David Reber The Hammer

2008-03-30T09:09:00.000-05:00

For those of you that don't know, Mr. Reber of Kansas City is a fellow personal blogger within our fine organization. You can find him online with his Hammer Report at davidreber.com. He always has engaging reads on your personal brand, productivity, leadership, and networking. If web pages isn't your thing, he is also running The Weekly Hammer email. Check it out!

So, I'm curious to know - do we have any other bloggers out there?

Sometimes Red Sometimes Blue

2008-03-29T20:35:00.006-05:00

http://www.sometimesredsometimesblue.com/ is a great web site. A perfect web site really.

The site delivers precisely and exactly what you expect. No more, no less. No over-promises. No expectation-padding. It is fully self contained and not dependent on any other web site. Works in every browser on every computer (except perhaps the Lynx text-only web browser for you geeks out there). But I really like it. It is simple.

Sometimes it is red, and sometimes it is blue. But it has never been any other color. Nice.

For more Single Serving Sites, check out Kottke's list.

Data without Purpose is Noise

2008-03-29T12:19:00.002-05:00

37 Signals suggests you question your work and always focus on adding value:

Why are we doing this?
What problem are we solving?
Is this actually useful?
Are we adding value?
Will this change behavior?
Is there an easier way?
What's the opportunity cost?
Is it really worth it?

Quotes: Things go awry, writing, luck, panic, pray and copies

2008-03-25T21:43:00.006-05:00

"It is good to develop the techniques that serve you well in pleasant times, but you will be left largely incompetent if you’re not prepared for the rough times. Things will go awry. This is the rule; everything else is the exception."
- Andy Rutledge in Falling Down

"I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here."
- William Gibson

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."
- Stephen Leacock

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
- Pablo Picasso

"There is a time when panic is the appropriate response."
- Eugene Kleiner

"PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
- The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

“When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”
- Kevin Kelly in Better Than Free

Highway Wikipedia

2008-03-25T20:03:00.005-05:00

A friend recently linked to Minnesota State Highway 61, I'm guessing for some vacation planning. But I was surprised to see a Wikipedia web site for a state highway. Apparently U.S. Route 61 also has an entry in Wikipedia.

Most things don't typically surprise me on the internet anymore. I mean, the Minnesotans for Global Warming caught me a little off-guard in that "well of course they have a web site" sort of way.

But state highways with their own sites? I mean it's even annotated!

Maybe this Wikipedia thing is catching on as an encyclopedia. But what do you think? Is this over the top?

VHS, DVD, and now the iPod

2008-03-24T20:45:00.005-05:00

In traditional Wired fashion: my submission for their Wired/Tired/Expired feature.

Wired: iPod Classic or iPhone, with Composite AV Cable
Tired: DVD Player
Expired: VHS Player

I just recently picked up an Apple Composite AV Cable for my iPhone (not to be confused with the closely named but entirely different Apple Component AV Cable for your HD tv's). This simple cable is seriously a thing of beauty. All of the sudden the iPhone isn't just your "typical" tri-purpose phone, mp3 player, and internet device .... but also a portable DVD player with up to 10 hours of movies I can play on anyone's TV - wherever we are.

This is wonderful when we are visiting relatives and the kids start to get restless. It's just so nice.

If you are ready to ditch the DVD (you've gotten rid of the VHS, right?) you could go pick up a 160GB iPod Classic. At 200 hours of video, I'm guessing you'll be able to fit your whole DVD library onto it.

The Little Red Lighthouse

2008-03-22T19:56:00.003-05:00

Had fun tonight reading Thomas The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward.

All the more so, because it's actually about a real place.

Dutch Uncle

2008-03-19T19:43:00.002-05:00

I heard the term "Dutch Uncle" recently used in conversation. Not having heard it before, I looked it up in none other than Wikipedia.

Dutch uncle is a term for a person who issues frank, harsh, and severe comments and criticism to educate, encourage, or admonish someone. Thus, a "Dutch uncle" is a person who is rather the reverse of what is normally thought of as avuncular or uncle-like (which would be indulgent and permissive).

Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator

2008-03-19T18:48:00.003-05:00

The Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator is now online with checks starting in May.

The exact text of the bill is here, and the rationale is listed as:

As 2008 began, economic indicators suggested an increased risk of recession. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before Congress that quick action was needed to stimulate the economy through targeted government spending and tax incentives.[7] Facing an election later in the year, Congress moved rapidly to pass such legislation. In passing the legislation, lawmakers aimed to stimulate spending by businesses and consumers during 2008. They hoped that the targeted individual tax rebates would boost consumer spending and that targeted tax incentives would boost business spending.

Porco Rosso by Hayao Miyazaki

2008-03-16T14:35:00.003-05:00

The more I watch of anime director Hayao Miyazaki, the more I like his stuff. We recently watched his seventh film, Porco Rosso, which is "about an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing 'air pirates' in the Adriatic Sea."

Given the crazy characters in other Miyazaki films, I found this Wikipedia note to be fun:

Porco Rosso is one of the few movies directed by Hayao Miyazaki in which the historical and geographical settings are clearly defined, and where most of the story could have happened in the real world.

Nice.

I've also enjoyed: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle (to name a few).

Change Learning

2008-03-15T12:30:00.002-05:00

On the Elegant Solutions blog, Matthew E May asks What's a Leader to Do?

Here’s what I know to be true, because I’ve seen and experienced it time and time again, in work and in life: you can’t attack “change” and “culture” directly. Why? Because the full-frontal assault only makes us hold on tighter to the current ways.

The only thing I’ve ever seen work as a sustainable pathway to true change is to foster a learning mindset. I learned that from Toyota, the ultimate learning machine. Learning precedes all performance improvement, even personal growth. Learning IS how we change.

Silk and Wool Duo Felted Bowl

2008-03-14T14:37:00.003-05:00

If you are in the market for a felted bowl, check out Secret Snowbird. New bowls all the time, the most recent is Silk and Wool Duo Bowl.

All vases and bowls by Secret Snowbird are hand knit, then felted. Featured in this bowl is thick black wool with a finishing touch of recycled silk stitching. Perfect for coffee tables, or landing strips, even a holding spot for a few apples. Not merely decorative, this bowl is designed to be nice and deep to accommodate more than just a pair of earrings.

Productivity and Time

2008-03-14T14:15:00.002-05:00

37signals posted a nice [Sunspots] this week ... The scarcity edition. My favorite two entries were:

Busy vs. Productive
"'Work smarter, not harder' is one of the ultimate clichés. Like most clichés, few people actually do it. The busy outnumber the productive by a wide margin. Whether you’re a boss, an employee, or working for yourself, we’ve all had our treadmilling moments. Here’s the difference, from a geek perspective."

Time is undervalued
“I don’t do things differently to be different; I do what works for me,’ she says. ‘To me, the commodity that we consistently overvalue is money, and what we undervalue is our precious and irreplaceable time…Theoretically, I could choose to trade artistic autonomy and pride in my work for increased income — say, by broadly licensing my characters to be used for television…I love what I do, I love the people I work with, I care very much about the value of the work I create, and I don’t need more money than I have. This is not revolutionary philosophy. It’s just common sense.”

TripIt Travel Plans

2008-03-09T19:55:00.003-05:00

Joel on Software has this to say about TripIt:

It's amazingly simple. You take all those travel confirmation emails that you get from your travel agent, hotels, car rental agencies, etc, and you just forward them to plans@tripit.com. That's all you have to do. You don't have to sign up for an account. You don't have to log on. You just forward those emails. You can do it right now.

You get a link back by email, with a beautifully organized itinerary, showing all your travel data plus maps, weather reports, and all the confirmation numbers for your flights and address for your hotels and so on.

Steampunk

2008-03-09T18:36:00.010-05:00

I've enjoyed the Steampunk style for quite some time, but only today found out that it is actually bonified genre with it's own name and everything. One definition describes it as "A subgenre of Alternate History; this generally deals with advanced technology in the altered past."

In my experience, I'd liken it to "the future" done with water pipes, cogs, springs and mechanics - anything but transistors and plastic. But I like it a lot. Here are a few items to give you an idea.

The Myst Series of games is where I first ran across the genre.

A (functioning) Steampunk Monitor and Keyboard for a Mac mini

Colin Thompson's GelaSkin for the iPhone

There is even a SteamPunk Magazine.

Howl's Moving Castle (film) by Hayao Miyazaki

Firefly (TV series) has a lot of steampunk style

iPhone HIG

2008-03-08T14:39:00.002-06:00

Apple posted their iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. Call me what you will, but I love reading this stuff. I think I may spend some time on the iPhone Dev Center too.

iPhone vs. Blackberry

2008-03-08T14:07:00.005-06:00

This week Apple announced the iPhone will be available for the enterprise. As in - the iPhone will work with Outlook as well as (or better than) any Blackberry or Windows Mobile device. And it'll work on your Windows XP/Vista machine. Lots of enterprisy features like push email, configuration lock down, ActiveSync, and remote wipe.

Signal vs. Noise predicts that this is the "beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple"

Daring Fireball is cautious, but insightful with "This doesn’t make the iPhone a BlackBerry killer, but the iPhone can do more BlackBerry-ish things than the BlackBerry can do iPhone-ish things."

Andy Ihnatko sums it up with "Apple has carefully lined up a series of white porcelain plates at the far end of a shooting gallery. Each one is labeled with a known percentage of the marketplace that “can’t” buy an iPhone for specific technical reasons. Annnd… plink! plink! plink!… they’re knocking them all down."

Me? I think any executive would rather have an iPhone over a Blackberry and that alone will seal the deal for their enterprise.

What do you think?

Video Upload Compairson: I Like Vimeo

2008-03-06T18:56:00.003-06:00

Unscientific and subjective, I tested uploading videos to 4 different sites: Vimeo, Blip.tv, YouTube, and Veoh.

The results are in: I like Vimeo best by far.

Vimeo: Uploaded quick, video picture is clear, there was lots of pretty graphics telling me about the progress, etc. I like the in-video controls.
Veoh was second. Web site is nice, in-video controls are ok, and the video quality is nice. But the upload took nearly 3 times what the other sites did.
YouTube came in third. Fuzzy picture. It's got market share to be sure, but seriously, let's cut down how many things are on the screen at the same time. I had to concentrate to find the upload button.
Blip.tv came in last. The black first and last frame bug me - and it is much to small.

And the videos:

Six Principles for Making New Things

2008-03-06T06:59:00.001-06:00

Paul Graham:

Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.

[via Daring Fireball]

Microsoft Windows XP at it's Finest

2008-03-03T22:45:00.001-06:00

Redux

2008-03-02T13:33:00.005-06:00

I posted about these things once, and more than a year later I still think they are every bit as relevant and important as when I first posted them. If you missed them then, perhaps you'll enjoy them now.

REDUX POSTS FROM JAN and FEB 2007

Use Flickr to share your digital photos with friends and family

Flickr is a "Web 2.0" site that let's you share photos. What I like most about it is that it is really easy: after I import photos from my camera, I drop a few in an email and send it to my flickr email address. The photos are then automatically posted to my page without ever needing to open a browser. Picts of my kids are here.

Gmail: A new way of looking at email

Gmail fundamentally changed the way I approach my email - for the better. If you aren't using this for your home email, check it out. It'll be weird at first, and then you'll quickly wonder how you ever did without it. The spam filtering alone is worth it's weight in gold (it saved me from reading 1706 spams in the last 30 days).

Cow & Buffalo

2008-03-01T07:54:00.003-06:00

Cow & Buffalo is a web comic my friend Dan pointed out to me. I like it. New posts show up about once a week.

Design Decisions

2008-02-27T21:44:00.006-06:00

37signals is at it again, sharing their secrets on how they come up with highly functional websites. In this detailed post, they talk about how they improved a portion of Backpack. Say what you will about me, but I love this kind of stuff.

Before:

After:

iTunes No. 2 music seller in US

2008-02-27T18:03:00.002-06:00

BusinessWeek says:

Apple Inc.'s online iTunes music store is now the number-two music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as measured by unit volume, market researcher NPD Group said Tuesday.

5% quality improvement = 50% loss in ownership

2008-02-25T23:20:00.003-06:00

Photography Director Rob Haggart on How to Manage People says:

The greatest piece of advice I ever read (out of 20 or so business books) goes something like this: Taking someone else’s idea and increasing the quality by 5% occurs at the price of a 50% decrease in their commitment to execution (here’s a recent explaination on the Harvard Business blog).

Security Theater

2008-02-20T21:38:00.003-06:00

"Since 9/11, approximately three things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and — possibly — sky marshals. Everything else — all the security measures that affect privacy — is just security theater and a waste of effort." Bruce Schneier on Security vs. Privacy

Bruce wrote Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security (an excellent book!)

Vegetarian Is The New Prius

2008-02-17T21:25:00.005-06:00

While reading Presentation Zen, I saw this slide by Kumar Designs as part of their "Vegetarian Is The New Prius" presentation.

You might also be interested to know that the NY Times reports "2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days."

Review: Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds

2008-02-17T20:45:00.005-06:00

Just finished up Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. I really really liked it.

Merlin Mann says: "this is the book about presentations that’s needed to be written for years, and it’s just fantastic." and also mentions it in How I made my presentations a little better (Merlin is the guy who put Inbox Zero together, which I wrote about last year)
You can also check out Garr Reynolds blog on "issues related to professional presentation design"
Or you can check out Guy Kawasaki's interview with Garr, Ten Questions With Garr Reynolds. (Guy is one of the original Apple employees responsible for Macintosh marketing in 1984, has written 8 books, and is currently a Silicon Valley venture capitalist)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-02-14T19:33:00.002-06:00

Yea, I wana see it.

HD Trailers here.

Did You Know 2.0? Shift Happens

2008-02-10T20:12:00.000-06:00

Click through this presentation:

| View

There is also a video, which is good.

After you watch, what implications do you think this has for our current way of doing things? Click through to post your comments!

Housing, Thinking, Insurance, Mac History

2008-02-10T12:26:00.000-06:00

* "The Joint Center for Housing Studies is Harvard University's center for information and research on housing in the United States. The Joint Center analyzes the dynamic relationships between housing markets and economic, demographic, and social trends, providing leaders in government, business, and the non-profit sector with the knowledge needed to develop effective policies and strategies."

* Systems Thinking: It is a unique approach to problem solving, in that it views certain 'problems' as a part of the overall system so focusing on these outcomes will only further develop the undesired element or problem.

* "Milemeter is a Dallas-based startup that will let you buy American car insurance by the mile." [via O'Reilly radar]

* Find out the history of every mac product at mactimeline. For example, iTunes software has been updated on average every 122 days and was originally introduced January 9, 2001. The lastest version, iTunes 7.6, was release just 26 days ago. This is great for finding out if that new MacBook you want was just upgraded, or is due for a refresh any day now.

Taxes Done! Thank you H&R Block!

2008-02-10T11:53:00.000-06:00

Just got the taxes done for the year. This is the 3rd year I've gone with H&R Block's online software and I'll do it again. To be sure, there was a small snafu last year in which H&R caught and fixed it themselves, but I have been very happy with the whole process.

Previously I used TurboTax for many years. And as easy as it was over traditional paper, the whole thing just felt dirty. I'm not sure exactly why. Perhaps it was the unnecessary charge for electronically submitting, or perhaps it was the rebates (I hate rebates - just give me the price without the paperwork). But for whatever the reason, TurboTax never seemed to respect me, or care about creating quality software. H&R Block does, and I like this quality for the company that holds all of my financial and tax information.

So, again this year, my money goes to H&R Block.

Conceptual Contraptions, Borg Curiosity

2008-02-04T19:46:00.000-06:00

* "The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we've often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind." Revenge of the Right Brain by Daniel H. Pink

* I think we should make these fancy contraptions available to our folks in the field. What do you think? Pretty snazzy looking if you ask me.

* Too funny, and yet spot-on, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs speaks on the Microsoft-Yahoo buyout: “The Borg-Yahoo merger won’t work. Here’s why. It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster.”

* "There is no panacea for success or any single formula for professional growth, but an unbridled curiosity and a huger for knowledge and the enthusiasm for sharing that knowledge with others around you is at least part of a formula." says Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen on "Books are dead (long live books!)"

Vista Doomed, Slowest Masses, and Flying Hamsters

2008-02-02T21:56:00.000-06:00

* When “We Remove Vista” Becomes a Selling Point [via Global Nerdy]

* The Macalope after reading Apple iPhone Doomed To Failure -- Windows Mobile 7 Plans For 2009 Leaked says “It’s amazing how future Microsoft products beat current Apple products time and time again, isn’t it?” [via Daring Fireball]

* "Success in any organization is defined by the engagement of the slowest masses. Not the talents of the sharpest few." and "Leaders are not valued by how smart they are but by how well they can translate complexity/challenges to the organization." [via Functioning Form, Drawing the Big Picture]

* There haven't been any game links for a while, and I know you've been missing it. So start up Flight of the Hamsters and you'll loose a whole afternoon. Sarah's high score = 429.

My Mile Marker

2008-01-31T06:26:00.000-06:00

I started using My Mile Marker in 2007 to simply find the average gas miles per gallon for our vehicles. It is a one-trick pony that I found to be deceptively interesting. Beyond the average miles per gallon, I also learned that the cold weather dropped efficiency on both of our vehicles by 2-3 mpg. And that we will drive some 20,000 miles combined over then next year. And that those miles will cost approximately $2400 in gas.

If you - like me - love the stats, give it a try! You can get the data into their site conveniently via text messages from your cellphone, using twitter, or simply via their web site.

Redux

2008-01-29T20:19:00.000-06:00

There are already too many sites reposting stuff they posted a year ago. Flashbacks, yesteryear, and whatnot. I abhor the thought of posting just for the sake of posting, so I do so with some trepidation.

I've been thinking about a redux for some time and as I considered it more, I concluded that the reason wasn't to simply fill a void*, but that it furthered the purpose for the whole site: I've found stuff on the internet that I think you'll find interesting and useful. I posted about these things once, and more than a year later I still think they are every bit as relevant and important as when I first posted them. If you missed them then, perhaps you'll enjoy them now. Thanks for taking the time!

* I think a lot of redux's are to fill a void, and this isn't my problem: I've got a backlog of posts that could fill half a year and the ideas keep flowing as I scan some 2500 articles a month.

REDUX POSTS FROM 2006

* Google News can send you email updates when any new information or recent news articles are posted to the internet on a topic of your choice. Click on "News Alerts" on the left side of the web site to set up the scheduled email. Useful for breaking news or keeping up on any topic you want to follow. (11/10/2006)

* Collaborative writeboards, online notes, a calendar, etc with Backpack. All in the fancy web 2.0 style with AJAX. My favorite feature: set a reminder on the site that will text message your cell phone at a preset time so you don't forget about something. Originally posted on 12/15/2006, and mentioned again "to keep track of the links" on 11/14/07 and yet again on 12/11/07 as "a way to track your to-do's and other random data that you want to get done." I'm still using it every day.

* “[Work] below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.” [Pablo Picasso] (12/22/2006)

But tell me what you think! Do you already use Google News and Backpack? Is this old news? Did you look into them and decide they were no good? What do you use instead?

Software Robots, Credibile IKEA, Queue and the Dominant Language

2008-01-28T18:17:00.000-06:00

* "every software project is about invention" - Johanna Rothman

* We the Robots. "It is my favorite webcomic, easy." says Dan. I'm not sure that I have a favorite yet. But this one is certainly good.

* Apple's Investor Relations page. It's the only stock I own and hasn't done to well in the short term, but I have high hopes. My theory is that every iPod owner will eventually buy an iPhone. (though there needs to be more than just one model).

* Sun buys MySQL. Lends more credibility to the Open Source database - not that it needed any help - but it's good just the same.

* IKEA Hacks "whatever they may be - a funked up klippan sofa, an ingenious idea for your pax wardrobe, a creative twist on your kitchen countertop, or even advice on how to finally stop forby stools from wobbling"

* A nice interface touch on Highrise: I tried exporting my contact list - a process that apparently takes some time - and instead of being unresponsive while their servers did their thing, the site said:

You’re exporting more than 100 contacts so we’ve queued your request. We’ll send you an email with the file when the export is complete. The email will come from Highrise . It should just take a few minutes.

Nice.

* "Japanese, not English, has become the dominant language of the blogosphere, according to Technorati. But unlike Americans, who often times blog to stand out, the Japanese blog to fit into society." [via HD Podcast | washingtonpost.com]

Review: The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation

2008-01-22T20:00:00.000-06:00

Just finished up The Elegant Solution by Matthew E. May. It came to me highly recommended and was a quick read.

In a nutshell the advise is: use the the scientific method, give yourself time to think through things, plan for continuous improvement, use system thinking, simple is better than complex, and go for small improvements with the resources you have - not big changes.

Yet sometimes take big risks - like Toyota's billion-dollar initiative that created the Lexus brand: "the decision was clear: start clean." (p43)

Many examples in the book impressively detail out how successful Elegant Solutions can be. The book is worth the read if only for the examples. And yes, I do want to buy a Prius now - but I'll settle for any Toyota.

Be sure to check out the book site, their blog and don't forget the downloads to get a jump start on innovation in your own projects.

Homemade Irish Cream

2008-01-19T20:38:00.000-06:00

1 cup heavy cream

14 oz sweetened condensed milk

1 2/3 cup Irish Whiskey *

1 teaspoon instant coffee

2 tablespoon chocolate syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon almond extract

* A reliable resource says "Jameson is very good and worth the price if you can swing it. You'll never go back to Jack."

Strategy, Suspicion, 26% more pages, and AirMail

2008-01-18T19:41:00.000-06:00

* Influencing Strategy by Design "Perhaps the biggest area of focus in the Influencing Strategy by Design course, taught by Tom Chi and I, is how a designer’s existing skills can be applied to business and product strategy."

* Jenny Holzer "to have the look of a voice of authority" says "some days you wake up and immediately start to worry. nothing in particular is wrong it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble." [via kottke.org] See also the great Wikipedia's entry.

* "In 2007, 30-year-old New York City-based graphic designer Nicholas Felton had 58 vacation days, performed 2 karaoke songs, spent 4.7 days on planes, read 26% more book pages than he did in 2006, ran 190.5 miles, and thought Josh & Ellen's wedding was the best of the year. You may view his annual report here" [via kottke.org]

* And for those of you picking up a MacBook Air, you can now get a padded envelope to tote it around it. Considering it was only a day or two after the laptop was first announced, that's some impressive turnaround for getting a site and product up and running.

37signals Downtime Improves Customer Satisfication

2008-01-18T18:19:00.000-06:00

37signals today had 2 hours of downtime across all of their products. I use two of these heavily: Basecamp and Highrise. It was a real inconvenience to not have my task list available, and I was kicking myself for not printing it off earlier.

But despite the inconvenience, and massive failure, I feel better about sending my hard earned cash their way. Why? Because they communicated fast and remarkably well.

First, within minutes of the sites going down, a notice was put up:

All systems are currently offline as we're experiencing network outage from our provider. We're working on it right now. No data has been lost, all our machines are still working, but they're not accessible from the internet. Sorry for the inconvenience.
— 10:03am CST (16:03 GMT) on January 18, 2008

Notice how address my immediate concern: data loss, and then an apology. Updates were delivered every 30 minutes and included easy to understand details with more apologies. It was clear that even though it was out of their hands, they were doing everything in their power to get it fixed. One of their last messages, "This is not how Fridays are supposed to be." was nice. It helps to remember that they are people too, and while I have high expectations from their service, I have some understanding too.

Of course there is a cost/benefit to every service and if they fail too often I'll look elsewhere. But, 37signals has increased my confidence that they can and will get this sorted out. People just don't react that fast if they haven't done most of their homework already.

Some other items of note:

They now have a status web site (apparently it works even during system outages, but I only just learned about it)
Quickly after the system was restored, they put a nice Downtime Notice "What happened?" note at the top of each page (pict above) with a link to a post with all of the details

Thanks 37signals for an excellent response to a tough situation!

Pretty New Computer Fits Inside an Envelope

2008-01-15T20:59:00.000-06:00

Apple never ceases to amaze. I'm sure you've already heard about it, but they have a new laptop. It is very thin. Check out the ad, the guided tour, or pick your favorite news source from the numerous articles written on it.

Netflix Rentals, Last 10 Months

2008-01-12T13:44:00.001-06:00

Last year we got a lot of DVD's from Netflix and they have released about one update to their web site every month and seem to be doing well. Our family has found it to be a nicer experience than cable and commercials. Thanks Netflix for a great service!

But in all honesty, I was just having fun putting the chart together. Using Gmail's archive and search, I was able to find all the movies we rented (this is on your Netflix account page too). Then creating a chart with my freshly purchased iWork Numbers was very easy. I wanted to give Numbers a try and am looking forward to using it more in the future.

Paradynamic 3D Anti-Pattern Dysfunctions Remodeling Workshop

2008-01-11T21:41:00.000-06:00

* Merlin Mann says: "It really would require a basic paradynamic rethinking of how the nonapplication area of your world happens." - MacBreak Weekly 32

* "TiltViewer that makes browsing Flickr photos a lot more fun. It displays the images in a 3D grid that allows you to zoom, pan and even flip each photo for more info." [via joey interactive]

* "An example of a Lean anti-pattern is Regression Deficit Disorder (RDD). RDD occurs when features are added without adding automated acceptance tests." from Lean Anti-Patterns and What to Do About Them

* The Five Dysfunctions of a Team in single-page format. I haven't read the book, so for those of you that have, let me know if the summary is incorrect.

* Remodeling Cost vs Value Report from Remodeling Online. Will tell you among other things that you'll recoup 78% of the cost for doing a major remodel of your kitchen but will only recoup 57% of the cost if you remodel your home office.

* Home Depot [video] Workshops "Learn how to do home improvement projects on your own with our instructive workshops. With both our professional and celebrity workshop series, we'll walk you through the step-by-step procedures that can enhance your home and yard. Projects are delivered quickly, learned easily and range in topics from landscaping and lighting to painting techniques, eco options, flooring and more."

A bunch of quotes and Minnesotans for Global Warming

2008-01-08T20:29:00.000-06:00

* "The only thing better than data is data about data. Data about data is information that, in quantity, becomes knowledge, which is just a short hop away from wisdom. And when wisdom shows up, you know you’re this close to figuring it all out." Rands in Repose: Year in Twitter

* Quote: "What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it." - Devils Dictionary

* Quote regarding diplomacy: "A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip." - Caskie Stinnett

* Quote regarding Ruby on Rails: "By removing a lot of the busy-work associated with older frameworks, it lets fewer programmers get more done, which helps our communications problem." [via Rail Spikes]

* Minnesotans For Global Warming at M4GW.com Check out the theme song video below to the tune of If I Had $1,000,000

Fail at Life

2008-01-06T11:54:00.000-06:00

"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die" Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

If you find that this sentiment applies to your life, then you will appreciate Ryan Norbauer's discussion "Death and Underachievement: A Guide to Happiness in Work"

He starts eloquently with:

The trite wisdom of contemporary folklore instructs us that the arrival of the New Year is a time to reflect on the achievements of the preceding 365 days and to bear down and “resolve” to achieve more in those to come. Over time, we learn what a hydra-headed beast this is: no matter how many projects or actions we may whack off our ineluctable lists, it seems that yet more (often increasingly ambitious) commitments spring up in their place. With each new year come self-recriminations for our failure to meet the unlikely goals we’ve set for ourselves—lose weight, read through those piles of books and RSS feeds, start picking up our socks—and a stultifying brainstorm of new projects we’d like to take on.

KPIs, Kryptonite, iTunes, Twilight, and Java is the new Cobol

2008-01-06T00:58:00.000-06:00

* "Analytics truism: everyone wants a dashboard (a.k.a. key performance indicators (a.k.a KPIs), success metrics, scorecards). Managers want a barometer of performance, a hammer to use on their subordinates, and a straightforward quantification of their business." Juice Analytics uses the following 5 rules for successful success metrics

* BBC recounts 100 things we didn't know last year. A couple to note: #34 Kryptonite exists and #46 Peanuts can be made into diamonds.

* Learn how to use iTunes with the tutorial videos from Apple.

* Civil twilight "This begins in the morning when the center of the Sun is less than 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dawn), and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the center of the Sun is more than 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dusk)." Find exact times from the USNO.

* "Java is losing ground to Ruby on Rails" from InfoWorld's Java is becoming the new COBOL

Design, UI, the Super-Novice and Google Street View

2008-01-03T20:40:00.000-06:00

* "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." Steve Jobs [via Daring Fireball]

* "From time to time it’s a good idea to walk through your product with fresh eyes. Sign up for a new account, turn off your admin access so you can see what other people see, scale back your permissions and experience that experience. You’ll likely find a bunch of UI and customer experience dust bunnies you didn’t know were there." 37signals, When cruft creeps in

* "(...) the problem of the perpetual super-novice. What is this? Simply put, it's the tendency of people to stop learning about a digital product—whether it's an operating system, desktop application, Web site, or hardware device. After initially becoming somewhat familiar with a system, people often continue using the same inefficient, time-consuming styles of interaction they first learned. For example, they fail to discover shortcuts and accelerators in the applications they use. Other people learn only a small portion of a product's capabilities and, as a result, don't realize the full benefits the product offers. Why? What can operating systems, applications, Web sites, and devices do to better facilitate a person's progression from novice to expert usage?" [via Information Design]

* Google Maps now has Street View for Minneapolis/St. Paul. Check out the Xcel Center (hint: try clicking and dragging on the image below)

View Larger Map

Books I Read in 2007

2008-01-02T18:52:00.000-06:00

At a book every 2.7 weeks, I'm feeling good about this lineup. Of course, I'd love to read a book every week, or every other, but 2.7 is good. Perhaps 2008 will pull the average down.

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward R Tufte 12/2007
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen 12/2007
The World According to Mister Rogers - Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers 12/2007
Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R Tufte 11/2007
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell 11/2007
Never Eat Lunch Alone by Keith Ferrazzi 10/2007
The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli 10/2007
Metamorphosis (cliff notes only - I know, I cheated!) 8/2007
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda 8/2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling 8/2007
The 4-hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris 7/2007
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore 7/2007
Inviting Disaster by James Chiles 6/2007
The Logic of Failure by Dietrich Dorner 5/2007
The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman 5/2007
Refactoring by Martin Fowler 4/2007
Web Services on Rails by Kevin Marshall 3/2007
Getting Real by 37signals 2/2007
More than Meets the Eye Richard A Swenson 1/2007

Thank You!

2008-01-01T20:42:00.000-06:00

Thank you for subscribing!

Email's are sent out once a week, and there is a handy dandy "unsubscribe" at the bottom of each post if you change your mind.

Review: Sweet Home 3D

2007-12-31T13:58:00.000-06:00

To the point:

Sweet Home 3D is easy to use.
Sweet Home 3d is open source (read: FREE)
The hardest part is just measuring your the rooms in your house. Tip: use a grid to map out the floor plan with 0,0 on one corner of the house. It helps when you are making sure the floor plan is sized right. I suggest engage a kid that is enthusiastic to help - mine loved the measuring part.
There are enough, but not too many, pre-built objects (couches, tables, etc.)
They have a model for the IKEA POÄNG Chair that we actually own, so I'm happy.
I'm playing around with the software 'cause our main entry drops you right into the middle of the sacred kitchen work triangle. This is no good when you have kids, coats, and snowy shoes to deal with.

Charts, Deadlines, iPhone Voicemail and Aromatherapy Salespersons

2007-12-29T21:55:00.000-06:00

* Juice Analytics has a nifty Chart Chooser for Excel and PowerPoint mavens. Free templates included. [Via O'Reilly Radar]

* Johanna Rothman ponders What's Wrong With Wednesday for setting deadlines. She says "With a Friday or Monday milestone, what you're really saying is that people can work overtime all week and all weekend to make the Friday milestone, so they won't be late for the Monday start."

* Quote: "[_] From time to time we offer to share our list of subscribers with door-to-door aromatherapy salespersons and ritual ax-murderers. If you would prefer that your data not be used in this way, please check the box." Cluetrain

* David Pogue, of the New York Times hands out awards to ten innovative or unique features (instead of products) that were released this year. His first for 2007 goes to the iPhone's Visual Voice Mail and says "Everybody knows that the iPhone’s voice mail software is not just one of the machine’s best features, but the way voice mail should be from now on." I've been meaning to write about it, but this feature alone makes the price of iPhone worth it. And as Kottke said: "The design of the iPhone is such that all other mobile phones, including those released after the iPhone, look not only old but antiquated and even defective. IMO."

* As a related note: Flicker knows the camera each photo was taken with and recently added the iphone as a recognized device. Check out all of the pictures taken with an iPhone.

Productivity, action, human-powered search and free internet

2007-12-27T15:09:00.000-06:00

* Quote: "I've noticed that people are actually more comfortable dealing with surprises and crises than they are taking control of processing, organizing, reviewing, and assessing that part of their work that is not as self-evident. It's easy to get sucked into "busy" and "urgent" mode, especially when you have a lot of unprocessed and relatively out-of-control work on your desk, in your e-mail, and on your mind." (emphasis added) David Allen, Getting Things Done

* Quote: "There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction." - John F. Kennedy

* Quote: "And what did you do about it? Unless you wrote it down and put it in a trusted "bucket" that you know you'll review appropriately sometime soon, more than likely you worried about it. Not the most effective behavior: no progress was made, and tension was increased." David Allen, Getting Things Done

* A thank you out to my relatives in Wyoming for this link: "Mahalo is a human-powered search engine that creates organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms. Our search results only include great links."

* After pointing out that the biggest feature about the Kindle is that it is free internet anywhere you go after you purchase the device, Andy Ihnatko says this: "Think of the kindle as a robot that goes to the farmer's markets, gets the best fresh organic ingredients, drives home, makes to-die-for hot fresh waffles topped with double cream and strawberries with a dash of chocolate on the side ready for you go down the stairs after waking up, the kindle is this, only with books, newspapers, magazines and blogs." Full review at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Get your geek on: Scalability

2007-12-26T11:41:00.000-06:00

Scaling software is a science - often overlooked. Everyone can fix a bug: the process is very straight forward - you replicate the bug, build a solution, prove the solution, and deploy it. But performance problems are far more nebulous. It is hard to find the problem - much less fix it once it is identified. You need performance tools, architecture expertise, full-picture knowledge of the whole system, and then the political backing to making it all happen.

But to help with my own understanding of the issues, I've been reading High Scalability (a site that "tries to bring together all the lore, art, science, practice, and experience of building scalable websites into one place.") They get into some of the guts of some pretty complicated real-life examples and it is all good.

Last week they posted about 37signals Architecture (the makers of Basecamp, Backpack and Highrise.) There are some impressive numbers in there, but my favorite nuggets revealed were:

There are 2,000,000 people with Basecamp accounts.
37signlas only employs 30 servers.

If you ignore all of their other products, each server can support about 70,000 Basecamp users. That is really, really impressive. If you add in their full line or include their published goal to halve their server count in the next quarter or so, it only gets better. Don't let any one tell you Ruby on Rails doesn't scale. It does, and the numbers prove it.

Voicemail, Stuff, Working Below your Means, and Depressed Rain

2007-12-22T18:00:00.000-06:00

* Give the gift of no longer checking voicemail: GotVoice will check your voicemail for you, and email the transcript of what was said (and provide an audio file too). When I first got my iPhone, I thought the visual voicemail was nice -- but certainly no killer app. Having used it for a while, I must say that listening to voicemail prompts seems downright archaic.

* I had posted this Picasso quote before but /\ndy wrote up a nice short piece elaborating on the concept of working below your means. Sure everything you are doing is "important" and "worthwhile," but give yourself a break. Make a new years resolution to take life a bit easier. Do fewer things, do them better, and enjoy the slow lane.

* The Story of Stuff has a nice presentation about the materials economy. This may be a bit unfair to bring up just after the height of the consumer spending season, and I don't begrudge gift giving (I love giving gifts), but it is an insightful discussion about the wider consumerist economy. The bit of info that stuck in my head: Only 1% of all stuff purchased is still in use 6 months later.

* Google Trends offers some amazing insights about the wider culture. Check out the correlation between turkey and diet, or between depression and rain.

Special: New Email Newsletter Feature

2007-12-19T22:09:00.000-06:00

A few things are changing for those that read my Weekly Links email.

What's changing:

Nourish is going to manage the email subscriptions and will also automatically send the Weekly Links email. Less work for me come Friday morning when sending out the links.

Why you care:

You will get more consistent delivery: 6am every Friday.
The email will look nicer. Pictures will be included, hyperlinks will work reliably.
You will receive all of the content I post during the week. Lately I've been posting about twice as much as I email on Friday. Check out the site to see what you've missed.

What you can do:

If you do not like the weekly links email and have just been too polite to say so, you can unsubscribe at any time with the link at the bottom of the message.
If you like it, you can subscribe your friends and coworkers right on the home page of the Project Oriel site. The spot to sign up is just below the Machiavelli quote.

Still wondering why you got this email?

I confess. I added a few people to the list who were not previously receiving the Weekly Links by email. I thought you might be interested because (a) you are a friend or family and (b) I didn't think you were someone who read RSS regularly. If this has upset you, please accept my sincerest apologies and click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

That is it! Direct questions or comments to peter@edstrom.net. A big thanks to the Nourish folks for such a great tool!

UPDATE: Nourish has failed me twice now. First, they didn't deliver the email until 12 hours later, and then they put inline HTML into the email making it impossible to read. 1/4/2008

12/19/2007

2007-12-19T20:58:00.000-06:00

* Every year Google puts out the Year-End Zeitgeist. "a look at the most popular and fastest-rising search terms in hopes of telling us something about what's been on our (collective) mind." [via the Google Blog]

* There are a number of holidays coming up. A couple you might have missed:

Dec 23 Festivus: "Non-denominational holiday to be celebrated by any who do not wish to celebrate Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa; popularized by "Seinfeld" television series"
Dec 25 Decemberween: "Celebration of the day that is fifty-five days after Halloween. Origins in web cartoon "Homestar Runner.""

* You can always celebrate the holidays with some Yule Log videos, available for iPods, iPhones, Zunes, etc.

* Quote: "There are only two problems in life: (1) you know what you want, and you don't know how to get it; and/or (2) you don't know what you want." - Steven Snyder

* Quote: "Few things are more appalling than listening to inept and specious arguments made by one’s allies." - Edward Tufte

And, a countdown until Christmas:
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.countdownr.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Countdownr&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Review: Helvetica, A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit

2007-12-15T13:15:00.001-06:00

There is nothing more fun than to watch people who are passionate about what they do, talk about what they do. Helvetica the movie is about the typeface that is used just about everywhere. If you haven't seen it, go check it out.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

Companies and products that use Helvetica include 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, Energizer batteries, Greyhound Lines, Jeep, Microsoft, National Car Rental, Panasonic, and Target Corporation

Special: Getting Things Done

2007-12-11T22:54:00.000-06:00

One of things I've discovered about myself recently, with more clarity than I've ever had before, is that my interest in "organization" goes a lot deeper than I ever really suspected.

When I grew up, the family would track the time it took to drive from one place to the other. We would experiment with different routes till we were positive we had identified the most consistent and fastest route. Having identified said "best" route, we would would always stick to it from then on forward. We had the evidence. Anything else would be an intentional waste of time.

Later in life I continued this experimentation in efficiency - with household chores: Which outlets do you use when vacuuming to minimize the number of times you have to unplug and replug? When emptying the dishwasher, what items do you grab together to minimize the trips across the (admittedly small) kitchen? What side of the garage do you park the car to maximize door swing space - accounting for who gets home first and who's has the kids? What is the most efficient order for the morning routine? If you don't know what I mean, watch the first 10 minutes of Stranger than Fiction. The lines, measures, calculations -- they really do run through my head like that.

It's all sort of trivial in one sense because you don't really save that much time and avoid that much hassle, but somehow it gives me peace. A feeling that things are right with the universe, and I'm making the most it.

More recently however, I have been taking the practices to work. The challenge of course, is that the problems are quite a bit different there. As a Knowledge Worker, there is never a project that is repeated - and that makes it hard to experiment with efficiency. You might create procedures or policies to follow over and over, but then the whole point there is to specifically not vary.

So you focus on the the other stuff. How to organize the ideas. How to decide what to work on. How to decide how to decide. There is a lot more meta work than one might think. What are you researching? What has to happen next when the research is done? How do you remember to follow up with the vendor that hasn't answered your questions? How do you follow up with the person sitting next to you? What if they are too busy to answer you? What if the right time to follow up is at 2pm next Thursday? How do you remember it all?

So I'm rambling here, but where I am going is that I've found some tools, crutches, stuff as you say, to help organize it all. And I feel like I am actually getting things done for once. I feel like I've appropriately captured all of the information I need to, and that it'll be obvious to me what I need to work on tomorrow morning. I'm not sure this specific stack is optimal, but these tools are the things that have been helping me. And as silly as it may be, I'm kinda excited about them.

The things that help me get things done:

#1: Getting Things Done principals. I'm not following it 100%, but overall it really works for me. Drop the concept of a priority list and work off of lists for: at work, at home, in the car, etc. 43folders has a nice intro: Getting Started with GTD.

#2: You've got to have a way to track your to-do's and other random data that you want to get done. I've been using Backpack for a year or so and really can't explain why it works for me. Outlook's To Do's failed, Palm Organizer's failed, and they should have all worked. But Backpack really works for me. If I were always on the same computer, I'd use OmniFocus in a heart beat. As it is, the web platform of Backpack works well for me.

#3: Ubiquitous data collection. I keep some paper around and have been meaning to try out one of those Moleskine's notebooks, or perhaps a Hipster PDA. But despite what they all say about an easy, fail-proof, no-batteries-needed collection method, my iPhone has been working pretty well. I send myself an email while on the road and then pick it up and process the reminder the next time I am at a desk. And Jott is absolutely fabulous. When you're driving, or in my case walking about the building remembering that I forgot to do ___, I just call Jott and record a reminder. They bundle the message up, transcribe it, and send it automatically to my email inbox - waiting perfectly for me the next time I can do something about it. This is an extremely useful service. I use it a few times every week.

#4: Inbox Zero. I use my email as a dumping ground for everything that yet needs to be sorted, cataloged, or otherwise acted on. So I need to process my email - not read it. I wrote a post on Inbox Zero a while back and having an empty inbox is remarkably freeing. Really, if you just approach your inbox as a list of things to process (while maintaining your to-do list elsewhere) you'll be miles ahead. David Allen suggests that if you can't "do" the email in 2 minutes or less, delegate or defer. Get it onto the correct to-do list, and get it out of your inbox. Don't be afraid to delete stuff too. And get Google Desktop to search your email. This works wonderfully, and I no longer mess with folders and sub-folders for organizing - they never really helped me find things anyway.

#5 Contact Management. This is a new addition for me. I've had a digital address book for a decade or more, but Highrise takes it up a notch. Instead of just tracking the basics (name, phone numbers, email address, etc), you get to track historical notes about people. What did they say when? Was there an important email sent? What did it say? The real gem however, is To-Do's attached to contacts and notes. Create them ad-hoc, or my favorite way: send an email to your dropbox+tomorrow, dropbox+nextweek, etc custom email address and not only does it attach the email into Highrise for future reference, but it automatically creates a follow up reminder for you. My jaw dropped when I ran across this feature. I use it every day. It's perfect.

Anyway, these are the ways I'm staying productive now-a-days. They seem to be working for me, but if you have ideas or your millage varies let me know! I'd love to hear about what works for you and what doesn't.

Video: Larry Lessig TED Talk

2007-12-11T20:17:00.000-06:00

I've bumped into TED once or twice it the past, and never found a reason to check in regularly on their site till this week: I discovered that they have videos. Posted weekly. They call them "Talks", but you'll definitely want to listen to their ideas.

I watched the Larry Lessig one last night, and recommend you check it out when you are looking to understand where the culture is going a bit more.

"The Net's most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the "ASCAP cartel" to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you've ever seen."

12/7/2007

2007-12-05T21:41:00.000-06:00

* I stopped reading comics the day Calvin and Hobbes stopped. I tried to start again and again, but just couldn't there was no feature strip that I just had to read. Then Cul de Sac came along. What caught my attention is that it is endorsed by Bill Watterson the creator of Calvin and Hobbes: "I became a big fan of Richard Thompson when I saw his book, Richard’s Poor Almanac. Thompson has a sharp eye, a fun sense of language and a charmingly odd take on the world. Best of all, his drawings are wonderful—something one doesn’t often see in cartoons anymore. I'm delighted to see Cul de Sac, and I have high hopes that Thompson will bring a much-needed jolt of energy to the daily newspaper. We have a real talent here."

* Etsy has a couple unique options for finding handmade products: Shop by color or by Geolocator.

* A nice tutorial on how to understand and take good pictures with a SLR (Single Lens Reflex) digital camera.

* Did you like Ratatouille, Cars, or The Incredibles? They were all made by Pixar and the new project, Wall-E is looking promising! They are running a promotional site "for Buy n Large, maker of the Wall-E robot. The site is full of ridiculous corporate-speak like "by visiting the Buy n Large web site you instantaneously relinquish all claims against the Buy n Large corporation and any of its vendors or strategic partners." Check out the Nanc-E under Robotics/Robot Models for a chuckle." [via Kottke]

* Minnesota History of the Land series. We've been enjoying listening to the soundtrack by Peter Ostroushko.

* Multitasking is the devil: See Human Task Switches Considered Harmful where Joel Spolsky makes an excellent point about context switching costs. See also Cogitus Interruptus: The Case for Focus or 43 folders Podcast: The Myth of Multi-tasking

Quote: "Time is that quality of nature that keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working." - Anonymous

Quote: "The constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy." - Kerry Gleeson

"It was more than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1955, that a Sears Roebuck & Co. store in Colorado Springs advertised a special hotline number for kids to call Santa. What the company didn't know at the time was that they had inadvertently misprinted the telephone number. Instead of Santa's workshop, the phone number put kids through to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the U. S. and Canada." [via Official Google Blog: Tracking Santa then and now]

11/30/2007

2007-11-29T22:22:00.000-06:00

* Dilbert Mission Statement Generator: "Our mission is to competently customize economically sound meta-services and efficiently foster inexpensive content"

* For those of you that are still ignoring Podcasts, I'm sorry be the one to tell you, but you are woefully behind. My evidence: even the Minnesota State DNR has a podcast. Recent shows are on Jay Cooke, on hunting, and there is a rich archive of fishing-related shows.

* Bundle up for winter with the Bearded Cap. Designed by Vik Prjónsdóttir from Iceland (where else would something like this be designed? - thanks Dan!)

* The TIOBE Index now rates Ruby as the 9th most popular programming language, passing JavaScript (ie passing the buzz that is AJAX). The index "can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system." It is calculated once a month.

* Mac OS X Lepord: A Perfect 10 So states Tom Yager (InfoWorld). “People buy Macs,” Yager reports, “because the platform as a whole is perfect, full stop. Leopard is a rung above perfection. It’s taken as rote that the Mac blows away PC users’ expectations. Leopard blows away Mac users’ expectations, and that’s saying a great deal.” Leopard, Yager says “is remarkable; it’s more and better software than anyone should sell for $129.” [via Apple Hot News]

* Live chat: your new online salesperson - "Erik Asarian, a real estate broker in Park City, Utah, installed a live chat box a year ago and credits it with adding $12 million in sales. "It's become an amazing new profit center," he says."

* Quote: "PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success." -- The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Review: Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R Tufte

2007-11-26T05:55:00.000-06:00

Visual Display of Quantitative Information is a history lesson and a bit of a how-to guide rolled into one on the design of effective charts. It was originally written in 1983 and considering how much charting has changed due to computer graphics, it is still astute and relevant. Using a rich set of examples, Tufte identifies a set of principals that will improve the clarity of charts. This is something that the proliferation of Excel charts could really use.

As a foundational book on charting, I found the book had many interesting points and I am looking forward to reading his next book in his series Visual Explanations.

P.S. If this sounds at all interesting to you, I hear he has a fascinating one-day course that is well worth attending.

11/23/2007

2007-11-23T07:43:00.000-06:00

Looking for my Thanksgiving Post? I myself am already thinking Christmas - and we have most of our shopping done *before* the stores opened today!

* LA Times says "Livestock are a leading source of greenhouse gases" and that a great way to help the environment is to eat less meat [via No Impact Man] or you can check out these tips for How to Have a Green Christmas.

* "Metro Transit is introducing 17 new hybrid buses – along with 150 more to follow over the next five years – to its fleet. The new buses, the cornerstone of the agency’s Go Greener initiative, deliver 22 percent better fuel mileage and produce 90 percent fewer emissions than the buses they replace, and they’re exceptionally quiet."

* A blender that works only when you growl at it. MIT at their best - there is even a video.

* Game: Classic Invaders (warning: this may be blocked by your corporate firewall)

* "In this interview, Michael Nygard explains that just one hour of downtime on a Fortune 500 website can cost $300,000 or more. Mike explains how to use stability and capacity design patterns to avoid expensive, public disasters." [via /\ndy]

* Over 2 billion photos have been uploaded to Flickr. Here's the pict that put them over the mark. And here's the architecture that lets them do it. In short: A collection of open-source tools serve 4 billion queries a day.

* Quote: “In terms of how we evaluate schooling, everything is about working by yourself. If you work with someone else, it’s called cheating. Once you get out in the real world, everything you do involves working with other people.” Richard Wagner, a psychologist at Florida State University

Special: Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T21:44:00.000-06:00

It is time for Thanksgiving again and I must say it really is one our favorite holidays. Of course the days off of work are nice, but it is a good time to focus on what matters most and what we are thankful for - our family. We get together at one parent's house or the other and have good food and drink, maybe a warm fire, and great conversation.

One new tradition that has come about in recent years is listening to American Public Media's Giving Thanks. It is a quiet, reflective program mixed with music and short writings by contemporary authors centered on the theme of giving thanks.

We listen to it at least twice over the holiday and have past year's programs backed up "just in case". I highly recommend listening, and if you miss it on broadcast, you can catch it on their web site.

The other tradition we have sort of adopted is reading the Thanksgiving Proclamation by President Lincoln in 1863 when it was adopted as a national holiday. I like reading it out loud which is a little out of character for me, but such are the oddities of people. Last year I subjected the whole extended family to it - this year I'll just impose it on the wife and kids. President Lincoln had a wonderful way with words and I've included a copy below for your interest.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION, OCTOBER 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the everwatchful providence of almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

11/16/2007

2007-11-15T23:07:00.000-06:00

* 37signals answers the question: Is it really the number of features that matter? "I don’t think the number of features is what makes software better or worse. One more or one less isn’t really the issue.What matters is the editing. Software needs an editor like a writer needs an editor or a museum needs a curator. Someone with a critical eye and the ability to say “No, that doesn’t belong” or “There’s a better way to say this.”"

* There are no bugs, only unintended causation "The next time you think something is bizarre or impossible, remind yourself that it is not. That the universe is way too busy to concern itself with mocking you. You’re just not that special. Then roll up your sleeves and find that bit of missing information that’s causing things to work counter to how you’d like or expect."

* "I found that on average, male CEOs were just a shade under six feet tall. Given that the average American male is five foot nine, that means that CEOs as a group have about three inches on the rest of their sex." - Malcom Gladwell. I, myself, am five foot eleven and three quarters.

* Moneygami - origami made out of money. Picts found via Drawn! "Daily posts of painters, animators and cartoonists." Lots of good stuff on the site - go check it out! Thanks Dan!

* “I compare the process [of becoming a parent] to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me.” - Jonathan Coulton [via 43 Folders]

* Why Companies Are Losing the Battle to Control Email

* "The very best companies, they concluded, had leaders who were obsessed with the talent issue." The New Yorker

Special: Link Cleanup

2007-11-14T21:19:00.000-06:00

I use backpack to keep track of the links I want to share with you when the time is right. But for some of these links - their time never comes. They sit there in the queue and never get their 15 minutes of fame. They never get to stand up straight in front of millions with the lights shining. It really is a sad situation and I'd like to rectify it. Today I'd like to dedicate this post to all the links that are not as interesting, not as shiny, a little outdated, and are all around a little more dull than the other links. (note: your millage may vary)

* Free Conference calling for when you don't have WebEx or another corporate tool.

* Three Hypotheses of Human Interface Design "Hypothesis 1: Human interface cognitive load is proportional to the number of clicks/keystrokes/gestures"

* The Lightswitch That Might Explain a Lot About Java via Global Nerdy "I gave a talk at Sun Labs where I encountered a special light switch in one of their conference rooms. At first I thought it was some kind of silly “engineer” joke. But the light switch functions as stated for real. Does it win the award for the most confusing light switch?"

* Grey's Law also known as Hanlon's razor "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

* Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) lets you comparison shop prices across many online stores, Google style.

* Instructables "The World's Biggest Show & Tell" have user submitted content on how to do one thing or another. Their feature article: How to Solve A Rubik's Cube.

* Spiral of Silence - "The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority"

Review: Blink by Malcom Gladwell

2007-11-14T20:40:00.000-06:00

So I read Blink by Malcom Gladwell. I was excited to read it, and found it OK. If you pick it up - read the first half, skip the long detailed stories, and catch the conclusion.

To sum the book up, "blink" judgments (or rapid assessments of a situation) can be entirely right or entirely wrong. They don't really know how to differentiate between the two. They do know that your blink assessments are more affected by your prejudices than things that get longer consideration. And they know that no one can satisfactorily explain why or how they came to the blink conclusion they did. There are great examples in the book, but the experts just don't seem to have any information to add.

I enjoyed Malcom's last book The Tipping Point, and his next book sounds fascinating. But as much as I enjoyed getting this book started and found some fascinating nuggets of information in it - it seemed to be lacking something in the end.