Writing about stuffs that aren’t my interests is quite stressful. It wears down the batteries in my brain. I’ve almost forget about the long weekend. I’m perhaps so much immersed in school works that I failed to notice that Monday’s a holiday. I’m glad, though, that we don’t have any assignments except from the blog that we’re required to write 2x a week.

I was sitting by the window looking for a good story interesting enough to share to my readers. Five minutes had passed, still, can’t think of any.

Suddenly, my sister came up to me and asked if she could borrow my blue DVD case. I let her use it.

As she was leaving, I can’t help but stare at the blue DVD case I’ve got two yeras ago during our dorm’s christmas party. A dear friend and former classmate gave it to me. Who is as well perhaps the simplest person I’ve known in my years on this earthe(whew!).

courtesy of Ms. Sheree Tampus

I usually call him ‘tatay’ like what most of our friends do. The first and probably the last time he calls me ‘mommy’ was when he gave that DVD case to me. That was s0ooo cute and memorable!

I wanna clear, however, that I never had a romantic crush on him although I constatnly admire him for being such a good person.

We rarely see each other when he was still in school. But whenever we get the chance to sit and talk, we often discuss about life, dreams, school and the likes. So ideal. We’re very opposite. He is very conservative and demure while I’m quite restless and talkative. I just don’t know how the both of us became close.

Among the things that he said, I’ll never forget the two questions he asked me the last time we cahtted. “Why are people asking for too much?’ and ‘Why are they not contented of what they have?’

After asking me what my dreams are, he asked those aforementioned questions. When I told him that I wanna own a white mansion near the beach, a ranch and five cars, he said that my dreams aren’t realistic. I instantly burst into laughter after hearing what he said. I told him that dreams are not bound to be realistic that’s actually the reason why they are called dreams.

When I asked him what his dreams are, he told me that he wanna teach in UP and own a small house in the city. Very simple. I asked him if he doesn’t want to own a car. Guess what he answered.

‘No, that’s already too ambitious.’

Again, I laugh. It was a very candid statement.

*sigh*

Actually, I don’t really know the point of telling you this story. Perhaps, I’m just missing Mark. It’s been, I guess, two months since the last time I saw him.

He is never my ideal man. But how I wish that all people are just like him. Contented. Simple. So Mark.

I really do hope that he’s doing fine.

Remember, 
That love weighs more than gold!

~ Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon ~

 Most of us have heard the oft-quoted adage “Less is More” at least a thousand times. And while I admire and believe in that maxim, I also know it can start sounding trite pretty quickly. So I started to really think about that saying the other day and decided to turn the tables a bit.

Isn’t it also true that sometimes “More can be Less?” The law of diminishing returns states that as equal quantities are increased, production will actually begin to decrease, not increase as one might suspect. We can apply this law to our own lives very easily. Although it would seem that a restaurant meal every other evening or a new blouse every weekend might bring us more happiness, each new purchase actually brings us less and less pleasure since we have crossed the point of enough. Thus, Less can be More; the less material pleasures we purchase, the more satisfaction we will have with what we buy.

So it would make sense that the More material comforts we pile up, the more confused and disheartened we will be by them. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz discusses this very phenomenon. When we have seemingly endless choices laid out before our hungry minds, we will actually derive less satisfaction from whatever decision we make. The More you indulge in a particular something—say, a piece of cheesecake—the Less special that treat will become. When we are inundated with More, we are overwhelmed with the notion of Average, rather than Meaningful. We experience and appreciate Less.

So is “Less is More” an integral part of your personal philosophy? Or are you skeptical of anything that smacks of personal limitation?

I am about to reveal a secret so profound it may alter your worldview forever:

If you receive an award, you don’t have to keep it for the rest of your life.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to practical matters.  If I were the queen of awards and recognition, I would ban statuettes.  Certificates are fine.  They take up little space, and when the time comes to part with them they’re easy to recycle.  Trophies, wall plaques, and medals are more troublesome because we just don’t feel right throwing them in the garbage.  (It’s okay to throw them in the garbage, though you may understandably feel guilty about the space they’ll take up in the landfill.)  Here are some alternative disposal ideas:

• demand the local trophy shop take them back (can’t they take off the name plates and resell them?)
• give them to an artist to incorporate into a conceptual sculpture
• donate to a theater’s prop department
• disassemble them and use parts to make holiday ornaments (give these away as gifts; now they’re your friend’s problem!)

Any other ideas?  Please post in the comments section!

Quantum Learning

Keep It Simple Stupid!

I remember something a great sales motivator once said. It was many years ago and I was selling “Best Line”, bio-degradable products part time.

He said, “K.I.S.S.”, “Keep It Simple Stupid!” Of everything else he said only this sticks clearly in my mind.

When I took it upon myself to write about the differences between what I call “Scientific Quantum Physics” and “Spiritual Quantum Physics,” I remembered K.I.S.S.

Along with all the technical knowledge that the “Scientific Quantum Physicists” throw at us, for a smoke screen, the biggest difference between us is that they forget “K.I.S.S.”

Men with superior intelligence, but lacking in common sense and wisdom tend to jealously guard what they think is their private area of expertise.

I noticed this when I was teaching math for 17 years at the college level.

Many of the math professors with Ph D’s seemed to only teach their students just enough for them to understand the subject matter at hand. But they did not want to give the students “too much.” They might become smarter than the instructor and possibly take their job sometime in the future.

You will find this, “selfish guarding” of more stuff in every walk of life. In the board rooms of corporations, in the universities and the medical world.

They all want to ensure job security, by holding something back. It seems to be the same with physicists, professors and mathematicians, who have claimed “Scientific Quantum Physics” as theirs and theirs alone.

They tell us just enough to peak our curiosity and to keep themselves in the cat bird seat of expertise. They use and invent words and theories so that it makes it very difficult for the average man on the street to understand Quantum Physics.

They deliberately leave out the K.I.S.S.

I say the whole world needs a double dip dose of K.I.S.S.

The Age of Aquarius has given us a new paradigm called the Laws of Quantum Physics. These laws will tear off the lid of the box called, “Reserved for Specialists.”

These laws explain to everyone how the Universe works. How the Creator God creates and how we can use them to better our lives.

The “K.I.S.S.” laws of Quantum Physics tell us thoughts are things and everything is Energy. And how to use our thoughts and energy to create a better world.

The intellectual Specialists spend all their time and our money chasing protons and splitting atoms and dissecting the know Universe smaller and smaller seeking answers.

And all that may be well and good. But it needs to be limited. Let them belong to their exclusive universities and laboratories but let us take them off the “Iconoclastic Pedestals,” they have built for themselves.

The new paradigm of Spiritual Quantum Physics is for EVERYONE.

If they want to remain as experts and specialists for Quantum Physics, so be it . But keep it to themselves.

We have experts who can fix our automobiles and that is good. I don’t need to know how to fix my car, only how to drive it to make my life pleasant.

I don’t have to know how my DNA works, nor do the billions of others on the planet. This knowledge does nothing to improve my life.

I have no desire to change the DNA structure of humanity or clone things The Creator God did quite well for the past 100,000 years or so. And will continue to do it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Laws of Quantum Physics are a gift to us from the Creator God.

Let us K.I.S.S. And use it to benefit and make the lives of the billions of people on the planet healthier, wealthier and wise.

Let the “intelligent experts” stay in their ivory towers. If they do not wish to share their secrets on how all of us can live better; then they should stop telling us what to do.

A farmer growing bread is much more valuable to mankind than a scientist trying to change the world to fit his ideas of it.

More importantly we now have the “Every man’s” laws of Spiritual Quantum Physics. They are Free, Let’s share them.

Ragnar Storyteller (AKA Ellis Peterson is a Korean War Vet living with his wife Lory and dog Dixie in the boonies of the Pocono Mountains. He is a retired math professor and electronics engineer. He is the inventor of the simple radionics device called “The Nordic Ond Orgone Generator”. He has written over 200 articles and booklets on runes, radionics, quantum physics, viking history, orgone generators and alternate healing methods. You can see more of his works on his websites:

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http://www.runes-for-health-wealth-love-now.com/

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Can a matchbox hold my clothes?
My heart says yes. Follow my heart.
Put on a shirt and a pair of trousers. Another shirt and a pair of shorts into a bag.
Quit the office job and fly to France. Take a bus into the Pyrenees, from there walk 600 miles through the north of Spain all the way to the west coast.
The end of the earth.
Can’t walk on the water yet. Will have to fly home. Reading the journal, notice the same two phrases repeated:

‘I want to be a writer’ and ‘Who knows?’

Nothing about love. Certainly nothing about the theatre.

Return to England and life fills up again, simplicity runs and hides behind the shed. Practically give away my books, music, films. Clothes go to charity. Life remains complex, I remain distracted and lost.
My self-portrait at this time is of a handsome young man (of course) hunting in the woods. Around my waist I wear my kills. I have been killing rabbits, snakes, stoats, beavers, badgers, baboons and boar.
But shouldn’t I be hunting the big one – Bear?
Unsure and poor, I fall in love. It doesn’t work out. So move on (slowly, with occasional steps backward into maudling misery.)

Time for another clear-out. Open up my matchbox and fill it with my favourite three books, one pair of trainers, one pair of trousers, six shirts and some underwear (it’s important.) A flight to Madrid, my passport and 400 euros.

I quickly spend the 400 euros. Madrid is a party city. And so..?

Alone, displaced, poor, without hope – and I feel the best I’ve ever felt. Starting again, when will I stop laughing?

Who knows?

Now is the moment to be honest. Admit it to myself – I am a theatre animal. I do it because it makes me happy. It is the clearest way I can express myself. It…a crow has landed on my windowsill. It croaks at me. The window is open, it only has to hop forward and it will be inside. It croaks louder. I stare at it, hold my breath as my stomach flips over. It snaps its head to the right, aware of something in the distance. I stay still. Watch it. The crow croaks and bursts upwards into the air, away from my windowsill and disappearing into the sky…I am a theatre animal.
My self-portrait has changed. Now it shows a handsome young man (hasn’t changed that much) prowling through the woods. There are no past kills on my belt. A rabbit sits to the side of the path. I pay it no attention. Why leave the path to look for rabbits when you’re trying to kill a bear?

At last my life is simple. A matchbox holds my clothes.

I shall pursue my goal – to make astonishing theatre.

ISBN 978 1 4221 8114 0

Ron Ashkenas is the co-author of The Boundaryless Organization and The GE Work-Out – both fascinating reviews of how major Companies make things happen in an increasingly complicated world. In the new book, published December 2009, Ashkenas sets out a set of diagnostics, tools and processes to help us deal with complexity on a day-to-day basis.

He identifies 4 major causes of complexity:

1. Structural Mitosis – constant change in the way organizations are structured
2. Management Behaviour – which wastes time and which confuses the issues
3. Product & Service Proliferation – which makes focusing and thus managing the whole ever more difficult
4. Process Evolution – as businesses use new and varying approaches to solve problems – processes need streamlining

By his own admission, Ashkenas does not set out to create lots of new tools. Rather, he is focused on ensuring that we have the context for simplicity clearly understood so that we start to create effective response strategies – and then applying the most proven approaches to help get results. The book is liberally laced with good case studies, from GE, Conagra, Cisco, J&J and others. And at the end of each chapter there is a helpful checklist of actions that can be taken.

For example, in the chapter on “Product and Service Proliferation”, Ashkenas encourages us to use effective Portfolio Analysis to identify where to focus, rationalise our brand SKU’s, and use Customer Design Partnering to be sure we are meeting the most important needs. And in “Streamlining Processes”, Ashkenas urges us to use Best Practice, Process Mapping (to make explicit what is implicit or taken for granted in an organization) and, of course, proven techniques such as Six Sigma and Lean. You’ve also got to smile when you read about “Death by PowerPoint” when he is discussing ineffective Management behaviour.

Stepping back, Ashkenas proposes a “Simple Strategy for Simplicity”, in a five step loop.

• Declare Simplicity a Business Imperative
• Restructure the work and consequent organization structure to reduce complexity
• Achieve early results (“quick wins”) through process and product simplification
• Sustain Momentum through clear and constant Communication
• Repeat over time

This is a good, clear and helpful book, and the action plans suggested will definitely start to clear away the organizational clutter that we all face every day.

If I have a critique it is that Ashkenas could have gone further in two areas. First, to make even more of the power of Customer Insight in driving better business decisions and thus helping to design more effective processes. Using a “customer lens” can really break through some of the old paradigms. I have especially seen this applied in retailing, where getting the entire enterprise focused on and rewarded by customer results can be a breakthrough strategy and a clear focus for operational excellence.

And, secondly, Ashkenas only deals lightly with the emerging knowledge we have on how Social Networks create highly efficient and effective communication vehicles. He is not alone in this, as most writers still follow the “Structure follows Strategy” dictum. Yet network science is beginning to suggest common approaches that can be used independently of the actual purpose of the Enterprise.

Still, that is for future books. For today, I can fully recommend “Simply Effective” as a well-researched, well-written book packed with helpful ideas for action. A quick read, but a useful handbook to have on your desk to dip into as your work progresses.

Review from LeaderValues, written by Mick Yates

Posted via web from mick’s posterous

Recently I did an article for a seniors newsletter about phishing. Specifically the perennial “limited time to add your cell phone to the national do not call list before bad stuff happens” scam. While this particular instance is more hoax than phishing since the number to call was, in fact, the real number for the do not call list the opportunity for a phishing variation is definitely there. This got me to thinking again about why computing in general and social networking in particular are so senior-unfriendly. I’ve written this about this issue in the past here and here but it’s always seemed a little bizarre to me that no major personal computer manufacturer has thought about tapping this enormous and growing market. There are some minor players starting to get into this market according to this article on the BBC.

A new computer aimed at people aged over 60 who are unfamiliar with PCs and the internet has been unveiled.

The simplified desktop – called SimplicITy – has just six buttons directing users to basic tasks such as e-mail and chat.

The computer comes pre-loaded with 17 video tutorials from television presenter Valerie Singleton.

The SimplicITy computer has no log-in screen when started up, and contains no drop-down menus. It opens straight to a front page called “square one” containing separate clickable buttons for e-mail, browsing the web, files (for storing word documents and photos etc), online chat and a user profile.

The e-mail system is a modified version of an Italian design called Eldy. All SimplicITy users with an eldy.org address will be able to chat to each other via the “chat” button.

The computer is built using Linux operating system, a free operating system that can be customised by users.
If people decide they no longer need the SimplicITy desktop, they can replace it with a standard Linux desktop.

Unfortunately these are also a one-off kind of deal and therefore carry a relatively hefty price tag.

Each made-to-order computer takes two weeks from request to delivery and can be ordered by post.

It’s not all that cheap – systems range from £299 [~$500] without screen or keyboard to £525 [~$880] for a complete system.

From what I can tell reaction to this computer system has been lukewarm to negative and almost universally snarky. Of course those reactions have been from younger people like BBC Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones who quips:

There are some people who will undoubtedly feel patronised by the very idea of a computer for older users  and others will ask why they shouldn’t be taught to use Windows like just about everybody else.

But he also points out a very valid issue when it comes to selecting computing equipment for elders in this entry on the BBC News dot.life blog.

Simplicity is swimming against the tide, and may find some resistance, not from older customers, but from sons and daughters who’d rather see their parents learn the same system as themselves.

Yep – nailed it in one. Being primary technical support for a truly frightening number of older folks I know this to be absolutely true. But exhaustive yet completely unscientific polling and anecdotal evidence have led me to believe that the following statements are common to all older computer users:

My computer sucks.

My [son|daughter|younger friend]’s computer works great.

That’s why I got mine.

But my computer sucks.

Okay I’ll admit that I paraphrased a bit but I think it reliably captured the essence. So why does grandma want a computer? As opposed to why do the grandkids think grandma wants a computer. Here’s what I think based on that exhaustive yet unscientific research.

1. Medicare, Social Security and insurers are increasingly moving online. If you want to interact with them you need a computer.
2. Staying in contact with the family. All the grandkids are on FaceBook and use Twitter. Everybody puts photos on Flickr and sends invitations through email.
3. Staying abreast of current news. Hey, the local newspaper is either going, gone or online and TV news is for losers.

While there are probably a few other reasons that drive grandma’s desire for a computer, please note that “making videos” or “digitizing music” are not among them. The biggie is the first reason which is why it was cleverly positioned at #1. Grandma has no choice. As much as you would like to believe that the others are more important, the bottom line is that it’s just not practical to be an analog senior any longer. So why exactly aren’t HP and Dell marketing the heck out of computers for seniors? Maybe they aren’t aware of the market [doubtful] or maybe they haven’t been talking to the right people and think they already have such a unit among their existing offerings [most likely].

So lets help them out, shall we? Feel free to chime in with comments here. What would be the attributes of the perfect computing device for seniors? Well how about we start with some physical basics:

1. It’s got to have a full size keyboard and a decent size display. Small form factor keyboards and screens are a non-starters. Netbooks are out. Smart phones are out.
2. It should be portable. In every respect, including WiFi. This thing will be traveling to every family get together from now on. And who wants to wire their house for ethernet?
3. It has to have the right pointing device for the user. Some folks like trackballs, some like tablets, some even like joysticks. Not everyone likes, or can use, a mouse. And almost nobody can use a laptop touchpad without a great deal of angst. And who needs that aggravation?
4. It doesn’t need a very powerful processor. An older low-power processor would be fine since [pay attention here younger helpers] nobody is going to do any video editing on this machine. Ever. But increased battery life would really be swell.
5. It doesn’t need huge amounts of memory. Yeah, I know that most popular operating systems tend to expand to fill the available resources but that just proves that modern operating systems bite wind. And have [again pay attention here younger helpers] stupid amounts of cool features that nobody will ever use. Ever.
6. It doesn’t need a killer 3-D video subsystem. As much as you might hope, grandma is not going to play Halo 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Ever. If she really wants to play games she should get a Wii. Not a PC.
7. It needs a fast internet connection. Essentially everything that grandma wants use her new computer for is online. Slow internet = bad user experience.

So that’s a reasonable start on hardware, how about software? What does grandma really need to do the stuff she wants? Well, first we should forget all that ancillary stuff to protect the system from bad engineering (err… malware. I meant malware. My bad) and select an operating environment that is fast, safe and easy to use. Yep, that pretty much leaves Windows out. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Here’s the critical software list.

1. A web browser. Pretty much everything that grandma wants to do is online and accessible via a browser. Email, banking, insurance, FaceBook, and Twitter. There are web sites that mashup or aggregate multiple social networking sites. Even text editors and other applications. Pretty much everything out there in the cloud.
2. A password safe. Anything that’s done in the cloud requires some kind of authentication, usually user name (or email) and a password. And lame authentication is useless. Just ask Sarah Palin. Everybody, not just grandma, but everybody should use a password safe. That way you only have to remember one password (the safe password) and let the password safe generate unique industrial strength passwords for everything else.
3. A good bi-directional firewall. Don’t worry – grandma will never see this and any decent operating environment will ship with a good one installed and enabled by default.

Well this is interesting. It’s looking like Google Chrome OS might be just the ticket for seniors. When it comes out next year. Except that Google is targeting Netbooks as their initial platform and we’ve already determined that Netbooks are a non-starter for seniors. Actually a MacBook might be a good choice, except for the high price and wealth of useless (for grandma) software that that comes with a Mac. So maybe the SimplicITy folks have it right. Maybe a lightweight Linux distro is a good place to start. I mean that’s really what Chrome OS is under the covers, the covers being Google’s Chrome browser.

So how about it Dell or HP? How about building an inexpensive, full size, low power, portable PC with a choice of input devices [test drives available!], loaded with Google Chrome OS or maybe a minimal version of Ubuntu or OpenSUSE with Firefox or Chromium [Chrome for Linux]. Or maybe Apple could release a senior-friendly MacBook without all the spiffy iLife stuff and make it affordable. But whoever steps up be sure and forget the crapware from your partners and instead throw in some slick training demos on things like “how to get online” and decent [non-advertising] setup wizards for networking. Or maybe you could just partner with SimplicITy and use those video tutorials with Valerie Singleton. It would be wise to ask yourselves if in this economy you can afford to alienate a growing market by ignoring their needs.

11/28/09

This morning, feeling slightly fluey and wanting to take it easy on myself, I picked up a copy of GQ Magazine, a magazine that promises to help me ‘look sharp and live smart’ that is read by ~1m every month globally. A closer reading of that catchphrase might indicate that vanity is something to be desired. Let us have a quick look inside this magazine and just pretend, for a minute, that I’m highly impressionable and vain, obsessed by looking sharp and smart – a marketer’s dream consumer who buys everything he sees.

By the time I’ve got to a piece of ‘smart’ in the intellectual sense within the magazine, the letter from the editor – which is the first page that isn’t an index or an advert (or the first one that has any meaningful writing), I’m on page 60. This is a rare oasis, the next piece of content that is unrelated to consumption of goods or services is on page 151 of the 320 page magazine. A total of 185 pages within are dedicated exclusively to adverts. The remainder include index pages, pictures, contents of features that persuade you to buy things in the adverts, or see films, or go to restaurants. In total, there’s very little ‘smart’ within the magazine measured purely by the number of pages dedicated, without going so far as to analyse the content. Plus there is an awful lot of stupidity. For example, purchasing a $27,000 Rolex (note that I need not tell you what this is – the brand is so effective you already know), when you can buy a watch for $5 that performs many more functions and doesn’t turn you into a walking security risk would seem somewhat foolish.

Let’s say I bought one of each of the items advertised on pages 1 to 59 at the cheapest price a quick search of the internet can provide. My total shopping bill comes to $78,253.66 and I’ve bought a total of 40 items, including 7 jumpers, 3 watches, 5 jackets, 7 bottles of cologne and a host of other accessories that should rightly make me ‘smart and sharp’. I’ve also noted that 5 brands are now claiming that their products have the environment in mind. Whether that’s the truth or to induce me to believe the brand is worth buying, I’m none too sure, but boy do I feel better about the $78k hole in my bank account. The poorest country in the world, Zimbabwe, has a per capita GDP of ~$200, meaning that my little shopping spree would cover a mere 391 years of an average citizen’s life there. 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day. In their case, we’re covering 21 years of life. 21 years of life versus 40 items that, as far as I can tell aside from car insurance and a laptop, provide very little net additional utility to an individual’s life. Especially considering that aside from the car insurance, two bottles of liquor and a laptop, I’m fairly confident that I could purchase an item of replicable quality without a label for less than a tenth of the price. If I went second hand, we’re looking more like a twentieth or more of the price.

I’ve also glanced, in the adverts, at some of the most enviably beautiful and rich people in the world. I’ve just youtubed one of the adverts and found out I can watch a ‘compelling’ video of the making of the adverts, in which a number of supermodels get almost (i.e. never quite but almost) naked. I’ve also been enticed by products and people that I don’t know but I now envy, or at least that’s the hope.

Now before you expect me to go off on a rant about the shameful differences between rich and poor and the horrific inequality in the world, remember that the aim of this site is not to guilt you into making an immediate donation to Oxfam. Its purpose is to make you think about what is good for you and what makes you happier, rather than making you feel bad about wanting more stuff and then guilty about the poor people of the world for the stuff you have.

With that in mind, here’s the rub. The average income of a GQ reader is $75,103 – meaning that to purchase the heavily overpriced goods that come before the editors letter page would require more than a year’s salary… before tax. What’s interesting about this salary is that although fairly generous by modern standards, it isn’t the kind of pay that would allow for too many purchases of $5,000, let alone $27,000 watches. If we presume that there are a few readers of GQ who earn significantly over this amount, it is possible that the average is actually higher than the median. So what is really going on here? If the average reader is not the average purchaser of the goods advertised, why advertise at all? The simple answer is because the marketers are creating aspirational desires in these consumers resulting in occasional purchases of these goods. These desires also enable the companies selling these goods to price them way beyond the levels of their utility and comparable models. The cost of the marketing is easily covered by the increase in perceived ‘value’ that these goods are given by the marketing. The same unlabeled cashmere sweater as is sold by many of the ‘boutique’ brands can be bought at a fraction of the cost, a legal replica (one that isn’t an exact copy) watch of the same quality can be purchased for many multiples less. It’s not even as if these companies require a huge budget for research and development, an argument that many companies (think pharmaceuticals) use to justify high prices.

The point behind all this is that there is little reason, sorry, absolutely no reason what so ever, behind the prices charged by many of the brands that people aspire to being able to afford. There is an argument that wines, or cars, or houses justify additional value on the back of improved quality or performance. Certainly a $1000 dollar bottle of wine may well be of superior quality than a $10 bottle, even if it might be hard to make a case that it is 100 times better. But for many fashion brands, the only thing you are paying for is the brand, the image, the perception. That, my friends, is pure insanity. We work harder, to earn more money, to buy products that are more expensive than those that can be replicated identically for a fraction of the price. We climb voluntarily into a vicious circle that leaves us poorer and unhappier. We’ve become so used to the marketing we’re bombarded by, we no longer notice the subliminal effects they have on our day-to-day.

I’ll leave you with an advert that is at least honest, although I’ve a funny feeling it may have been modified slightly… Happy thanksgiving, let’s hope you consumed all the right things – love, friendship, laughter, conversation…

Thinking of all the clamour for consumption that began yesterday, a haiku by Issa:

The child sobs,

“Give it to me!”

The bright full moon.

See also this haiku by Buson.

~ ~ ~

R.H. Blyth, Haiku: Volume Three (Summer – Autumn), Hokuseido Press, 1952, pg. 398.

We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.

- Arthur G. Gish

Taken from http://scienceblogs.com/chaoticutopia/

It is easy to mistake a programming task to be simple. This is especially true in user interface.

The executive is looking at the “trivial” two fields login screen and innocently estimates it to be a two hours job.

This is a common mistake, similar to some extent to The Three Body Problem in physics. Taking a simple, solvable problem and changing one parameter can result in an exceptionally complex problem. While the two-body problem is integrable and its solutions completely understood, solutions of the three-body problem may be of an arbitrary complexity and are very far from being completely understood. See a nice graphic example.

Login screens are not that complex, but take a look at the next example and see how many open questions\bugs can you come up with ?

Simple Login

1. Is it “Log-in” “Login” or “Log in”?
2. Is it clear that email is equivalent to user name?
3. Do you need a “Cancel” button?
4. Should there be a visible mark for the mandatory fields? Which mark?
5. Seems like a “Forgot My Password” link and screen are missing.
6. Is a Captcha needed to fight bots?


Simple Login Form

7. Is validation done on the client side or the server-side ?
8. How is the feedback given to the user? Where?
9. Security demands that we don’t tell the user what’s the exact problem (missing email or password). Usability does.
10. Where is the sign-up page? Where does Log-Out go out to?
11. “Email” , “eMail” or “email”?


Nice Login Form

12. Do we use SSL for the login but move to clear HTTP for the rest of the application ?
13. Cross browser testing?
14. How shall we do unit testing for the screen?
15. It turns out that validating an email address can be a nightmare.
16. After the user made a mistake, which events clear the warning notification?
17. Shall we support Hebrew? How about the German umlaut?
18. Shouldn’t “email” and “password” be left aligned?
19. Is the colon required after “Login”?
20. Do we want to limit the length for any of the fields? Minimum password strength?

Notice how we got to twenty non trivial questions without discussing the actual user authentication or the graphic design, which can be huge topics on their own.

My simplistic recommendation is to use of the shelf components whenever possible and go through the annoying step we used to call “feature design” even in this agile world we live in.

Sample Login Screen

Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward life-style of simplicity.  We must live in the modern world, and we are affected by its fractured and fragmented state.  We are trapped in a maze of competing attachments.  One moment we make decisions on the basis of sound reason and the next moment out of fear of what others will think of us.  We have no unity or focus around which our lives are oriented.

from Celebration of Discipline

Right now, my love life is all over the place. I feel like my heart is a paint pallet and all of the boys in my past, present and future are the different colors of paint. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, grey and all the shades in between. They are all so different. My mind is trying to paint my bedroom. It grabs a paint brush and puts one stroke of color on the wall, let’s it dry, looks at it and waits. After a while, the paintbrush gets emerged in water, everything that was once connected to the paintbrush is washed away. Used and disposed of, because my mind wants to try out a new color. So the paintbrush, once dipped in red, is now washed, dried and dipped into orange. A stroke of paint is streaked across the wall, but only a small line. Then, back into the water the paint brush goes and the same actions repeat. And repeat. And repeat. I have all of these beautiful colors, and they are all alluring it their own way, but it is me that is indecisive as to which color to paint my walls. Do I paint a tranquil colored room filled with soft hues where I can relax, a vibrant colored room that inspires me; colors that standout and are noticed, or colors that compliment the art hanging on the wall and serve merely as the backdrop?

A partner is like paint; and, paint is one of the most important parts of a room, it is the backdrop by which everything else evolves around and connects to. However I paint my room will decide for me as to what type of decor I fill the room with: elegant, country-feel, artsy, trendy or simplistic.  What kind of room do I feel most comfortable in, what kind of lifestyle do I want to lead? Each color is so different, all with their own unique characteristics and all provoke completely different emotions: relaxing, inspiring, serious, playful, lively, boring, cutting-edge, old-fashioned.  My surroundings are important to me because they change how I act. For instance, if I am in a super elegant room I wouldn’t dare jump on the couch, yet, if I was in a cozy room–game on! Some people are fortunate to be themselves in all kinds of rooms, but for me the room directly affects my behavior and actions.  Whether this is a trait or a flaw I am still unsure of. Is it good to be so adaptable to your surroundings or is it a vice?

There have been a few times I have committed more to a color by painting an entire wall. Only one though. And, it filled the room for a while and made it feel cosey, made me feel more at home.  But, I never let it go further than that…and the wall soon came to be painted over in white, small streaks of colors splashed across it’s surface like many times before as I continue to search for the color with which I feel most connected to instead of picking one and enjoying it.

So, my room remains unfinished, and in truth quite ugly. It’s not inviting nor is it relaxing or soothing because….it is not complete. I want to complete this room. I am ready to furnish it, to commit to a style and to call it my own. But, the question always comes back to me…what color do I choose when my mind changes so often? And, if I paint the whole room one color I want to be sure. I don’t want to someday repaint it again. I don’t want to do it all over. I would rather touch up the paint, or recoat it with another color. I want the color to last. I want my partner and my relationship to last.

Sometimes I just wish that a stranger would walk into my room with a bucket of paint and throw it on my walls. I would laugh at the madness. I would laugh at the realization of how easy the whole process can be: choose a color and throw the paint. Because, in the end a room that is painted and decorated feels like home. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it is cosy and warm.  A room left unpainted, undecorated feels merely like a room in transit. It doesn’t feel owned, it only feels rented and above all, it feelsincomplete.

This is what Phill & Mike think I should do, because they are jokers.  Seriously speaking though, I am considering getting a tattoo.  It’s something I have always wanted to do, but it’s also something I have been somewhat reluctant to do because in the past, I’ve had ideas for designs and then changed my mind for a variety of reasons – I think that it is something that you really have to think through carefully.  Is it going to hold its meaning through the years? Is it in a place where you can hide it when necessary (e.g. job interview, angry grandparent)?  Is it personal and unique, or something that every Tom Dick and Chavvy has? Will the colours fade and the tattoo look tacky in time? These are all primary considerations for me – the pain doesn’t bother me at all (I have a high pain threshold, and I have had multiple injections in the roof of my mouth – WITH A NEEDLE before you get any ideas! – so I am not really afraid of needles nor pain. I can stand it).

So with that all said, I’ll unveil what I’m thinking off.  At the top of my right collarbone / shoulder, about an inch high (maybe less, but about that – so fairly discreet), I want an A. Because that is the first letter of my name.  Simple, personal (I am unlikely to change my name) and effective!  But not just an ordinary A! I toy about with various ways of writing my name during moments of boredom, and a few years ago I found a way of writing the ‘A’ that I like:

Ok, so you need to imagine this with the lines being straight as opposed to wiggly and uneven, and it would just be the solid black in the middle without the feathered edges, but you get the idea.  I think it looks edgy without trying too hard, and it is personal and unique without being outlandish or silly.  Simple, but effective – in other words.  On top my shoulder, its somewhere I can keep it hidden from people (and easily show-offable), but it’s not in your typical lower back / upper back / bicep region which could be passé / common.  I am quite excited – although it’s still only a plan I have and I haven’t made any kind of appointment, I know exactly where I would go to get it done, who to speak to (friends have recommended me), and Mike says that he’s up for going with me.  So it may well happen! Plus, since it’s just in black and not too big, it shouldn’t be too expensive.  I like this plan.

I just hope that a) when my mother / grandmother eventually sees it (which I know ultimately will happen), they won’t freak out too much; b) they will respect my right to choose to do what I want with my body.  I won’t feel guilty about getting it done, but I will feel sad about hurting their feelings, so I just hope that they will be mature enough to not let their feelings get hurt c) I don’t think it can be confused with anything stupid that I have somehow overlooked.  So it’s all systems go!  What do you think?

This is the title of Dieter Rams’ exhibition at the Design Museum. Rams was in charged of the German consumer electronics manufacturer, Braun, for more than 40 years, developing a synthetic, rigorous and pure visual language for its products. In this exhibition can be appreciated how his principles of design were applied in and followed by his designs.
Below are explained the 10 design principles defined by Dieter Rams:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

As a starting point of his designs, Rams applied a clear and well-defined structure (grid?) to organise the elements (information?) before moving on to the creation stage itself.

Design Museum. Dieter Rams' structure used in the creation of his designs to organise elements. (©Photos Sheila Pontis)

Rams’ objective was to create extremely functional objects where irrelevant information had no place. His designs are examples of simplicity and clarity. (see below). Rams also thought that sketching (analysing?) was an essential part of the design process. In addition, for Rams this stage of the process is independently of the media or technology, and cannot be done with computers. This stage is about taking the necessary time to carefully think about what to do, the characteristics and uses of the product/project.

Design Museum. Wall diagram of Dieter Rams' object. (© Photo Sheila Pontis)

Less and More. The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams. 18 November 2009 to 7 March 2010 – Design Museum London

I’ve never really jumped aboard the bandwagon for The White Stripes.  As a band itself, I admired their tour of Canada in its entirety, and their generous free shows along the way, even in the isolated territory of Nunavut.  I appreciate that Jack White busts his ass and works hard in multiple bands.  Their music just never felt all that spectacular overall.

This song, however, is pretty infectious, with its bluesy riff and basic drum beat pulsing beneath the surface.  It never fails to work its way into my skull and take residence for a day or few.  I think its simplicity is what makes it work; it doesn’t need anything more.  Jack White may not always wow me, but this track is a classic stroke of genius.

Day Seventy-Nine:  The Hardest Button To Button – The White Stripes