A common misunderstanding that you often find in Engineering-centric organizations is that “design” is simply the way it looks. In truth, design is the way it works. Dieter Rams had the following to say: “A designer who wants to achieve good design must not regard himself as an artist who, according to taste and aesthetics, is merely dressing-up products with a last-minute garment. The designer must be the gestaltingenieur or creative engineer. They synthesise the completed product from the various elements that make up its design.
Clueless Recruiters, Issue #4
Do I look like a cow? It’s the hair, isn’t it? I need a haircut — all in this week’s issue of Clueless Recruiters. (Cue theme music!) Explanation There are few things that technical people are more annoyed by than technical recruiters. A very large segment of the technical recruiting industry has made a bad name for the rest of their industry by relentlessly spamming technical professionals after having not done their homework. These people hock job openings the same way that sleazy salesmen hock used cars.
SOPA/PIPA
This is a letter that I wrote to my representatives this morning, Rep. Jay Inslee, Sen. Maria Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray. Internet Issues: SOPA/PIPA I am a Washington State voter, and I want to urge you to denounce, reject and vote against the SOPA & PIPA bills currently working their way through Congress. Information: http://americancensorship.org The MPAA/RIAA lobbyists (who naturally have an anti-technology, pro-censorship bias) have managed to get our “representatives” to push these bills into Congress in an attempt to allow private corporations to censor the Internet.
Clueless Recruiters, Issue #3
How to prove that you are quite possibly the worst scum of the universe — all in this week’s issue of Clueless Recruiters. (Cue theme music!) Explanation There are few things that technical people are more annoyed by than technical recruiters. A very large segment of the technical recruiting industry has made a bad name for the rest of their industry by relentlessly spamming technical professionals after having not done their homework. These people hock job openings the same way that sleazy salesmen hock used cars.
Life Lesson: You can do anything you put your mind to, even if it’s “I can't.”
Growing up, I always heard the adage “you can do anything you put your mind to”. I never really understood it because I think I took it too literally. This post is part of a larger series written to my children entitled “Life Lessons”. Read the Introduction to learn more, or view all of the “Life Lessons” posts. I thought to myself, “you couldn’t move a mountain if you put your mind to it, so whoever said that must be full of crap.
Introduction to “Life Lessons”
As I’ve watched my children grow, I’ve started collecting a list of little bits of wisdom that I want to pass along to my kids. For a number of years now, I’ve been taking notes. Sometimes these notes are funny, sometimes endearing, and sometimes very serious. But all of these notes are about experiences from my own life where I’ve learned something valuable. Baz Luhrmann is credited as the writer of a song called Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen. Toward the end of the song, it says:
