Wanted: 21st century cave drawers

December 16, 2011

Data visualization is a fascinating area. I also think it’s just begging for innovation. Analytical types usually aren’t very good graphical artists (guilty). Their palette is defined by a few clunky buttons on Microsoft Excel’s ribbon, or, if they’re really eccentric, Apple’s Numbers. I’d like to see more graphics experts work with number crunchers to [...]

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Coca-Cola Freestyle: Drowning us in choice

December 14, 2011

Suppose, in an effort to come across as smart, perceptive, and eloquent, you memorized as many famous speeches as you could. With a database of sage sound bites in your head, you could replace your normal contributions to conversations with phrases that have already been rewarded with adulation. Good idea, right? Of course not. You’d [...]

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Why I still use paper and pens

December 12, 2011

I keep seeing articles debating the use versus non-use of handwriting in the post-PC era. Personally, I don’t think we’ll ever figure out a way of making handwriting totally obsolete. It’s just too organic, natural, and cozy-feeling to make ink trails on a page without the aid of an electronic device. I find handwriting useful [...]

6 comments

Practical generosity

December 9, 2011

The Economist reports on a fascinating study about the role of generosity in human evolution: Evidence from economic games played in the laboratory for real money suggests humans are both trusting of those they have no reason to expect they will ever see again, and surprisingly unwilling to cheat them—and that these phenomena are deeply [...]

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Jailbreaking your self-worth

December 8, 2011

Teresa Norton: … I define person’s status as his or her estimation of self worth rather than the estimation placed on that person by others. It is a personal and internal judgment and as such is completely-self controlled — nobody can ‘make’ you feel unimportant. They can certainly ‘act’ in ways that are either consciously [...]

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Moom: my favorite window manager

December 6, 2011

I’m in the middle of a massive technical writing project. Whenever I undertake a project on my Mac that requires me to juggle multiple documents, PDFs, and other apps, screen space becomes precious. Moom is by far the best window management solution I’ve ever used because it makes resizing and moving windows ridiculously easy. When [...]

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The Kindle Touch: From the perspective of someone who’s only read e-books in iOS

December 5, 2011

I like little local hardware stores. I can quickly get in and get back out with the thing I went there for. In a superstore it’s way too easy to get distracted by all the shiny “oh yeah I forgot I need that” things I have to walk past. Picking up the iPad to read [...]

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Generation C

December 2, 2011

We, the thirty-somethings of the First World, are cynical. We have every right to complain. I mean, we followed their instructions perfectly. We took all of their tests. And we were failed. A college education wasn’t supposed to be privilege. It was an endowment, one that was suppose to unlock even greater entitlements. The 20th [...]

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Microsoft: watching the ships go by

December 1, 2011

David Sparks makes a really good argument for why Microsoft needs to develop iOS versions of Microsoft Office. I agree. I see several risks Microsoft brings on itself by avoiding iOS development. The alienation risk Today, in 2011, many, many Office users are also iPad owners. These people want an easy way to view and [...]

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Marked: it does email, too

November 29, 2011

I get a lot of email from people who use Microsoft Outlook. I don’t know why, but the font size in their emails is smash-your-eyeball-to-the-screen small. I consider myself to have great near vision, but I can’t read these emails. So I usually select all of the text and paste it into a text editor. [...]

8 comments

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