How to become a genius
“You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired. This should lead to radically improved intelligence and creativity. The only cost: turning your back on every convention of social life.”
Citation from: Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm.
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Any shape or size…
“when an object can be any shape or size, what shape or size should it be?”
I love following Jan Chipchase’s Future Perfect blog. It documents an amazing level of ethnographic research that most companies simply don’t have the luxury to participate in. The quote above is a closing slide in one of his presentations. It stuck me because of it’s dual use as both a design meditation, and a serious question designers of any product should be able to answer. It also begs the reverse question for existing design:
If this object could have been any shape or size, why did it end up like this?
(Via: Insight & Innovation: Design Research, Nokia Connection 2007 [ppt])
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Ninety-ninety rule
“The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time.”
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A few books I'm reading now:
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Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects)
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Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People 2nd Edition
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The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields
-- Sort of a cliff-notes version of "How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits", but I thought I'd buy them both.
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How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits: (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops)
A few books I'd recommend:
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Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
by Charles Wheelan -- A fantastic overview of the field of Economics. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson -- a true tale of scientific thinking throughout history. You'll be amazed by how much we still don't know.
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Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner -- a fun read offering a somewhat different way of looking at society. Answers questions like "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?", and what qualities in a parent matter for the success of a child later in life?
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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen. I'm a bit of a GTD freak since reading this, but productivity == $$ (whether you can simply get more work done in a given time, or work less by focusing on the right tasks.)