Shonzilla, a pattern-seeking animal

Tue Mar 16

Sometimes safety of work is disregarded for the sake of getting things done.

Even though I don’t get how people become so fearless and careless about their ~~health~~ life, it’s totally beyond me when safety is ignored when fun is involved, like in the inflatable pool above. I mean, it’s not the adrenaline rush you get from extreme sports we’re not talking about here!

Hm… where’s that Darwin Awards submission form?

Thanks to Istok for this gem.

Fri Jan 29

Life in a nutshell.

[via juliasegal, via underpantscharleston, via theinnermusing]

Sat Mar 21

Goodbye Google

This link makes an interesting read where Doug Bowman, the (ex) lead visual designer at Google, explains why he has left the company.

In a nutshell, Google has a data fetish and it’s hard to blame them. All that data crunching got them where they are today.

apparently tired Doug Bowman, lead visual designer at Google

Mr. Bowman apparently got tired of all that data-driven decision making that completely wiped out the subjective (what’s creative and visionary in user experience design I would say) from top designer’s work. Unofficially, Bowman is heading for greener and more exciting design pastures, like those at Twitter, which I believe is the best candidate for being the new Google… of social media… that is becoming mainstreeam. Doug promises to disclose his new employer in a followup blog post.

Apparently, Google does not know how to deal with designers, and I’m not thinking of the software designer kind (those should be called software engineers anyway). The root of the problem seems to have been in the fact that Google has not highly ranked designers until 7 (yes, seven!) years after the company was founded. Sure, it may have not been a problem for a company that was known for the same simple welcome page for almost as many years. The problem can be seen in the CS PhD-like data-obsessed culture that has formed along the way.

Among many nice things and experience he has had at Google, Doug concludes by stating that he “[…] won’t miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data.”

Adam Howell, another designer who left Google wrote in his post Google’s “designer drain”: “Test driven design certainly has a huge place on the web — but it has to coexist with opinionated design.” Amen! This is one of the points where Google and Apple differ a lot. Apart from the reality-distorting field of Steve Jobs’ vision and its killer combination with industrial design (Jonathan Ive) and execution (Apple engineers), Apple has a common design vision that drives the design of all Apple products and services. On the other, Google is diversifying ever so more, occasionally acquiring companies and it seems to be too hard to create and implement an all-encompassing design vision.

It’s time to ask: Should Google to (finally) shift gears? Seems that they should loosen up their elbows, ruffle their ~~plumage~~ hairdos and get more creative while maintaining the technical edge it definitely has in the several fields of the immensely relevant internet medium.

Wed Mar 18

Lost Generation

The power of words when you put them in the right order… Think about these!

[via metroamv]

Sun Jan 25

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

The meme of “4-hour work week” (heavily promoted by Tim Ferriss and his book bearing that name) strikes me as curious enough to react when I hear an original comment on the subject of work vs. fun vs. pastime.

This subject provoking many questions like:

What is work?
Is it good not to work?
What kinds of work can someone else do instead of you? or What kind of work can really be outsourced?
What is the goal in not working? (perhaps, you should define work first)
Why does the work need to stop before fun begins?
How much or how little can a human being work before going insane?
Do you believe someone saying “Yes, I’m surfing the Net. I need it for work.”
Do you believe someone telling you “Can’t talk now, I’m working!” is telling the truth every time?
Is this guy Tim Ferris really lying (pun intended) in net bed between two palms during his 36 non-work hours of the week and not working?
… any many others.

Probably answers to these questions would vary more than you think from person to person. What would you say?

I personally think that internet and shortened attention span has brought on a slew of misleading titles (of books, blogs and newspaper articles and beyond) that promote a (theoretical) possibility getting things done with ridiculously little effort or with amazingly little time. Some examples from some of my fields of interest: Teach Yourself Programming with Java in 24 Hours, Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours, Teach Yourself Spanish in 24 Hours, Teach Yourself Javascript 1.3 in 24 Hours, etc.

Regardless, you may want to listen to this parody called “14-second work year” that ridicules the 4-hour work week beyond belief. Yes, it goes overboard, but it also puts things into the perspective. The source of this audio - QPR (Quotidian Public Radio) is a parody in its own right of NPR (National Public Radio). :-)

NOTE: If you’re not very familiar with Tim Ferriss and/or you haven’t read his book “4-hour work week” You may also want to read bio before listening to the “14-second work year” story of Jim Fairness from this parody.