NONOBJECT Design Fiction Book

NONOBJECT Design Fiction Book

Ever since I first bought my copy of A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech, I have been very keen on learning more, not just about being more creative, but also about the process of creativity itself. It's sort of a Zen thing, where you strive for enlightenment or the creative state, but you can only achieve it by not thinking about it.

You can't be creative by scheduling yourself a task to be creative. You have to, as von Oech puts it, challenge your day-to-day, minute-by-minute thinking to identify and surpass various "mental locks" that we've learned in our lives to adapt to test-centered schools, policy-driven companies and routine-based lives.

This author/designer in the NONObject book has really done a great "what-if" exercise in his improbable objects. Spoons made of hundred miniature spoons, portable phones with gaps for buttons, or with no display, and all sorts of other fantastical objects are meant to challenge your assumptions about design.

Why do we really do certain things certain ways. Is it some sort of fundamentally important requirement that has just settled into our skin and bones? Or is it a result of some inertial Zeitgeist that has long since become obsolete?

Often, you cannot discover which features are truly required and which are no longer necessary, until you turn a design on its head, make a fantastical what-if scenario, and try to solve that problem for real. Only then will you find yourself facing impractical problems that highlight other design choices that you weren't consciously thinking of. Only then will you be broken from your patterns of thought enough to solve problems in unconventional ways, perhaps even discovering something more efficient or enjoyable.

In my day-job as a software developer, I'm known as someone who excels at "thinking outside the box" (a tired cliche that nevertheless is most useful to get the point across). I'm often the one who suggests completely bizarre and unexpected approaches to problems. I'm often the one who comes up with ridiculous solutions, too. But even in those cases, the ridiculous suggestions help me learn more about the problem I'm trying to solve, so it's a win.

Take a look at the NonObject book and web site, and also at Roger von Oech's web site.

Terrible Customer Service

I just got done helping my dear mother post a complaint about a local shoe store where she recently had problems. I'll post her complaint message in a sec, but let me just break it down for you.

She goes to this Bakers Shoes joint and buys some shoes she likes. The sales gal asks if she wants to keep the shoe box, and my mom says naah, I don't need it. All good, right?

Well, my mother decides that maybe she really didn't need these shoes, after all, the pointy toes don't quite fit her style like they did in the 1960s (she's in her 70s, but as formidable a woman as I've ever known -- I'm proud she's my ma, you know?), so she takes them back the next day to return them.

The gal who helps her happens to be the manager of the store....

She happens to be the same gal who sold them the day before....

And she says that, because she didn't have the shoe box, she couldn't return the shoes!

My mother reminds her that she gave her the option of going with or without box, and she'd never mentioned that the box was a requirement for returning them. And mind you, this is not something she'd encountered since coming here in the sixties.

So read on below, and use this experience as a guide to whether or not you want to shop at Bakers Shoes. With customer service like this, why would anyone?

After living in the United States since 1966, I never had any problems returning merchandise until today. I went into your store (in Irving mall 3649 Irving mall TX 75062, tel: 972 594 4974) Friday 12/27/2007 and bought a pair of boots: your salesperson, who happened to be the manager ( I just learned it today), asked me if I wanted a box: I said "no, a plastic bag will be ok", nothing more was said. I paid with a credit card. Today, Sunday 12/ 23/2007, getting ready to pack for the holidays, I thought that pointed shoes were OK for a 30 years old in the sixties but not for a 70 years old grandma in 2007 and decided to return them and exchanged them for something more comfortable. Let me be clear on this, I had not even worn the shoes outside of the store. I talked to the same person: Krystal: (and I supposed that the number next to her name is hers:) 35528 who told me that they don't accept returns, when I pointed out that there was no mention of no return in the sales receipt, she told me that they do not accept return without the box: I pointed out that she didn't mention anything about having the box if I wanted to return the shoes, when I bought them on Friday she then asked one of the other assistant to call somebody (I think I heard the word security) but after a day of Christmas shopping the only thing I wanted to do was going home. I then asked if there was somebody who was wearing shoes size ten: and a beautiful young lady who is expecting a baby told me yes: I then gave her the shoes. I do not have to tell you that I will send this note to all my friends and I will never put my feet (excuse me with shoes from other store) in your store.

TokBox

Get your own TokBox at www.tokbox.com.

The Big Bang Theory on CBS.com - Home

The Big Bang Theory on CBS.com - Home

Holy smokes! This was an unexpectedly funny show. I kept expecting a train wreck, and even now I'm not sure how many shows I'll get to see before it is taken off the air, but this show is well written, the dialog is timed perfectly, and I'm going to enjoy every show I can!

PS, if you have a TiVo and Amazon Unbox, download the pilot show and pause it at the end when you can find a white page with text on it. A very funny bonus!

Workingamerica.org: BadBoss - My Bad Boss Contest, Tell Your Bad Boss

Workingamerica.org: BadBoss - My Bad Boss Contest, Tell Your Bad Boss

Think your boss is bad?

I've heard some doozies. Watched my sister face her new career going down the tubes because a boss made a pass at her, and watched her find her career went down the tubes because she sued for the right not to be harassed. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I've had my own horrible bosses, and learned how to get by on four or five hours of sleep simply because I was too stressed to sleep enough.... For three years, I woke up before my alarm clock, which I hated, just because I worked at a place which would fire you if you were late (five minutes or more) three times in a year.

Maybe it'll make you feel better to hear how other people have it worse. Then again, maybe it'll make you puke. Regardless, here's one for the poor saps in the Veal Fattening Pens that are our cubicles. Put some Vaseline under those leg shackles and read the AFL-CIO's MyBadBoss contest.

And if you insist you have it worse, why not submit your story!

Write Your Representative - Contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Write Your Representative - Contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

I have, for the first time in my life, actually written my congressperson. I received a "Washington Report" recently (see http://www.house.gov/duncan/August2007WashingtonReport.htm, page 2), and came across a paragraph made up of quotes about Global Warming now being a bad problem.

Now, to be sure, the quotes talk about "alarmism" leading to the cutting off of funding for dissenting views (those that disagree with the position that the Earth ground level temperature is rising and/or that it is our fault), and I am a supporter of the notion that science must have a clear and open forum for research and presentation of data.

However, I know from several of my government research friends that the opposite is actually happening. I have met and heard of more than a few researchers, very a-political people, almost to a fault, finding their research dollars have been slashed, or their published papers being edited, with important findings removed, because they show and present evidence supporting the global warming trends.

Please, please please, write your congressperson and let them know YOUR views. Ideally, their job is to not speak from their own uninformed positions, but from their constituents. Whatever your position on the debate in question, LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOUTHINK! Though I usually hate forwarding these things to friends unless I know for certain they might also be interested, if you are of a mind to, forward it on to your friends, and they to theirs....

If you're interested, here's what I sent. I used http://www.house.gov/writerep/, though I am sure there is one for the senate as well (email me if you come across it before I do).

In your recent "Washington Update" mailing, you write about two quotes criticizing the global warming debate. The general tone of this section seems to suggest that you also agree with these people and that global warming is not an issue that needs to be addressed.

I know scientists researching these problems, good people in good standing, who have little political bias and a great respect for withholding their opinions on matters until they have sufficient evidence and due diligence in study. I have yet to meet one out of the several I know that has expressed any doubt whatsoever that a) there is a problem that is leading to overall rising in global temperatures, b) that these issues will lead to catastrophic problems near-term and long term such as the melting of the world's ice, flooding of coastal areas, changes in climate across the globe, famine and disease due to the effect of animal population sizes and migrations, as well as those of the human populations, and c) that some large part, if not the greater part, of the causes are human in origin.

However, even if you refuse to believe this and prefer to find a minority of experts who tell you it is all a fantasy, as an elected representative of this region in our government, I plead with you to understand that your views DO NOT REPRESENT the views of this constituent, nor of several others that I know.

The price of being wrong in assuming global warming is real is not that large. It will lead to new technologies, new jobs and will place Tennessee, a fine source of natural resources, in the forefront as a progressive state, concerned about business and the environment at the same time. Fear of losing business money and jobs are not as great as has been suggested.

On the other hand, the price of being wrong in assuming there is no global warming problem is very large. War in the Middle East, already hot and already tense, is certain to become worse, leading to tighter resources of oil. Across the world, people will find their resources, access to water, to land, will change. Coastal areas will become flooded. People inland will find themselves without water as their local temperatures rise, people will leave drought stricken areas to other areas already dense in population. World-wide, economies would be made unstable, and we know now that the US economy is not safe from these problems.

Please do not entrench yourself in thinking that global warming as an issue will not be serious enough for you to address.

The problems are serious and must be addressed now.

Grand Central gives me a new phone number

Call me any time by clicking on this button. Or just call 865 686 6181.

V

At Group of 8 Meeting, Bush Rebuffs Germany on Cutting Emissions - New York Times

At Group of 8 Meeting, Bush Rebuffs Germany on Cutting Emissions - New York Times:

This G8 meeting in Germany had, apparently, the usual demonstrations, and the usual police intervention. But this year, they apparently decided to apply some well-considered satire....

"Demonstrators in clown makeup and pink and yellow wigs danced outside a steel fence surrounding the meeting site, clashing with the police, who used tear gas to disperse them."

I have to wonder if they were playing Smokey Robinson.

KnoxNews: Local

Knoxville makes the national news!!!

KnoxNews: Local

This story has been cracking me up. Seems this state cop took up a Knoxville part-time resident, part-time porn actress (Knoxville has one of those?) up on her offer of a blowjob to make a drug charge go away, and now the cop is in trouble because of a little thing of behaving badly in uniform, and using state equipment (his laptop) to visit her porn website. It's gotten coverage on Digg.com (http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Lick_it_or_Ticket_Tennessee_Troopers_Launch_New_Initiative, http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Trooper_fired_for_getting_blowjob_from_porno_star_during_traffic_stop, http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/troopers_routine_stop_turns_into_a_porno_lucky_guy, http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Porn_Star_Gives_Trooper_an_Oral_Favor_Gets_Out_of_Traffic_Ticket), in papers in Salt Lake City, UT, among others, and even on the national news (seems she was invited to fly out to New York to do the morning news shows).

The cop was about to be fired, but he resigned first to keep his pension, and apparently he now facing felony charges (though the starlet in question has some things to say about that:-) http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5564346,00.html. Apparently, she's quite miffed that she's being put in the position of victim.

She's, meanwhile, been finding her website hit count has gone through the roof. Getting more popular every day! It's become a pay site (WARNING: (duh!) ADULT MATERIAL), but has a blog that talks a lot about the latest goings on: http://barbiecummings.blogspot.com/.

This is the best local news I've come across since I moved here in 1985!

Block Cell Phone Numbers - eMail going around

Submitted as a public service:

I keep getting emails, just like everyone else, that warn people to do this, that, or the other hokus-pokus activity (call this number, visit this link, register for this service!) to avoid that or this disaster.

They're not the usual spam, in that they are more likely to be sent from people you know, and typically will include about three pages of forwarded email addresses showing the power of the internet to play party games like Operator, except you don't have to repeat what you thought you heard, but you get to keep the original text (but, sadly, frequently not the pictures) of the original email, if you are only patient enough to weed through email addresses as anti-virus reports.

Usually, I get these emails from my mother, the mother of a friend or a client-turned-friend from a past job.

They are typically emails with "little-known facts" trivia content, or maybe political rants using half-truths and distorted rumors that purport to show some conspiracy of some sort. But frequently the emails are about scams, computer software gotchas that will leave you with vulnerable security, things like that. Usually, I'll just do a quick search on the Internet and reply to my mother or whoever sent the email (sincerely worried that not spreading the news will leave people vulnerable) that they need not be concerned, here's a link to help you understand more.

Now, when I get these emails, it's usually with a note saying something like "I don't know if this is true or not" or maybe I'll get a forward specifically to me alone asking if it's true and should they send it on to their friends....

I thought I would share this latest one and reconstruct the email history in normal reading order. To those who might now know of these useful tricks, I hope this is helpful to you. To those who know of alternative approaches, please fell free to post your criticism and comments!

---------------------------------
The original email
---------------------------------

REMINDER...12 days from today, all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.

.....YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.

It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.
It blocks your number for five (5) years.
You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.
You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
It take about 20 seconds.

---------------------------------
The forwarded email I got
---------------------------------
Hi folks,

I assume this is accurate. If anyone know or finds out it isn't, please let me know. Have a nice day!


Mary


---------------------------------
My response
---------------------------------

Matter of fact, I got this email a few weeks ago from my mother. It is a scam, though a fairly bizarre one, in that the end result is to get your number on the do-not-call list, so that's okay.

One way I go about checking the validity of some of these emailed claims is to assume that if it is a con or a myth, probably other people have already come across it. So I will take some distinctive text from the email and search for it on Google, maybe adding "truth" or "scam" or "myth" to the search terms.

Usually one of the top links that pops up will be to a government (.gov) web site, or one of the sites devoted to urban myths (www.snopes.com is one great example, though there are others). If the page is indeed on one of these sites, then I am pretty confident I can rely on that information, and often I will find that the email they display is pretty much identical to the one I received, and I can get the facts on it.

In this case, to do it from scratch, I searched for "all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies" and found a Yahoo link that said "Yahoo! Answers - Cell phone Do Not Call list (is it for real)?". Now that's not a reliable source, but sometimes people put links to .gov or other sites in their answers. Detective work.

So I looked at the page, and I was right. They guy said it was false, and provided a link to http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp .

And at the bottom of that page, I hit pay-dirt: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/04/dnc.shtm.

This is a .gov site, and it talks about this email specifically. In it, they specifically mention the following:

• FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers on their cell phones without their consent.
  
  
• The federal government does not maintain a national cell phone registry. Personal cell phone users have always been able to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry — the same Registry consumers use to register their land lines — either online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll-free 1-888-382-1222 from the telephone number they wish to register. Registrations become effective within 31 days of signing up and are active for five years. There is no cut-off date or deadline for registrations.
  
  
• Business-to-business calls are not covered under the Registry.

So, feel safe. Go ahead and add your number. But don't worry about any release of numbers.

If this is useful to you, feel free to pass it on.

Vania

Scientific American: Ask the Experts: Chemistry: Occasionally the ice cubes in my freezer's ice trays will develop a stalagmitelike shape without any obvious, unusual interference. Can you please explain what causes this?

Scientific American: Ask the Experts: Chemistry: Occasionally the ice cubes in my freezer's ice trays will develop a stalagmitelike shape without any obvious, unusual interference. Can you please explain what causes this?

See also http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~smorris/edl/icespikes/icespikes.html

About 8 months ago, our small web development company moved into a historic office building in downtown Knoxville, TN. We got settled in and comfortable and slowly collected our own comfortable space for coding, design, and most importantly, break time.

Our simple refrigerator had plenty of room for ice trays, an ice pack for my knees which flare up from time to time, and several frozen lunches for the employees I work with.

But soon enough, one of my co-workers and I started to notice that our ice-trays had weird things happening. Our ice cubes were growing spikes! Well, after months of trading theory back and forth (and debunking each theory as we saw fit), I finally come across an answer! It appears someone has already been studying this, and as he says on his web site: "you are not alone ...".

Take a look!

The Top Ten Most Practical Superpowers

The Top Ten Most Practical Superpowers

At long last, an in-depth analysis of superpowers and their practical limitations. I love that Superman's XRay vision drops him directly into the puddle of pervie Peeping Tommishness.