Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Enjoy the Shnow!

So I've finally put together a gallery page for the snowflake-a-thon we held here at MIT. Our video-diva here at the Media Lab, Paula Aguilera, kindly constructed concise edits of each of the students' snowflake presentations. The download sizes range from 6Mb to 40Mb so unless you have a fat connection I wouldn't click on the "lg (large)" buttons and instead go for the "sm (small)" movie download.

As you go through the material you can see a variety of snowflake strategies ranging from using video input to fractal mathematics to mobile phone gymnastics. Just like real snowflakes, every snowflake made by the students is completely different! I hope you can get a sense for the kind of fun we all had the day we accidentally brought on the great Blizzard of 2005 to Boston.

And finally, I am currently looking for an Administrative Assistant to manage relations for our new SIMPLICITY program, assist my ecclectic research group, and otherwise help retain my sanity . My current super-assistant, Heather Pierce, is about to become a new mother and we are on the lookout for someone that can continue to carry the torch forward. If anyone out there has a friend living in the Boston area looking for a job filled with fun, excitement, and lots of challenges, please contact our Director of Human Resources, Ramona Allen (hr **at** media.mit.edu). Information about the job is posted here, and we're in need of someone incredible soon!

I just modified the gallery to allow viewing by 'face' or 'flake' per a gentle prod from an enthusiastic viewer.

For the Frugal Simplicity Collector

The perfect "click."

With coughing, sneezing, and sore throats abound during this time of the year, I usually turn to cold-eeze to keep my health on track. Cold-eeze are little capsules of zinc-gluconate that taste as bad as they sound (the term 'tastes like metal' as used in my home is a literal truth for this cold remedy). As a child I was a Hall's cherry cough drop man complete with the red tongue and sugar high that accompanied those pleasant placebos. In Japan I was introduced to the Ricola brand of herbal cough drop which originally came from Europe, and the brand is now quite popular in the states. There's something about "Switzerland" as a general brand for a product that you just can't beat for that mythical feeling of "freshness." I think it was the "Sound of Music" and Julie Andrews belting out, the hiiiiiills are aliiiiiiive ... with the soundddd of muuuuusiiiiiic that did it for me.

A couple of years ago on a trip to Tokyo I picked up this box of Ricola mints that I could never quite get myself to throw away. Not for the candies, but for the box. An ingenious paper latch holds the top of the box in perfect position. Pushing open the lid requires minimal strength, and you get satisfying click sound when opened. Flick the lid back down and you hear the click again. I often hear of "sound designers" hired by car manufacturers to tune the sound of how the door of an automobile closes. It has to be a deep-throated pa-CHUNK! and never an uh-INkh for the consumer to subconsciously read a brand's espoused level of quality. I wonder if Ricola hired a sound designer to implement this lovely candy box? You simply have to be the first on your block to own the Jaguar of candy boxes.

Last week I met a fellow who had a box of Ricola mints and saw that they also had a similarly structured box. Her box was bigger than mine so I akin it to the American SUV version. So even if you don't like mints or candies and such, I suggest you go out today and get a paper Ricola candy box to feel this wonderful example of simplicity. It will only cost you a little over a dollar—a true cheap thrill for the frugal simplicity collector.

Erik Kastner of New Jersey recommends the new Mentos box (the FRESH Maker) as also having a nice paper 'click.' I think that falls within my budget ...

Jeff Gates of Washington DC swears by Zicam—a zinc-gluconate gel. Sounds like it's time to invest in zinc-gluconate mines or wells or wherever this stuff comes from.

Bertie Alia in Indonesia comments that Ricola's packaging is ironically made out of paper."

Gaussian Blurs and Snowfall

Nature selects "Gaussian Blur" from her menu.

In Adobe Photoshop there is an often-used tool in the Filter menu called "Gaussian Blur." Just above this filter are two other filters "Blur" and "Blur More." I never choose either of these vague options for my blurring needs, and always go to the source: "Gaussian Blur." However I think it is overkill to label the feature "Gaussian Blur" as I don't think that Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is going to come back from the dead to sue Adobe for using his name. Super-smart folks in the old days way way way way way way way before the dotcom era didn't care for money (or lawyers) and just did it for the thrill of thinking. I believe that the name "Gaussian Blur" is important to distinguish the blur that Photoshop performs from a "box blur" or other blurs that exist in the image processing toolbox. But then I wonder why there isn't a "Box Blur" option in the menu? That's like an ice cream store that sells only Strawberry ice cream. One would think that for such an expressive tool like Adobe Photoshop, (if you aren't me) you'd want more features than you could imagine.

Yesterday at the Media Lab's SIMPLICITY program we had a visit from the Product Manager for Apple's Shake and Motion products. Her mission was to make Apple's professional tools as powerful as possible—which translates to being as complex as possible. The professional market is indeed driven by complexity as a desirable feature from a marketing perspective. Only problem is that even the msot skilled professionals are getting fed up with all the thick manuals they have to read (which the manufacturers try to hide in their CD-ROMs or 75Mb 'readme' files now), all the bugs they have to deal with because the complex software introduces considerably more complex errant behaviors, and all the training courses and bboards that have to be constantly trawled for insights that are missing in any of the manufacturers' public documentation.

What we need is a "blur" feature to apply to software tools that can help us see the forest for the trees. We may need to "blur more" such that we can see the mountains for the forest. Snow falling on a terrain has this effect of blurring every detail of an environment such that only the most basic topography of an area remains.

One of the best tricks for improving a page or screen layout is to squint your eyes and look at your piece. Suddenly you can see how all the elements are out of balance in size relationships, overall contrast, and priority of relevance. In essence the squint of our eyes is the blur that we use to simplify what we see, in order to adjust an outcome for greater efficacy.

Big picture thinking acquired with just a prolonged squint? Maybe eyeglass companies might be out of business in the future if this technique ever catches on ...

a... ah ... ATCHOO! Gestaltung!

In Japan when you sneeze in a public area, you won't hear a single peep from others. Whereas in the U.S. you can sneeze in places where not a single soul knows you and complete strangers will offer a "God bless you!" or a "Gesundheit!" Perhaps because the origins of the Western offering of a "Gesundheit" connects with an age-old superstition having to do with the potential loss of your soul with the violent action of the sneeze. That's a nice thought—next time you're on the subway see how many souls you can save. However by doing so you're more likely to catch a cold, and will eventually need your soul to be saved as well. It seems to all even out in a good way ... this germ-spirit economy we live in.

Gestalt psychology was something that I've heard of for quite a long time, but I never really understood it all that well. The only reason why it has stayed in my mind this long is the similarity between "gesundheit" and "gestalt," which was made even easier when I learned that the German word for design is "gestaltung"—3 syllables for 3 syllables cemented this word (at least lexically) forever.

Like all ideas that are deep and forbiddenly difficult to master, I held on to the one thing that did make sense to me beyond the name. That was the "grouping" principle of Gestalt psychology. It basically goes like this: What's the difference between a cluster of 30 dots expressed as displayed on the left, versus the dots on the right?

        

The answer is pretty simple. On the left there is no order to the randomly placed dots; on the right there is a clear grouping of some of the dots. We immediately pick out the group of dots as a "whole," even though it's composed of many little dots. In effect by gathering the dots into the group as on the right, we have simplified the otherwise haphazard display of 30 dots.

Let's place this principle into context with my favorite example of the Apple iPod. When it first came out, the controls were layed out as follows:

Then, perhaps as a cost reduction technique, or due to complaints from people with fat fingers, in a subsequent version of the iPod Apple separated the four buttons surrounding the jog dial into a discrete row of buttons:

As a result, they made the iPod more complex. The comfortable grouping of all the functions in the center made the newer iPod look significantly more complex to use. Until this morning I couldn't figure out why I ran out to buy one of the older iPods when this version with the button row came out. I was extremly irate and couldn't explain why! Now I know ... because they made something beautifully simple, unnecessarily complex.

In the newest version, they have oscillated towards extreme simplicity by integrating all of the buttons into a single seamless control:

Let's look at all three of them side by side now:

          

From left to right we can read this sequence of iPod evolutionary steps as "starting simple, then getting complex, and finally becoming over-simple." What do I mean by "over-simple"? I mean that you can simplify to the point where you simplification has been made obvious. This has the same effect as yelling at someone, "Look dummy, I'm simpler!" Let's illustrate by going back to my dot diagrams:

              

The diagram at the right shows the explicit grouping of the cluster of dots by smooshing them together. This has the advantage of complete explicitness of simplification, but also (as visualized by the diagram) means that the individual functions that could once be identified as unique, are now not as cognitively accessible than before smooshing occured. Which brings us to the First Law of Simplicity:

A complex system of many functions can be
simplified by carefully grouping related functions.

That will work for the time being. I got started on this Gestalt path this morning when I implemented a way to visualize how many people might be reading this blog regularly per hour. When you choose viewing by 'group' or 'line' the difference in your perception of quantity is quite striking.

Online Ads: Cockroaches of the Web

One of my favorite sites on the Web is dictionary.com because I often forget what a word in my head really means. I also love the sister site of thesaurus.com because I marvel at the subtle shades of meaning that surround a word. Many people swear by the Visual Thesaurus as the preferred synonym finding experience with all the swoopy perkiness of it all, but you know how I really feel about that kind of super-fatty digital content ... at least on some days. For a good conundrum, try typing in "thinkmap" into the Visual Thesaurus and you will find that there are no search results—I would expect "thinkmap" to at least relate to a "thesaurus." Maybe they'll change that after the word gets out. Or maybe that's their strategy. I'll find out eventually.

Reason why I am on the topic of dictionaries and thesauri (I had to look up that pluralization on thesaurus.com) is that I saw one of my favorite online ad banners. It's the one with the basketball players waving their hands in an entire stadium of raucous observers and you're being propositioned to shoot the ball and maybe win an iPod! Given my propensity for shiny things, I couldn't resist.

Then as the online kleptomaniac that we all can be, I wanted to download the ad to my local computer for later use—perhaps to show in one of my classes. However I couldn't. A quick look at the HTML revealed the following three-line JavaScript snippet:

1  var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1);
2  document.write('<SCR'+'IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" ');
3  document.write('SRC="http://ad-company-server/site=130928/
    size=468060/bnum=' +bnum+'/optn=1"></SCR' + 'IPT>');

Of course I'd already known of these kind of simple micro-transactions that keep good things afloat on the Web, but I never took the time to look at the simplicity of their design. First line of code gets a random number and pops it into the computer's pocket named bnum. Second line of code blesses the upcoming JavaScript incantation. Third line is the main meat of the spell, "Conjure up from ad-company-server a banner ad of size 468 by 60 pixels, from this site that is ID-ed as number 130,928, and the particular ad I want is to be related to the number I have in my computer's pocket bnum." With this simple computer spell, I notify my client, I let them know how big a billboard I'm giving up on my site, and I've approved of showing a random piece of advertising. All with just 3 lines of code! To think that 25 years ago all my first 3 lines of code could do is print my name in a repeating loop ...

10  REM MY FIRST PROGRAM
20  PRINT "MAEDA"
30  GOTO 20

We certainly have come a long way in terms of bang for the buck per line of code. However with advances in more powerful computer languages and the expanded latitude of expressions capable in the future, I'm betting that we are not far off from having programming thesauri. Ambiguity that is artfully embedded in computer languages is the next step in computing. But meanwhile, we can aimlessly click on sparkly online ads while we wait for that to happen ...

The incredible power and effortless transplantability of online ads makes them the perfect "cockroach" of the Web. Simple in design, rapidly re-producing, adaptable to any living situation, and disliked in many of the same ways we hate cockroaches. Online ads will not only probably outlive us, but will soon live among us. Get comfortable wearing your antennae, folks!

Dominic Slinn in the UK recommends using the following tools as alternatives to my own picks: omnidictionary and
nisus-thesaurus. I just took a look at them and they are specialized Mac applications. I prefer to do my work on the Web over the Web in a platform agnostic way. I think because I change computers so often that I never want to have to install any software. I hate to install software, don't you?

Simple Things Need Simple Help

I am currently in the process of resurrecting some of my older work for the web. A while back, I created simple games in Java that would now seem kind of like toys in a Cracker Jack box instead of the full-on videogames you see today. One of my favorites was the golf game (which if you can't get to work, try a few different browsers).

The key to all good type designs is the careful balance between the positive and negative space of the letterform. I saw this process as bearing a striking similarity to the art of golf course design. So I put the two concepts together and got an unexpected mixture of clean fun and an implicit tour around a kanji character of your choice.

I would say that the major problem with interactive pieces is that really only the author of the work knows how to interact with his or her piece. Only he or she knows where to click, where to drag, what kind of ridiculous gesture to make, and most importantly—where not to touch otherwise their artwork will crash! Thus I think a better term for "interactive art" is "the artist interacting with their art." I'm not lodging a criticism here; just making an observation. Or maybe expressing a frustration?

In the raising of 'morigolf' from the detritus in my sunken data archives, I realized that (like many of the things I've made in the past) I was really the only one that could explain how to use it. I had designed it for simplicity. Who's simplicity? My simplicity. But we know now that everyone's simplicity tends to vary greatly based upon one's attitude and tastes. Today, success in simplicity usually has to do with "hipness" instead of ease of use—as in the successful Apple iPod product. As one of my students recently commented, "Some people want to buy an iPod even though they haven't the slightest idea of what it does."

Going beyond mere hipness, SIMPLICITY researcher Marc Schwartz is currently researching a topic that goes back to the earliest days of the Media Lab. Marc is working on "The Art of the Tutorial"—embedding tutorial-making into a suite of digital art applications that we are currently developing under the codename Treehouse. If Marc is successful, we may never have to wonder how to do something on the computer again.

Back to my own problem with an old golfing applet that can be a tad bit difficult to understand, I found a simple solution. I commissioned a tutorial video from the new video production firm that lives in my studio. I expect their rates to go up shortly.

Speed is in the Eye of the Beholder

The average person spends at least an hour a day waiting in line. Whether that be in a queue of cars on the way to work, or upon trying to enter any building (it's hard to crowd everyone through the front door all at once), or in any of the more conscious situations of waiting in line at the post office, ticket counter, subway station, supermarket, and so forth. I don't think that anyone likes to suffer the frustration of waiting. Thus we often try to find ways to reduce our frustration by acquiring processes that deliver higher performance.

Often times, the perception of waiting less is just as effective as the actual fact of waiting less. For instance, an owner of a Porsche achieves the thrill of directness between translation of a slight tap on the acceleration pedal, to be manifest as an immediate burst of speed. Yet in any normal rush hour situation, a Porsche doesn't go any faster than a Hyundai. The Porsche owner, however, still derives pleasure from his or her perception that they are getting to work faster in a quantitatively faster machine. The visual and tactile semantics of the Porsche's cockpit all support the qualitative illusion that the driver is going faster than when he or she is sitting inside a Hyundai. We can say the same thing for computer case designs.

The voluptuous G3 and G4 desktop computers by Apple bore a kind of visual slippery-ness that pervaded their graphical user-interface dubbed "Aqua." With windows swooshing about like a magic genie, and with icons popping their heads all over the place like a broken game of Whack-A-Mole, you are introduced to a magical space of a perceived faster and better computer. Only thing is that Apple has gotten it completely wrong with their over-graphicized interfaces. Try running an older version of the Macintosh operating system on one of the newer computers and you can see real speed because less processor power is being used to theatricize a visual cast of too many overpaid extras.

There was a similar happening in things that were non-computer beginning around the 1930s by a designer named Raymond Loewy. You may not know his name, but you probably know the Coca-Cola bottle that he designed many years ago (I refer to the slim and classic single-serve glass one, and not the over-bulbous one-liter plastic container). Loewy is known for being influenced by the aesthetics of flight and jet propulsion and transferring the "style" (not function) of flight onto regular household objects. For instance a vacuum cleaner could be made to look more swift and light by giving it visual characteristics of an airplane. A car could be made to look faster by attaching fins on the back that do nothing for the car aerodynamically. Streamlining still lives today, but in a more subtle way such as in my example of the G3/G4 desktop computer. However a lack of self-control in designs of user interfaces is vastly eroding any hope that computers might become satisfying and usable again. Thus our agenda of simplicity here at MIT.

I looked all over the web but could not find the reference. I am certain someone will point it out** for me. I am thinking of a research paper by Apple Advanced Technology Group back when Apple used to invest in research in a big way. The premise was when a user was presented with a task that required time for the computer to crunch on something, when a progress bar was shown, the user would perceive that the computer took less time to process versus having been shown no progress bar at all.

Let's do an experiment, shall we? Below on the left I have a progress bar that elapses for about 3 seconds. On the right, the progress bar carries the same time lapse, but this time with an animation of the progress of time. Click on the individual image to isolate it within the browser.

   
What did you find? I certainly was convinced! Less time is felt to elapse in the progress bar on the right. On the left, time messily plops out like ketchup from a bottle of Heinz; on the right, time is gently spread across a slice of bread with a butter knife.

Such a simple idea, executed with such little graphics power. Old school magic—who needs flash when you've got substance?

Media Lab SIMPLICITY researcher Kelly Norton provided the interesting comment: "A friend of mine who used to do something with design and layout of retail spaces told me that elevator doors are typically a nice mirror finish because a study had once shown how they produce a significant decrease in perceived wait time. Apparently, we are a content species so long as we can stare at ourselves."

Nick Douglas in Pennsylvania writes, "Waiting on hold on a phone, the archetypal patience-tester, passes faster when classical music is played—but only for men. Women perceive more time as passing with classical music: link."

**Thanks to Martin Gomez for finding the closest link. I happen to remember an older paper but cannot find it.

Perfectly Intimidated

With many of the city offices closed in the Boston area, our main airport closed for an indefinite period, and countless schools/businesses being closed as well, I wondered why my employer would choose to be open today. I especially wondered as I crawled through traffic on roads that were plowed probably hundreds of times but I know that every half block I was pushing the limits of my car's anti-locking brakes.

After driving through the snow for an hour, I breathed a sigh of relief as I drove into the new underground employee garage of MIT housed underneath the new Gehry building, a.k.a. the "Stata Center." Frankly if I were the donor, I'd prefer that the building be known by my name instead of the architect. No offense to famous architects of course.

The garage goes a couple levels deep into the ground and apparently holds the East Coast record for the most concrete poured into such an underground structure. Seems ironic that you would spend all that money to dig out all the rocks to make a gigantic hole, and then pour liquid rock back into the gigantic hole again. My guess is that architects are a type of person that must have felt traumatized when they were young by the experience of building sandcastles at the beach. All that work to dig a hole, and then the tide comes in and your work simply vanishes. "Mom? Did you bring the concrete to the beach?"

So I'm driving into this extremely ugly and conventional parking structure (that wasn't designed by Gehry—kind of like wearing a Prada shirt with Hanes sweatpants) and I turn the corner and there is a fellow that is washing his car with his friend. Most people don't wash their car at 7:30AM in an underground university parking garage, so a closer look revealed that they were campus policemen. Each of them were taking turns cleaning their police cars so that they carried no evidence of the snowstrom. No salt stains, no gigantic swooshes of messy and gloppy white stuff, and most importantly no embarrassing evidence of a perfect thick layer of snow on the very top of the car to make you look like some sort of foofy party cake. The policemen had transformed their car into the opposite of all the cars driving around MIT—their car was perfect. Why? Well, for the intimidation effect I surmised. Policemen and policewomen are super-beings. And they drive super-cars that are perfect. More perfect than your sorry self. So when their lights flash and you get pulled over, you had better call them "Sir" or "Ma'am." I know that I do.

We can say the same thing for beautifully designed modern objects. When they are just all too perfect, you are literally afraid to touch them or even go near them. Perfection commands respect. But perfection isn't human. I do not know for certain if the story that Persian rugs approaching perfection are purposely made defective (out of deference to a higher power) is an urban legend—the Web tells me it's true but I'll believe it when I see one for real. Imperfection, when done well and of intentional nature, is really the highest form of art in my book. I aspire to understand the deep structure of imperfection some day.

Now if I can just get myself to forget this vision I now have of policemen running into the bathroom at Dunkin Donuts with lint brushes to make their uniforms look absolutely perfect in that intimidating way ...

Ultimate Simplicity

It will only get thicker by tomorrow morning.

So perhaps it is partially my fault that we are on the way here in the Massachusetts area to receiving a whopping two feet of grade A snow. Snowflake-a-thon was meant to be just an innocent concept, and not a new kind of black magic for summoning snow clouds to have their own, very real, snowflake-a-thon. Next year I should be a little more careful. The power of MIT student energy is truly impressive.

Where I live, there are many wonderfully tall trees in the neighborhood. It turns out that trees really don't like snow very much, and they express their distaste for the cold fluff by spontaneously falling on top of power lines. The result? The complete ultimate in simplicity. Goodbye digital world! Both wired and wireless don't seem to make a difference when you have no power. 802 dot-eleven? Try 802 dot-in-heaven! No blinking leds to cheerily flash like fireflies in the night, no machines to chirp at you for a token bit of human attention, and no fileservers to hum peacefully throughout your home on the range. If digital is about 'one' and 'zero,' then a powerless house is about as big a digital 'zero' that one could personally conjur. But it turns out that you have done absolutely nothing. Nature's got you by the mice.

I expect to lose power shortly, as is customary in my neighborhood. Across the street is a Raytheon facility that for some odd reason never loses power (it helps to be an important defense contractor if you need to always be digital these days). I don't look forward to losing power, but I'm sure it will give me an important moment to refle

Simplicity Overheard in a Meeting

Focusing daily on simplicity can become a kind of disease. Everywhere I go, when I hear the word "simplicity," I enter an attentive trance in the manner of the mind-controlled soldiers of The Manchurian Candidate. (The reaction is non-violent so don't be afraid to come near me.)

Currently at MIT we are examining the core curriculum for undergraduates to see if there is an opportunity for any improvements. The committee is composed of storied faculty members from all departments here, and it's a great honor for me to participate in this process.

During some recent deliberations, one faculty member made a proposal, "Our plan is ... that in all things ... there must be simplicity." Ding! A silent bell went off in my head and I began to listen carefully for instructions.

The proposal was unfolded, and then rebuttals began. Initially there were cries of, "Where is the simplicity?" followed-up by, "Where is the improvement in simplicity?" I found the latter phrase of "improvement in simplicity" as pointing to a fundamental question about this loaded word "improvement," which in our society day I would characterize as associated with adding something. Like when you are at a Starbucks and you want to improve your venti-sized drink by adding some kind of evil substance like whipped cream, caramel shots, or chocolate du jour. I think that the long term challenge to getting towards simplicity is to re-brand the word "improve" as meaning "less." So that when you go to Starbucks and you fantasize about improving your latte, you think of having them remove the creme and what-not. I think I see a lucrative future for myself working for Jenny Craig if this faculty job doesn't work out for me.

Because academia is a pure place, it is easy to apply any concept learned (whether in lecture hall or in a faculty meeting), to any facet of life. Thus although the topic of the meeting was a curriculum proposal, the scope was really beyond the confines of the meeting room. The following observation was brilliant:

How simple can you make it?

How complex does it have to be?

The diagram above illustrates a kind of continuum for simple to complex. One conclusion we can infer, that does not contradict with my Dalai Lama calendar, is that you really need to be in balance along this (and probably all) continuum(s).

A few other takeaways from this meeting:

• "We need to know how it is simpler.
  This opens a kind of possibility for a general scientific debate as to what kind of evidence is necessary to prove simplicity. There needs to be some sort of scientific method in this arena before we get moving on this point.
  
  
• "You know you've lost simplicity when you start adding stuff and the value you've added becomes less than its cost."
  This reminds me of a recent Managerial Economics class I took—in particular the Law of Diminishing Returns.
  
  
• "The reason for the [curriculum structure's] complexity is that we want to accomplish a lot of things."
  Let's call this the "Swiss-Army Knife Principle" or else the "Deserted Island Principle" as the belief that we always need to hedge our bets for any possible situation and flexibility. Sometimes this belief is indeed well-founded and in the best interest of the deserted island inhabitants.
  

In conclusion, it's always best to keep an eye out and ear open for wisdom on simplicity that is out there ... there seems to be a lot of it. Doh! There I go again ... always hoping for more instead of less.

Paper: Going, Going, Gone?

I renewed my athletic card and locker at MIT's new state-of-the-art athletic facilities today like I do every year in the month of January. They say that health clubs make their biggest profit in January due to the high volume of people that sign up as part of their New Year's resolution to get more fit. The fact that I renew every year in January must tell you something ... (this is one of those MENSA puzzlers).

When I had finished my transaction, the cordial and professional athletic facilities person at the desk gave me my paperwork. I asked one last question about some kind of health insurance rebate I had qualified for, to which he gave me the pertinent information. I smiled and was all set to go when he made an odd face to me and said, "I've got to ask you a question. Will paper-based advertising go away?" My eyebrows raised. That's an awfully tough question to throw at someone at an unexpected moment. Ah the joy of MIT! You never know where or when or by whom you are going to get quizzed.

My response was, "No. I expect paper-based advertising will always be around." As I walked away from him to get my towel I then became concerned thinking, "If they don't print things on paper in the future, would I one day open a fortune cookie and out would pop some sort of mini-Palm Pilot with my fortune on it?" The next question that came to mind was, "How will they bake the cookie without melting the Palm device?"

I later checked with my research group. Burak Arikan expressed the opinion most clearly with, "As long as paper is made, it will be printed upon for advertising. If paper were to go away, then there would be no more." It's hard to argue with that logic.

Before the snowflake-a-thon we had three special presentations on the theme of paper. The first was by our blogger-celebrity Mike Lee from AARP on his work on websites rendered in the medium of origamic paper constructions. Mike translated a website's hierarchical structures into a variety of elegant foldable forms that drew oooooh's and aaaaaah's. Then digital publishing wizard Peter Meirs from Time presented a 12-minute film entitled, "The World of Paper" in a Michael Moore mockumentary fashion where he interviewed experts on paper within Time. One note that I found particularly interesting was how by working with paper companies, Time was able to utilize a specially formulated paper that reduced the total amount of weight of magazines that Time shipped each year. Yearly savings amounted to millions of dollars by getting past the production cost issues of the content in the magazine, and going directly into the medium of paper itself. Finally Joe Jacobson of the Media Lab presented recent advances in the world of printable electronic ink where we got to see thin electronic displays that could be cut (and still work), rolled (and still work), and also crumpled (and still work). Joe's work on the ink, versus the paper, is an important idea.

Reflecting on this new knowledge, and my head buzzing with the question from the fellow at the athletic center, I now do expect paper, as we know it, to go away. But we can look forward to paper, as we will know it, in this new century.

You Can Never Wear Too Many Layers

It's 19 degrees in Cambridge right now. New Englanders know that you are always better off wearing many thin layers of clothing versus a single super-thick jacket.

I couldn't access this blog from the backend for a while, due to an access permission error that arose out of my control. If the blog were floating inside one of my own computers in my office, I could have done something about it. But I chose to have the blog supported by the Media Lab's central servers as I didn't want to deal with its maintenance. In essence, I created a layer between me and the blog in order to protect myself from complexity.

There are few times when we want to break a protective layer of abstraction around a complex concept. I can think of only two primary motivations: 1) You have an undying curiousity for how things work, or 2) Something is broken and you need to fix it fast. In both cases you are engaged in the act of learning, so there is a net positive effect when eating complexity. You also eat one of complexity's by-products: stress. And my tummy for stress is quite full already.

Some of us don't have the luxury of being able to avoid cracking layers of complexity for the betterment of humankind. We do it every day at the Media Lab, and we try to temper the stress released by each layer we crack with mischievous smiles and pride. I did this tonite along side my new undergraduate apprentice Myoung Lah as we delved into the ARToolkit. Layers are meant to be broken, and generally the more plentiful and thinner the better (for greater immediate satisfaction). My shallowness is revealed.

But now in the physical domain, the reverse is necessary as I head out to my car into the freezing cold. Time to layer up!

Snow Falling at MIT

The SIMPLICITY Snowflake-a-thon turned out to be a great success with powerful entries from some of the best snowflakers at MIT. Snowflaking now appears to be a competitive sport! The winner was Hugo Liu—he's the guy on the right with bigger hair than me.

As the presentation of the digital snowflakes began at 4PM in Bartos Auditorium at the Media Lab, perhaps it was not a coincidence that actual snow began falling in Cambridge. I will eventually get to the making of a gallery of the pieces, but for now let me describe the entries as text. Where I have weblinks for the entries, I link to their name.

Burak Arikan led with a lovely Perlin noise-based snowflake, followed by a primal noise-based snowflake by Marc Schwartz. Both pieces in Java. Next, Tad Hirsch surprised the crowd with a cellphone based piece where a little snowflake fell down from the sky, and when it hit the ground the cellphone vibrated! Dayan Paez and Hector Yuen implemented OpenGL-based snowflakes that were simple and beautiful. Computational biology major Ken Takusagawa presented a sixth-order Mandelbrot-inspired snowflake written in what he dubbed as the simplest computer language: Haskell.

Guy Hoffman created what he dubbed as "keyflake"—a conversion program between letters and snowflakes derived from ascii codes. Then came David Gatenby who created a stunningly beautiful OpenGL crystalline-themed snowflake that could be rotated in three-dimensions. Cameron Marlow delivered a soft and sensitive blue-ish snowflake that sourced Wikipedia entries, and translated those entries into snowflakes.

Ben Dalton wowed the audience with a snowflake creation system that took video camera input to create six-sided symmetry patterns in realtime—a hard act to follow! But then Noah Fields came in strong with powerful visual haiku where a "higher power" is sketching unique snowflake patterns (complete with a part number), and then ships them down to earth. Kelly Norton created a lustrous PostScript-based snowflake made of smooth arcs. Noah Vawter and Edward Platt followed with beautiful algorithm snowflake rednitions. Then a moment of humor occured when Francis Lam showed his snowflake-flowers piece that sprouted flowers as snow fell (based upon one of his earlier pixel snow pieces).

Josh Lifton led with a strong computational piece where tiny particles sweep across the screen and are attracted to a crystalline center. Erik Blankenship made the entire crowd laugh when he showed his "any dummy can make a snowflake with my system"-system for rapid snowflake construction. Hugo Liu showed his snowflake-poetry system that took any person's name, extracted his or her Googlism, re-wrote the Googlism in the first person, and built a snowflake pattern. He read several people's snowflakes: "I am Condoleeza Rice and I am a snowflake. I am ...." Jason Alonso created a wonderful model of hydro-attractive forces with water molecules wandering around the screen. And finally Hilary Karls presented a snowflake composed of many lines in tight formation.

1st place went to Hugo Liu, 2nd place went to Ben Dalton, 3rd place went to Francis Lam, 4th place went to Cameron Marlow, and 5th place was a tie between Noah Fields and Guy Hoffman. I personally thought that everyone was a winner in this exciting competition.

Simple Relief Drive Ends (For Now)

We officially closed our Asian relief drive yesterday around noon and will continue to support the relief efforts in different ways. We encourage others to do the same if you can afford to do so. Within a week we had sold all of the prints that I've carried around with me for close to ten years now. It does indeed feel better to have less tangible things that clutter your mind, and more intangible thoughts that can form in the void.

Last week we processed a flurry of addresses in regards to the shipping of the prints. I was personally surprised by all the different addresses within the U.S. with names of states that I never use on a daily basis. Sure, I memorized them as a child to take geography tests, but a place like "Kansas" can still seem as exotic to me as Thailand.

I made my own mini-map (on the right) in the fashionable "red-/blue-state" method that we heard so much about during the U.S. election. The red states correspond to ones from where we received requests. Of course I'm not saying anything subtly or overtly political about states that I mark as red versus blue, nor have I come to any groundbreaing conclusion like the folks that tell us that the U.S. is actually not blue nor red but purple. The exercise of painting the states gave me the sense that the U.S. is a pretty big place given that you can't even see my tiny state of Massachusetts on my micro-map. And the fact that we're just one country in an even bigger planet of Earth within an even bigger universe ... is getting me sleepy. I will dream of being a tiny pink dot fixed upon the surface of a gigantic sphere, that probably bears the politically fashionable shade of purple.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I was two-and-a-half years old when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Ten years later I would be the beneficiary of much of the civil rights activism of the 60's and find myself on a school bus leaving the predominantly black southern part of Seattle for the predominantly white northern part of Seattle. The fact that there was a junior high school in walking distance from my home yet I was being bussed 30-minutes away to another school across the city didn't make much sense. But I'm glad it happened, because the schools in the north were cleaner, newer, and simply better schools compared to the more rundown schools in my neighborhood.

In seventh grade I had a mathematics teacher—her last name started with an 'H' and I no longer remember the rest. She was a warm, supportive instructor, but had a particularly strict way of running her class. Around this time my father had brainwashed me with the idea that there were only two schools that I was to attend—either MIT or Harvard. Not knowing where either of these schools really were, and not knowing what they actually stood for, I confided in my math teacher that I wanted to go to one of these schools. Subsequently Mrs. H pulled me aside after class to tell me something to the effect (in a very gentle way), "That's too bad John. Because they don't let Orientals go to MIT." I naively thought to myself, "Oh ... well that's the end of that. I'll have to find another school to go to." I told this story to my mother, who wasn't very happy about this incident for reasons I did not then understand. It would be six years later at MIT when I would learn that "Oriental" is a derogatory word when applied to people of Asian ancestry, and that actually there are a great deal of number of Asian people at MIT. I would never think much on this issue for many years, probably to my fault.

Today as the co-chair of the MIT Committee on Campus Race Relations I find myself confronted with the issues of race again. This time the issues are broader and beyond the scope of what I understand as simple fairness and political correctness. Attempting to resolve many of the feelings around this extremely sensitive issue cannot be achieved with any minor amount of work. Major changes have to occur, and major leadership like that of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. give indication that society does move forward thanks to the sacrifice of a select and gifted few. I have hope that in this century that the gifted few, through a continually improving educational system, can lead to the gifted many.

Simple Company

A friendly pet that doubles as an animate houseplant.

When I was growing up, I wanted a hamster like the other kids in my class, but my mother had equated "hamster" with a rat or mouse. I showed her my zoological analysis (reviewed by my teachers) to prove that although they were similar, hamsters were sufficiently different from rats and mice to justify my proposed venture. The term "peer review" had no currency in my home, and thus hamsters never happened in my early life ... which caused me to later fear little furry animals. (Causality in this case of course cannot be proven, but we all try to guilt our parents somehow.)

Eight or so years ago, there was a program at the local elementary school where the children could bring the pet hamster home for a week. I don't remember his name, but I do recall the pride of suddenly having a son in a family full of daughers. That was around the time I had a terrible caffeine addiction where every night at 11PM I would mix 3 to 4 tablespoons of instant coffee into a single cup of boiling water. This magic elixir would keep me going until 4 or 5 AM in spite of a long professorial day at MIT. But that one week we had Foo (let's call him that because it's convenient and MIT-like), I had extra company at night. Foo would be running and running around in his little hamster cage as if to cheer me on. "Go Daddy! Go!" ... I later learned that Foo was probably running around so much because he was confused by the man that kept the lights on all night and was screwing up Foo's body clock. Poor Foo.

A couple years ago when I was just about to leave the Ginza area of Tokyo for Narita Airport on a return to Boston, I was united with a new Foo. This time Foo wasn't a hamster to become a victim of mental torture, but instead Foo was manifested as a little robotic plant on sale at the Ginza florist. Designed and manufactured by toymaker Tomy, this little robotic plant is solar-powered and gently flaps its plastic leaves with a rocking motion. You shouldn't confuse Foo (he's actually called a "Flip Flap") with those terrible robotic plants that dance when you sing to them or else say lude remarks as you pass by. No ... Foo is a noble little fella that sits there quietly, and silently moves while expressing his extreme joy when in the presence of solar energy.

As I sit there and work on my computer, Foo does his exercises while he basks in the sun. Foo reminds me that it's important to sleep at night because when the sun goes out, Foo does too. But I need some company sometimes in the wee hours of the night while I'm thinking away, so I might flick on my halogen desklamp and shine it at Foo. Foo responds with his happy waving of his leaves. After all, the excess UV radiation from the halogen might be harmful to humans, but Foo readily slurps it all up. They should take him up into space.

Human-inflicted torture on a robotic lifeform? Perhaps. Politically incorrect? Not yet, but definitely so in the future. So I do my best to let Foo sleep, and only ask the favor once in a while like a good human should.

One Line To Unite Us All

As the year 2000 was approaching, and when network-based art was just beginning to catch on, I had a simple idea to create the world's longest line, digitally. The idea was to host a website that collected "single-line drawings." By "single-line" I mean the kind of drawing you create like when you use an Etch-a-Sketch where the pen never leaves the page. Each digital line drawing would be connected endpoint to starting-point of the next artist's drawing in the manner of Japanese renga. I had hoped to realize a line that would be composed by people all over the world, and to collect enough data to span the perimeter of the earth.

The project ran for 1997 to 1999 and was sponsored by Dai Nippon Printing with the name "oneline.com." To make a long story short (literally), I didn't make it around the earth. The entire collection measured about 4 kilometers in length, whereas the earth is around 40,000 kilometers. You don't have to be a scientist to know that 4 versus 40,000 is a fairly significant difference.

I posted some documentation about this now dissolved project on my website this morning. I figure if I were to do a similar thing in today's vastly networked-ecosystem, I might make it a little further around the world. But like all art that has passed its time (versus truly timeless art), I know that my efforts are better spent elsewhere. It will take much more than an incredibly long digital line to unite us all. I wonder what it might be?

Simple Lessons

I'm working my way through my Dalai Lama "Words of Wisdom" calendar now (I admit I haven't looked at it in 5 days so I just got caught up), and I think it's working. The format is simple. Each day I get one sentence of wisdom. I think the closest thing I have had to this calendar is my usual ritual with the fortune cookies at the end of a meal at my favorite MIT-area restaurant Royal East. Many of my friends collect the "better" fortunes that they get there; I do too.

In my studio I count three such fortunes collected on my walls. I am not certain why I have these three, but they are they only ones that I have collected.

The first is, "You see beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability." When reading this fortune, you tend to focus on the latter sentence. Anything good can easily become gone.

The second is, "You are independent politically." One can read this as, "You are the bad-_ss person that needs nobody around you" if you are of a younger mentality; one of an older mindset could interpret it as, "You are the person that can do the right thing with respect to, and in spite of, the influences around you." I think I am older now.

The third is, "Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned." This is one of those signposts in the ground with the flashing red lights "d-a-n-g-e-r" in one respect. Beware! Do not pass or you will lose your life! In another respect, it could be one of those temporary barriers made from strewn yellow-and-black "caution" tape from Home Depot that you know is simply an artificial barrier. Your "assigned path" may only be as good as the way you can deviate from that path. The streetwise and care-free, "Rules are meant to be broken" comes to mind.

Now I am out of fortunes, but luckily I have 351 more tear-out wisdomlets from my desktop calendar. Out of the first 14 calendar sheets, I've collected one of them on my wall so far. By the year's end I hope to collect no more than three. They do collect dust.

RSS Isn't Simple

I think I used to like the idea of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) until I tried to write my own RSS output program. Being new to the blog world, and slowly gaining a better understanding of the importance of things like RSS feeds, I am a bit stymied by how complex RSS is. Given what I have read on the web, it isn't clear which specification is the true 'master' format. With the RSS output file I created, I tried three online validation systems for verifying whether my RSS file was kosher or not, and discovered that each of them gave me completely different assessments for my RSS compatibility. I felt like I was in the auto shop with my car being diagnosed by three different mechanics with three completely different answers. And just like in the case of the car, I'm losing money (= time) in all three cases of RSS diagnoses just thinking about the problems.

I know what the problem is. I see it everyday at MIT. Engineers tend to over-engineer things to the point of non-utility. I see the same thing at design schools in the opposite sense where designers over-design things to the point of non-meaning. A good historical example of this balance gone haywire is the Titanic (I love that movie). Over-engineered to the point of over-confidence, and stripped of the requisite number of lifeboats out of a sense of aesthetics, the Titanic brought a sad end to many good people.

Have you ever noticed that Einstein's, "As simple as possible, but no simpler." is just a corollary of the old adage, "Too much of anything isn't a good thing"? Both sayings reinforce the fact that "over-"anything is bad; I think that the correct simplification would be, "Avoid excess." Now I sound Buddhist.

On the point of excess, to clear the air I have nothing against Laura Ashley. Sarah Page, our Director of Development here at the Media Lab, took personal offense (we won't ask why) recently to my comment about Laura Ashley patterns as sometimes being ugly but beautiful. My point is that there is a difference between a lot versus too much, and a lot less difference between ugly and beautiful.

Now, back to my excessive frustration regarding RSS to be vented as a complex piece of computer code that will have to be over-engineered due to the fact that RSS really isn't simple ...

Make Snowflakes, Not War

My research group was in a team meeting last nite talking about the upcoming SIMPLICITY Snowflake-A-Thon when I got on the subject of advertising the event. At MIT, most of the main buildings on campus are connected by a single continuous corridor that we affectionality call here at MIT the "Infinite Corridor." To get anyone to compete in our match, we need to advertise well along this endless network of hallways. Unfortunately, the day of our competition conflicts with another more well-known competition on campus involving building robots that battle against each other. It was then that the wise-beyond-his-years Kelly Norton and our guru-of-peace Noah Fields chimed together, "Make snowflakes, not war!" This has now become our rallying cry.

Snowflake-A-Thon is a programming competition to occur January 19 at the Media Lab where entrants compete to make the most beautiful snowflake with the simplest amount of computer code. The canonical example of a snowflake algorithm is the Koch algorithm where a single replacement rule is defined: for every line segment '___', replace that line segment with a set of 4 segments in the formation '_/\_'. If you apply this to an equilateral triangle, and replace those 3 sides with the new replacement, you can see how the snowflake grows.

Yet I've never thought that the Koch snowflake was particularly beautiful, and I also don't recall something looking like one land on my nose. There is no realism in the Koch snowflake—simple algorithm creating simple (complex) form. The idea is beautiful. I visited an ascii art website for alternative inspiration and did find some indeed. Another place to look for indoor inspiration is at e-cultural-intervener Tad Hirsch's Java Snowglobe for a project in one of my past classes. I suspect on the day of Snowflake-A-Thon there will be more wonderful snow that falls indoors.

In addition to a related piece of content, Ole Kristensen from Denmark sent me an interesting note concerning Denmark's deployment of troops to Iraq in the middle of summer 2003 "with their standard rapid-reaction gear which included snow ploughs." The story lends an unexpected sense of comedy on the one hand, and on the other hand reminds us of how far away from home many brave men and women are being deployed. We all hope they can come home soon.

The Un-Modernism of Nature

Every flaw is its beauty.

Our print drive for Asian relief is going well in dimensions that I did not foresee. We received a pledge from an old friend Tomoko Sakomura who I think might just be finishing her PhD at Columbia University now in Asian Art History. It was Tomoko's mother, Hiroko Sakomura, that introduced me to two very unique people—Ikko Tanaka (the "father" of modern Japanese graphic design) and Paul Rand (the "father" of modern American graphic design). Of course there were many intellectual "parents" in the process of giving birth to modern graphic design, but Tanaka and Rand's genes are certainly the most dominant ones.

I attended a private tea party at Tanaka's home in Tokyo together with Hiroko and the architect Shigeru Ban around 1995. The words "tea party" conjure up an image of finely woven doilies and petit fours (yum!), but Japanese tea party is something much more sublime. Tanaka had been a practicing student of the tea ceremony and we were his test subjects (it's hard to imagine someone so masterful still being a student in his 70's).

The ceremony began, as is customary in some styles of chanoyu, with an examination of the tea-making implements. We passed around tea "cups" (more like deep bowls) to admire. If I remember correctly, I was assigned the cup from the 17th century that looked something like a Klingon weapon of some sort. It was kind of like a bowl that was thrown around in the kiln, mashed, and re-dripped back into form. And it was not clear where I would place my lips to the bowl.

There I was at the house of one of the Masters of Modernism sipping from something completely imperfect, of non-platonic geometry (no cylinders, spheres, cubes to be found), and lacked all recognizable semantics of a cup. Yet from that cup I drank, and drank well. The cup symbolized to me, the essence of Japanese aesthetics which strives for a kind of perfection. But as a direct contradiction to 'perfection' as we know it—”smooth, white, simple surfaces"—and instead a seemingly exact opposite as embodied by the perfection of imperfection. Is it not natural to be imperfect in a perfect way?

In mathematics we know that positive infinity wraps around to negative infinity. This cup to me, was that point where the two infinities meet—a point rarely unseen. It was quite a privilege. And for that reason each cup I acquire in my collection of ceramics needs to be more irregular and flawed than the last, in that perfect-imperfect way. This little routine of mine is the special ritual that brings me closer to nature (through a synthetic experience) in the techno-land of MIT.

Simple Relief

Stack of prints for charity.

Starting this month, my family is beginning a drive to support the Asian relief effort. I say 'my family' because this collection is part of their future inheritance package so it really is them, not I. In 1996 I was extremely productive and created a large variety of limited edition lithographs. Until February 1, 2005 we will be selling the remaining 100 editions in this series for US $30 to any address within the continental United States. All proceeds will go to Oxfam. Complete information is posted on my studio website here. Since announcement last night, we are now down to 95 prints and counting.

Hassle-Free Computing

I'm waiting for the day when I get a spam message with the above subject-line. I think it would be the first spam I would ever respond to in a positive way. However with my luck when it comes to computers, I'd probably end up in some internet cat-dating site.

Java is a funny evil. You get the promise of a language that runs on all platforms—which it does, but not very reliably. The alternatives do exist, but Java has the widest outreach today and will probably hold that lead (think Beta versus VHS in the videotape standards war). Yet I can't think of anything worse in the world of the web than Javascript. Javascript makes Java look bad. The inconsistencies per browser of Javascript that works and doesn't work seems to multiply each minor increment of a software version number. I cannot count the number of Javascript programs I've written with the disturbing feeling, "If I code this in the incorrect way, it can run on browser X or Y semi-reliably, but if I code it in the right way it will run on some versions of browser Z." Juozas Šalna of Lithuania reminds me that Javascript and Java have no relationship except for the 'coincidence' of the name. And Bryan Boyer of Massachusetts says that ActionScript delivers the promise more than JAVA-based systems. I've never verified that myself, but given my share of Flash problems I remain optimistically skeptical.

Which brings me to my point, and that is that hassle-free computing will be out of reach until there is hassle-free software development. The reality of computer programming has shifted greatly over the last decade from a programming manual measuring a quarter of an inch in thickness, to towers of manuals that cumulate in a pile taller than Shaquille O'Neal. People today complain about their cell phone manuals—try looking at an endless suite of Java-related manuals. Programmers have to go consume and interpret more documentation than even lawyers today ... that's truly frightening. Yet mastery of a software development system has become meaningless when the many flavors of operating systems and associated legacy versions of the OS (which are dialects unto themselves) can render your precious work inoperable.

In the SIMPLICITY program here at MIT, we believe that one of the keys towards hassle-free computing (and software development) is a move towards highly centralized computing, versus the current trend towards mass decentralization. There is evidence in the more successful strategies by Microsoft, Apple, and Google in these directions that we are on the right track. So our hat is in the ring as well, and you know you can't spell COMPETITION without M-I-T!

Beautiful is Thy Ugliness

Definitely not simple, but beautiful.

At last year's TED in Monterrey, California, I was strolling around when a fellow asked if he could use my mobile phone as his phone's battery was dead. I was hesitant to cede my phone to a total stranger as the phone gets awfully close to your face, and you can sometimes feel that it is like lending your own dental retainer. There was a time when I was in a NYC cab and the driver traded a phone call for a free fare—I really didn't have a choice in the transaction (how do you say 'no' to someone piloting you in a large machine at a high velocity through potentially hostile urban territories?). However since this person at TED was the husband of a reputable acquaintance, I acquiesced without hesitation.

The following week, as an expression of his appreciation I received a large package of exotic Hawaiian flowers where each flower was different from the next. I've certainly seen the beaches of Hawaii, but never have I seen the flora of Hawaii in depth. One flower stood out from the rest, the "King Protea" (which I understand originally harks from South Africa). Its enormity reinforced the usual self-preservation instincts of the fear of things that are large, but its gentle pink and soft-green coloration dampened my own sense of concern. I found myself continually drawn to the beauty of the King Protea's ugliness.

There are things that are simple and beautiful, and there are things that are ugly and beautiful. Those who subscribe to the Laura Ashley decorum like my mother might argue that simple (i.e. "plain") is outright ugly. My mom would never be caught dead in a top without an over-the-top pretty imprinted pattern. A Gap shopper like myself generally goes instead for the basics because of the opposite value system of seeing the beauty of the plain. Yet strangely in my older age I see myself more and more drawn to the colorful and gawdy, in the same way I remember feeling drawn to the King Protea. Ugliness (or true beauty?) beckons me.

Eyes of the Chameleon

It wasn't easy to recall which animal it was that can look in two directions. I knew that it was either the octopus, the owl, or the chameleon. All of these animals are kind of wacky in that Saturday Night Live "Brian Fellow's Safari Planet"-skit sort of way (my all-time favorite).

The owl can't move its eyeballs around so well, so it can turn its head all the way around like in some freaky horror movie. The octopus has too many arms (or legs) and those suckers on the tips are to die for. Ah, it is the chameleon that has the eyes that can gaze in independent directions—the animal world is humbling.

In an effort to see more (information) with the less (our normal vision system) that we humans are endowed with, Axel Kilian did some interesting basic research in 2000. He posited the ability of looking at a space of complex information by placing specific points of focus throughout the space. Usually when we look at a space of information, we look at one particular area. In Axel's vision (no pun intended), you can point to three or more spots in the space where you can request specific attention to clarity. The result is being able to see at more places than one, simultaneously.

I suspect that Axel's methodology will become an important fundamental technique for achieving greater understanding of complex information systems. And if it doesn't make sense to you now (it took me 5 years to understand it), in the meantime it's awfully pretty to look at.

Letters

Josh Hallett from Florida writes:

"My friend told a story about an item being sold many years ago. I forgot what it was, but the hosts did the standard introduction and began to describe the product. It was black, they said it 'was black' but the host eventually said it 'was a beautiful shade of black'. Well for some reason that lit up the switchboards. So they continued to say it was 'a beautiful shade of black' rather then just black.

As for white, each company I have ever run I always had the stationary printed on the most brilliant white, smooth paper available. I usually go for a heavier stock as well (my printer loves me). That subtle difference in paper quality always makes my presentations and other correspondence stand out from the rest."

If you've ever gotten into the habit of wearing black, you will realize that it is hard to match blacks. They come in so many subtle shades that you're better off wearing a black top with a pink bottom instead of a black bottom that is in an unmatching shade. Don't quote me on that.

Josh makes two important points in the second paragraph: weight and expense. In the Internet age we don't have digital paper with varying weights; we also don't have digital paper with varying expense as related to quality (aside from the cosmetic difference between lcd/plasma/crt). I see a business opportunity for Adobe ...

Jay Zipursky from Burnaby, Canada writes:

"I just read your blog entry 'The Color of Black.' I currently work for a commercial print industry supplier and have not heard of any printer that does double-hits (at least in my 10 years in this industry). However, I’m not an expert and will ask some of my colleagues if they’ve seen this.

What is common, though, is printing 'rich blacks' where 'bump colors' are printed with the black ink. In other words, some mix of cyan and magenta are printed under the black and the result is a very black black. There are other tricks too, such as using certain screening or halftoning patterns that allow the pressman to increase the ink densities."

In Japan it was once a common "elite/luxury" practice to do double- and even triple-hits (a true maniac). But nowadays with digital printing it's going away, and fewer people are using the technique. I spoke at last year's International Design Conference in Aspen where the collateral was printed in double-hit fluorescent ink, so I know the practice to be alive and active in the States as well.

When there are sufficient and relevant comments from readers, I have decided to post them in this format from time to time. Figuring out the timing will be a work in progress.

The Color of Black

When I was just starting to learn about the subtleties of the printing profession as a young designer, I was surprised at the importance of the color of black. A printing press technician's ability to output a proper black area was the measure of his skill. Today we don't think twice about printing a flat black square on a laserprinter—usually the black is fairly smooth and consistent. The printing press involves a combination of sophisticated machinery coupled with the visual and motor skills of the people on press. The layman isn't aware that most things that he or she sees printed black (especially book covers) are often times printed in black twice. That is, the image is printed in black, dried, and then re-inserted into the press to be printed again in the same pattern.

black

more black

Double-hits in any color on the printing press is something of a supernatural feat (involving extra expense, and also painstaking registration of the images atop each other). On the computer of course, it's hard to imagine a black getting blacker. I've tried drawing with overhead marker pens on top of my monitor to get the effect. But it is not the same.

Another of my favorite mysteries is the color of white. Did you know that white doesn't really look very white? Try the following experiment on a white piece of paper: draw a 5% black filled rectangle atop the white. The square on the left looks like something printed in white, on white. You get the same effect when you draw with a white crayon on a white sheet of paper. The effect is quite subtle, and the intention is usually registered as a fact that modifies our own concrete perceptions.

	white     more white

Finally, in the spirit of black and white, there is the iconoclastic middle child ... gray. It is a pity that selecting a warm or cool gray in RGB is not an easy task—compare selecting a gray in hexadecimal code as the number or letter repeated: EEEEEE or 111111, etc, to a warm gray in hex C0B6B0 or cool gray in hex BDBEC5. If it were easier to select these subtle palette shifts, I imagine that the Web would be a noticeable few degrees warmer (or cooler) in general.

neutral

cool

warm

Simple Organic Glue

Every little grain counts.

At the dinner table, my father was very clear on how a bowl of steamed rice was to be left after eaten—completely empty. Leave one grain of rice either inside or on the outside of the bowl and there would be h*ll to pay. In Japan there is a popular myth of the mottainai obake, or spirit of the waste, that would come and haunt you upon your committing a deed of wastefulness. This spirit never had to come and visit me as my dad seemed to be its local (unpaid) Seattle representative.

Do you have those magical moments when the US Postal Office makes a mistake and delivers a piece of mail where the stamp is not postmarked? I have a little pile of these clipped freebies on my shelf, but I never seem to have the opportunity to use them.

One time when I was visiting my family's home in Seattle, my father took a grain of steamed rice, smooshed it, and stuck one of my free stamps to an envelope. He proudly said, "That's how we used to do it in the old days. And that's why you shouldn't waste any rice." Now if only I had some grains of rice in my office at MIT, I might be able to finally get rid of my windfall of free postage ... but then again I don't want to attract any ants.

Sans SQL

I chose as a simplicity challenge to write a SQL-less database-driven-like website with my studio site. A time limit was set (less time means more done) of an evening, and thus I took the dirt path instead of the main streets. Of course I find SQL to be powerful, but a little bit confusing for me so I chose this route. When you have a machine set in front of you where you know every part, the process of engineering is fast. If you have to work through millions of parts and spend time looking up how each part is to be used, you certainly will never finish quickly.

Computing machines are so powerful now, bandwidth is increasingly abundant, and programming languages allow all kinds of terrible inefficiencies to be exposed—all great fodder for the next generation of simplicity technologies. When the layers of abstraction are robust and the hidden machinery runs at a silent hum, everything is really okay.

My favorite simplicity technology in programming? It is the hashtable. So inefficient, yet so wonderfully powerful. Who needs a database when you've got hashtables. Did I say I'm not Amazon.com?

Jessica Simpson Does PHP

This winter holiday season I have rolled up my sleeves to finally learn the PHP language. I've always thought of PHP as a cousin of my evil nemesis PERL and thus resisted the urge, but since PHP is now ranked No. 4 (and rising) I feel that resistance may be futile. Up to now I have lived off of a reference book on HTML 3.2 which is starting to show major wear.

Which reminds me that when I bought my HTML book in Akihabara around 1996 in Japan, I also had a choice of buying Reiko Chiba's book on how to learn HTML. Reiko Chiba was, at the time, a sort of falling "idol" singer in the Japanese music world and had the business smarts to broaden her career beyond entertainment. A book on HTML by Chiba would be equivalent in the States to How to Code HTML for Dummies (which I believe is really a book). On the one hand, Chiba's book attracted the typical otaku who wished to techno-idolize themselves; on the other hand, I noted a great number of downtrodden OL that were becoming empowered by this simple volume that really spoke to anyone, but without the "dummy" pretext of the Dummies** or Idiot's Guide series. The book was really quite charming and accessible.

I'm subjected on a daily basis to Top-40 radio as teen pop begins to dominate my household, I can't help but wonder what if these incredibly vacuous-seeming pop singers were to pickup website programming as a hobby? If there were a book, Jessica Simpson Does PHP, I assume it would not only be simple to understand, but perhaps tens of thousands of American teenage girls (and boys) might start to engage in backend website development as the new "cool." Outsourcing might finally get some real competition from rockin' US teenagers. I'm not kidding.

Simple to understand for simpletons; simple to understand for everyone. The latter seems the better strategy and attitude to take. Respect for the idiosyncracies of people everywhere—sounds like a New Year's resolution to me, for me.

**I must point out that I have been told by my family members that I bear an unfortunate visual resemblance to the Dummies character. Sigh. I must do something about my hairstyle someday ...

Human > Computer

On this New Year's Day of 2005, I reviewed some of the things I've posted so far. The puzzle post seems the most puzzling. To use a computer to produce a difficult yet simple puzzle makes a great deal of sense as a process towards a rational goal. I am reminded of an even more powerful program that is able to not only compute the simple and complex, but also the beautiful. I refer to the incredible mind of "puzzle master" Scott Kim. If you haven't seen his work before, be prepared to never write a person's name again without trying to write it in an invertible form. Scott honored me one year with a dynamic inversion of my name, which made me extremely happy as it was his little book Inversions that originally inspired me to seek a balance between technology and creativity in 1987.

Machines will always be able to construct a situation of at least 95% simplicity. However humans will be needed to fill in the remaining 5% of elegance that makes the simplicity desirable. Perhaps the fact that I saw Will Smith in I-Robot on DVD last night shows ...