Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Mix and Match

Two clans of crystals meet on earth.

We tend to associate images of a sandy beach with warm weather. Unless you live near the ocean, summertime is the only time you will go out of your way to visit the beach.

Thus when I saw snow on the beach right in front of me, the image-understanding module in my brain generated an error message. Command not found.

My first association was with salt and pepper. The whiteness of salt, and the mottled gray of pepper. Two strong tastes fighting to overpower each other.

My second association was with the purity of the snow, and the dirtiness of sand. In the end, the dirt would win.

My third association was with the fluffiness of clouds in the sky, and the micro-fluffiness of the patches of snow on the sand. The sky managed to paint a self-portrait of itself on the ground.

My final association was with a continuing interest in the power of contrast as the driving force to any visual composition. The further distant and different two materials may be, the better they tend to go together. As the saying goes, "Opposites attract."

Ole Kristensen from Denmark writes, "The simplicity of the contrast, as you write – or new metaphor as a poet might say – or the condensing of languaging in novel juxtapositions of words is what lets texts express freedom. Dreams in language as creative steams leaking out of the deterministic system of inscriptions of language we call computers – or in it’s widest sense technology." I think that ambiguity and clarity make good bedfellows.

Pixar Versus Mother Nature

12 hours of rendering on Nature's CPU.

After the snowstorm, I realized how much Mother Nature excels in the medium of "landscape painting" versus her competitors (the computer graphics industry). Why just simulate physical phenomena when your canvas is the entire real world? As the computer animation field advances to the point of being able to replace human actors with computer simulacrums that are becoming indistinguishable from real living forms, one has to wonder why we were invented in the first place. Were we born to not only propagate our own beings in physical space, but to simulate ourselves as well? "Born to be simulated"—soon to be the epitaph of humanity and the natural world.

Yesterday I spoke with dog-simulation-specialist Bruce Blumberg about the issue of animal training. I asked Bruce about the new "zap" collars that owners use to shock/surprise their dogs as a training regime. Isn't this counter to the peaceful life of a dog's existence? I think I used to wish I was a dog until these collars started to become prevalent. Simulated dogs can be shocked and zapped innumerable times because they don't have feelings yet. Are simulated feelings any different from real feelings? Is the distinction between real and simulated a necessary one? I think I'll have to run a simulation to be sure.

Beach Interrupted

Snow looks best at night.

As I waited for the guests to arrive on the Cape, I wondered how nature could deal me such a great blow. Could an event that was so meticulously planned be unable to properly control the weather? Nonsense.

In a hotel in Beijing last month, with my morning newspaper I received a little bookmark-sized printout of the weather in Beijing. The "Mostly Cloudy" option was checked off. For a nervous but brief moment, I wondered what would happen if I checked off the "Sunny" option. Would I then look out the window and see the sun appear? I was too afraid to give it a go at that moment in China. The legal system there kind of scared me.

I brought my little weather bookmark along with me to the Cape and checked off "Sunny" to see if it would work. Instead I got "Snow." I immediately thought that there must have been an English-to-Chinese translation error on the little weather strip.

To my surprise, the next day it became sunny! I think I've found a new career ...

Tomasz Zemla in Canada contributes, "You might enjoy the movie about a man who successfully checked off the 'clean air' weather option: [here]." I enjoyed it greatly.

Ayse's and Steve's Simplicity

Ayse Birsel spoke at our recent SIMPLICITY event (moblogged by AARP's Futurist Mike Lee from March 23 to March 25) on my favorite topic (you can guess what that is). She shared a variety of development sketches regarding her radical office partitioning system Resolve. Ayse expressed her general philosophy of design as one of "combining two things that are different, and resolving them as one." How to reconcile the dualities in life such that differences dissolve are a certain special power of Ayse's most certainly as is visible in her ouvre of work. She suggested that the approach of limiting (or simplifying) the contexts that surround us results in the reduction to a simpler vocabulary, that can often expand endlessly if correctly selected.

Steve Whittaker from BT who recently co-edited a collection of research papers from the Media Lab expressed his approach to simplicity as one of taking any complex space of activity, literally carving out a significant segment, and replacing that segment with a newly designed, simpler part. He described this approach as one of incredible risk–because often times the new part does not behave properly and can bring down the entire system. We can draw a similarity to Steve's approach in the area of transplanting a mechanical heart into a human patient. The human is extremely complex. The mechanical hearts today are increasingly simple. But the new heart can be rejected, resulting in catastrophic failures (read 'death').

I haven't quite digested this food for thought above, and am just presenting it while it sits in the gastric juices of my brain. Kind of like sashimi for the mind ... without the wasabi or soy sauce.

The topic of this week is loosely a summary of different insights gathered from our recent Cape Cod event.

Cold Feet

Atlantic Ocean visits my feet.

As I look through the odd images taken from our recent event on the Cape, I can't help but remember the beauty of the beach. Something about the beauty of the ocean, and the sand (and in our unfortunate case, the snow), makes you want to capture every image that you see. Whether that be the odd bundles of seaweed, or the random bits of shells, or the way that the sun sets against a perfect horizon of water ... you've got Kodak moments galore.

I dipped my feet into the cold Atlantic waters, only to find that the water was unbearably cold. A couple of hours later I could still feel my feet tingling. I also discovered that my digital camera began to flash a signal "E18." I was to learn that the E18 message on a Canon digital camera is often dreaded. As I took the camera apart according to a person's online manual for emergency repair, I realized the problem. Sand was stuck inside the lens module. I put the unit back together, and of course had a set of extra micro-screws that I'm not sure where they went in the first place. Hit the power button, and nothing happened. My camera is now in the proverbial Davy Jones' locker. I kind of wish I gave the camera a burial at sea, but I don't think that the fish would have appreciated the ritual.

Cameras and the beach don't mix. I think that says something about the beach. Don't waste time capturing the moments ... and spend more time on enjoying the moment itself. You hear this message a lot today. Easier said than done of course. Time to study.

Real RealAudio

Today is the last day of our private SIMPLICITY event on Cape Cod held for sponsors, faculty, and students. The weather is beautiful, and yesterday was an intense session of creativity ranging from thinking about the oceans of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons), to the complex telecommunication infrastructure issues of BT, to the future of web-enabled devices. I must say that it was better than any TED or any other mind-blowing conference I've been to.

Our day capped off with two wonderful things. We saw the master film director Topper Carew present his recent documentary entitled "The Fine Art of Frying Chicken" about an 87-year old woman named Maurice and her life of cooking, friends, and incredible inner-strength. I was simply blown away with the intense and colorful portraiture of such an amazing woman.

We also experienced the first live performance of one of Noah Vawter's new primitive electronic music performances. He was jamming on a homebrewed musical instrument that was literally built into a VHS cassette tape box. As he began to riff, and howl through some unidentifiable weee and wooo sounds, I saw a young creative man at the height of his game. Simply powerful, with the empowerment of his own artistic vision. I think he helped me to remember how important the element of creativity in one's life really is, and that it is the lifeblood to a deeper existence. All the iPods in the world could not outjam Noah, and you know that Noah was in a world where conventional digital audio could not touch him.

Just before the performance and the movie screening, I had an unforgettable discussion with Topper on the topic of life and creativity. Topper said it succinctly, "My art is my mistress." He said that his wife never had to worry about him cheating on her because of that fact. Not only did I discover beauty in thought on the Cape last night, but I also discovered beauty in life. Today is a brighter day.

Mirror Mirror

iPods also play music.

On a recent trip to New York I was exposed to my first magazine-class photoshoot. At the rented studio space was a sign taped to the door as shown to the right. It lists MP3 players and iPods as two distinct types of devices. Isn't an iPod an MP3 player? I began to wonder whether an iPod may be much more. Newer versions show photos and have begun to run a variety of software applications. iPod as a primary computing platform? A world where you dock your Mac to your iPod (versus the other way around)? I think I liked the iPod better as just an MP3 player.

Stylistically speaking, the polished metal surface of the back of the iPod was a good idea. The iPod's former heft (i.e. pre-mini and pre-shuffle) made it an object to admire in terms of weight-to-size ratio, but also could be used as a nicely sized shaving mirror (or makeup mirror for the better gender). The better to see you. Or at least the better to see yourself.

We love to covet what we own. We love to see ourselves as owning something that is coveted. Is that really my car? "Yes, that's my car," as you look back at the shiny status object. Any object one owns can have a similar effect. The iPod's handcap of being larger than other MP3 players was probably a major reason for its success. The bigger the object, the bigger the pride.

I predict the next bestseller to be the iPod Maxi. It is the SUV version of the iPod with a huge screen, large speakers, gigantic shiny backsurface, and gets real hot when it's running. I think it's called the iMac.

Paul Rand Commercial

A special nectarine pit sits on my mantle.

In my effort to remain focused on the iPod, I realize that I have no real restrictions (like finances linked to this blog) that prevent me from going astray a bit. So I may as well insert a kind of 'commercial' inbetween the main strand of thought. I figure if people can have companies sponsor their blogs, I can have voices from the past sponsor my blog. Heaven knows I'm in deep debt to a lot of people from my past.

On the web I've read various accounts of Paul Rand. Some of them are kind, some of them are not. Some people say he was an egotistical maniac, some say he was a humble fellow. If you are what other people say about you, then I think that can be a terrible existence. It's better to be alive and remembered for what you are as that is the only real truth in one's being.

In the opening to his last book From Lascaux to Brooklyn Rand summarizes a long life (he died at 82 years of age) in his dedication, "To my friends, and my enemies." Life is easily encapsulated in a nutshell when you consider this popular saying. If you stand for anything then you're bound to have both. Anyways, this particular book is special to me as I visited Rand at his studio when he was just finishing it. I was only going to visit with him briefly, but his assistant had not arrived that day and he was impatient. He told me, "You're going to have to work for me today."

I did the final set of mechanicals (essentially refinements in placement of photographs and type, tracing of illustrations, and so forth) for his book over the period of five hours. While I was working, he cut a nectarine in half and said in a gruff tone, "Here!" I said, "That's okay." He insisted, "HERE!" So I took it.

There were some issues I had with the layout, which upon my pointing these out to him he replied in a not-so-quiet-voice, "IF I SAY IT IS RIGHT, THEN IT IS RIGHT!" Needless to say, I left it the way he wanted it. I'd like to think it wasn't an issue of correctness of form, but more an issue of how he wanted to execute the form. It was his book after all and he certainly deserved that right to make it about him. To be bound to our own mistakes is the ultimate expression of freedom. Thus a person that dwells on mistakes is never truly free.

At the end of the day he said, "Don't think I'm going to pay you anything." I said, "No problem." And then he said, "You can put your name in my book as payment." I had begun my journey away from technology because of Rand and one of his books, thus this moment was quite special to me. My life had suddenly come full circle as I typed my name into his book. It was quite a magical feeling.

So was Paul Rand a grumpy, cantankerous, braggart? Sure. He was also a brilliant, caring, and humble man at the same time. If people were simple they wouldn't be that interesting; they are best when they are complex. Finally, I was most impressed with the affection Rand showed for his wife Marion. In his studio he would spontaneously hug Marion and express his admiration for her mind. And on the drive back from his talk to MIT, they held hands all the way back to Connecticut. With 82 years of making a name for himself, firmly rooting his school of thought, and to at the end love and be loved ... could anyone ask for more?

Design educator Julie Curtis in Massachusetts lends a nice personal story, "Rand was easy to dislike, and when young I quarreled with a classmate about the quality of some of his work, which I used to find overly...SIMPLE. Ironically, Rand has the last laugh: I now find myself turning to his work constantly to open students eyes and minds. Nothing he made was without a concept, however simple the means and appearance." Julie also adds, "You may know this, but there's a quote attributed to Rand that is something like: 'If you can't make it good, make it BIG. If you can't make it BIG, make it RED!' Someone added to this after Rand's death: 'If you can't make it red, make it MOVE!'"

The Consumer Infotronics Industry

It seems like every consumer electronics company wishes that they had the success of Apple's iPod. The reasons for its success? The factors that are generally accepted are the iPod's sleek design, an impressive marketing campaign, and the low bandwidth (without a sacrifice in high fidelity) consumed by digital audio files. Oh yes, and we can't forget consumers' pent up desire for legal music downloads ... I know that I personally was happy to buy music without having to go over to the Dark side.

I can hardly think that a lucite-sheet-meets-shiny-sardine-can approach makes a terribly impressive design statement. And as for the marketing campaign, when I see the iPod posters I think of doctors wearing white stethoscopes going wild. No, I think that the iPod represents the tip of the iceberg. The iPod heralds the emergence of a new 21st century industry that I will call, for lack of a better set of words, consumer infotronics. The reason why we need a new term to describe this industry (versus calling it a new category) is that it is about going beyond what the consumer electronics industry currently represents.

The idea of consumer electronics is the realization of a physical gadget, composed of technology, for the consumer to enjoy some life-enhancing experience. The gadget is a physical object—something that can be held, inventoried, pointed at, dropped, head-banged, swallowed, and is thus a full-fledged citizen of our generally fragile world. Systems of factories, managers, and finances all supported this concept of consuming plastic, paper, metal, and other "mystery" materials to realize a steady flow of clumps of utility in our world. In the past, these clumps didn't have a lot of smarts inside. They didn't need to because they were meant to be consumed, and then disposed. You'd then have to go buy a new one ... making us full-fledged consumers.

Then came smarts. That was the problem. The new line of gadgets were not only smart, but you could make them even smarter by upgrading them. I recall that when MP3 players were first emerging, there was this new marketing point that you could easily "update the ROM for any future upgraded functionality." This was the beginning of the end for the consumer electronics industry. Not only did upgradable firmware make it possible to keep a gadget further along the obscolescence curve, but also it meant that gadgets could be shipped broken or with untested firmware—the unsuspecting consumer could "upgrade" (read "fix") their device at their own leisure.

As gadgets became smarter inside, the outsides of the gadget (i.e. the computer they were often hooked to) got even smarter. These smarts we are talking about of course had nothing to do with plastic, paper, metal, or the other conventional ingredients for good and wholesome consumer electronics. We're talking software here. The invisible stuff. The stuff that doesn't get put on a factory line nor is easily understood in the conventional language of business and production.

The problem? Consumer electronics company don't know how to deal with the invisible capital of software. The software division is often the lowest division in the food chain of a consumer electronics company. Why would anyone want to produce an invisible soup of bits when they can produce a hard, heavy, graspably palpable hunk of plastic and metal? Because without the bits, all you've got is a hunk of mass. You're better off just manufacturing hammers as they are inevitably more useful.

Apple's a software company. They had the lucky accident of a consumer electronics device that glommed into the rich and luscious matrix of Apple's clever backend computing infrastructure. Apple people love good software. Sony and other companies in the consumer electronics category have yet to feel the love for software. They are all stuck in the age of consumer electronics, and haven't made it to the new era of consumer infotronics. Whence simplicity? When there are sufficient smarts on the outside for a device to seamlessly rely upon, what happens is that the actual device can get by with less yet still be more.

For that reason, at the SIMPLICITY program we are developing a set of technology layers that will support a better symbiosis between simple hardware devices and powerful backend computing systems. In essence we are doing the basic research and development to support the future consumer infotronics industry. So look out, iPod!

Tomorrow we will discuss the issue of form as I promised. I think today I veered a bit off of the simpler stuff. Oh well.

iWaste

My entire CD collection at magnetic rest.

I came later to the iPod than my students. Of course, when you are a professor you naturally feel that you are always light years behind everyone else for that matter. But regardless of early or late, I guess I was an earlier adopter than most.

When I was in Beijing a few weeks back, Aaron Betsky who directs the funky Netherlands Architecture Institute told me that his super-hip niece saw his clunky old iPod and said, "Wow! An original iPod. That's got real cachet!" Maybe I should sell mine now on eBay. Nope, seems like 200 other people are doing the same thing. Interestingly enough, they are all getting bids.

I refer to my iPod as "iWaste" because it really is wasted. In the initial rush of passion when I first got it, and because I've never illegally downloaded a music file in my life, I went through a few weeks ripping my CDs onto my Mac. To hold my entire CD collection in the palm of my hand was a quite glorious feeling. However I haven't had a reason to use this extreme power that I now wield. Fact is, since I ripped all my music, I can listen to it from my computer. I'm rarely far from one of my computers, so I have no need to carry this little brick around with me.

When I was younger, on the airplane I used to bring a walkman aboard to listen to during takeoff and landing as that is usually when I am most nervous. However, that isn't possible anymore due to FAA regulations that say that you can't use any electronic devices during take off or landing anymore. My entire need for a portable audio device simply went away after this ruling. Thus now my iPod just sits on my desk.

The problem with an iPod that sits on a desk, is revealed in that famous "iPod's Dirty Secret" movie with close to two million hits now. I wish these clever fellows didn't make this movie as after seeing it last year, I have begun to wonder about the odd ritual I have where every month I will plug in the iPod so as to recharge its drained battery. I know that inevitably the battery will no longer be good ... yet I do it out of habit. ... there I go again, I just plugged it in. I feel nervously better for having done the deed. I'll come back to it tomorrow and feel that it really is hot to the touch, then unplug it, and let it rest on my desk. I feel guilty now and think I'll take it for a walk around the block tomorrow.

We will look at the issues wrt the form of the iPod tomorrow.

Former Media Lab alumnus Andrew Dahley of California writes, "The old iPods do look a bit sad next to their more modern brothers, yet still work well. That is, until the battery dies. But sleep a little better—it's only $100 to replace the battery. Apple started this program a while back." I'll probably not replace my battery anyways, and instead place it on my shelf at work next to another venerable relic—the original Motorola StarTac.

M Rodriguez from Texas writes, "In terms of simplicity in its truest sense, one wouldn't need or want an iPod because the sounds/soundtrack of the world is sufficient in and of itself. For me, it's far more interesting to truly listen to my environment than drown out that sense with fabricated sound." Listening to your surroundings? Seems like a sane way to live for certain.

Missing Pixels

Lite-Brite should have patented color pixels.

I have a hiptop communication device that I carry everywhere. I think I've dropped it at least a hundred times over the course of a year, and it's kept on ticking. Unfortunately though, the device is telling me that the end is near. Its method of communicating its own demise is displayed on the screen. Not with some sort of indicator icon (like the 'check engine' lamp on some cars) but instead as a full-frontal disruption of all information on its display screen.

Sometimes the screen is reversed. At other times its colors flip around intermittently. And in its most misbehaving state of mind, the main image appears scrambled which makes it awfully hard to type or dial on the device. I understand that it has something to do with a little cable inside the device connecting flippable display to its central processing unit that becomes understandably stressed after use. But I've lived with this device through difficult times, and I am willing to ride out its useful lifetime until the very end.

At MIT as an undergrad, I took this course on digital logic design fondly referred to as .111 ("one-eleven") on campus. My team project was a vector graphics display system where my partner fed me lists of points over a communication line, and I was to display those points onto a bitmapped display. The analogy is to be tossed little plastic numbers at you, being careful to catch them, plotting the pixel intensity changes represented by the numbers on some sort of whiteboard, and then being sure to catch the numbers thrown at you subsequently and so forth. It was 1986 and I wasn't a terribly good catcher. So whatever my partner threw at me, since fumble-fingers-me wasn't managing to catch anything, wasn't like anything at all that ended up being displayed.

I was up for three days straight that time, and I recall how my partner was shipping me numbers to display a rotating cube, and instead my system was plotting everything but a rotating cube. I was incoherently tired, but happy to see something so beautiful! My partner of course didn't agree. But in the end, we got an 'A' so my life was spared.

So while I see my little hiptop in its last moments of life, I sense that it has discovered how to create beauty at last. We should all hope to achieve what this hiptop has achieved in its lifetime. And in the same way that after my final project in .111 I slept for 28 hours straight, I will soon honor my hiptop with a similar state of its well deserved rest in gratitude for its services.

I have decided to discontinue posting on Sundays, and will pick things up on Monday with a week focusing upon one of my favorite pet topics: the iPod.

Cloudy Days

Oceans on the ground, oceans in the sky.

The idea that the sun is up there in the sky even when it is raining, snowing, and so forth always boggles my mind. I personally never believe it until I am flying above the clouds. For the moments before take off it can be the worst day in the world weather-wise, but once you are above the clouds you can see what everyone is really missing.

Then again, you do sacrifice a certain level of freedom while sitting in the airplane. There aren't many places you can go besides standing in front of the lavatories. You can usually find me there as it was the original Apple packaging designer Clement Mok that once told me to drink tons of water and sit in the aisle seat if you want to survive the life of a constant air traveler. The best way to understand why is to see how quickly a piece of fruit can shrivel up like a raisin on even a short 4-hour flight.

The web browser is kind of like our airplane. I love the idea of the tabbed browsing window panes, but I have the hardest time looking at two of them at the same time. I know I can detach the two panes, but I wish I could easily see them at the same time. The awkward feeling is akin to sitting in the middle seat of the airplane. You feel trapped in the airplane, trapped in your seat, and ultimately trapped within the constraints of your browser's ability to make your mind fly.

I'd like to browse the web high above the clouds somehow. It would help me see what I'm really missing.

Silent Light

The season of christmas continues to give.

Crunching through the snow in the dark is a wonderful experience after a long day of work. That sound you make when you step through the snow. What else does it sound like in the world? As a teenager I remember visiting a museum in Japan for television, and there were a variety of sound effect devices (no computers involved). Things like hollow cups to make the sounds of horses clomping, but most interesting were these little bags you would squish and it would sound like footsteps in the snow. I wish I knew what they were. Were they just bags filled with styrofoam powder? This is how I remember them vaguely ...

In addition to smoothing out our visual field, the snow also dampens the noises that we hear. It is like having non-toxic sound-absorbing foam from an auditorium sprayed all over the place. Wait ... maybe nature had the idea first of silencing the surroundings before the audio engineers. Doesn't matter.

Silent night, lights are bright, I feel no fright.

The mystery is solved. Fredrik Lundh writes, "Cornstarch? (or some other starch; here in Northern Europe, it's always done with potato starch. I assume arrowroot would work as well)."

Come Near My Pretty ...

Light at the end of the terminal.

I'm a third of the way through my MBA program now. Because of the experience, I am always curious about the whole universe of physical products (versus virtual ones) as they help to illustrate a variety of eventualities in the virtual world.

I was talking about supply chain management with someone at Herman Miller recently and he told me a story about why GE still makes lightbulbs. Lightbulbs are light in weight, but take a disproportionate amount of space. Furthermore they are extremely fragile. From a logistics point of view, the costs of transporting these goods are quite high. Thus GE still makes lightbulbs in the US because it's simply still too expensive for the Chinese to manufacture and distribute a lightbulb in the United States. Imagine that! It also says something about the future of lighting, when LED's become the dominant means of lighting our spaces. LED's are small, tolerant to high degrees of shock (note the row of red LED's that are usually mounted on the brake light of the trunk area), and as a technology is finally coming down in cost per lumen.

I'm always attracted to light. I identify with flies. Light is often what we associate with hope. At the airport recently it was late, and I was depressed. I saw this strange lit area in the terminal (with no entrance). Immediately drawn to it, I felt safe near its warmth. Luckily it wasn't like one of those bug lamps where you get zapped and electrocuted ...

We continue with the theme of light tomorrow.

Fear of the Dark

Feeling welcome is not an option.

When you open a browser window, you are faced with the option to go through many doors. Which door will you click on? The number of doors multiply with each click. You enter deeper into the space. They say you have cookies, but you can't leave a trail of cookie crumbs. You're lost! How do you return from whence you came?

At least 3 out of 10 new links I might visit, I will find that the door behind me is slammed shut. This trick that web designers use to make it impossible for you to return from where you came from ... there should be some architectural code that prevents such a design to occur.

I think it was 1988 when I heard a prominent Japanese researcher talking about how he thought that virtual reality constructs were no different than the construction of a haunted house. His intent was to denigrate virtual space with this remark, but I found it actually quite insightful. A haunted house is full of spirits and wraiths and so forth. It seems to perfectly befit the conceptuality of the online world.

It makes me wonder, in the same way that you can be afraid of the dark, or achulophobia, are there fears that you can have in virtual space? I personally shudder when I see a black background with super-saturated red, green, blue, and white text on a web page. There is a cyberphobia that is referred to on the phobia page, but I don't think that is the particular disease that I have.

It is strange that with a display screen—which essentially amounts to a large sophisticated lightbulb—that one might ever feel a fear of darkness. But I do sometimes. I think to resolve this fear, I have chosen the topic of this week as the theme of light. Lights off for now, and deeper into fear tomorrow.

The Greatest Diagram of 2004

Even Minard's Napoleon in Russia doesn't compare.

I admire the visual somersaults of Joshua Davis, the subtle humor in Ze Frank, and the digital refinement of Yugo Nakamura. I think that these people will be remembered in this century for having helped to humanize a medium that has no shape or form. I refer to the digital medium of course. In the past I once felt strongly that understanding computer codes was an important aspect to mastery of the medium. In the work of Davis, Frank, and Nakamura, their ability to work fluently in the medium of computation is definitely a driving factor in their successful endeavors.

Today I'm less curious about computation. I think in this new chapter of the digital medium, with computation as a kind of a fact more than a need to fulfill, there is definitely something coming. I sense its shape and form, and have a vague inkling of how it is to be constructed. It is almost there. I can see it.

I enjoy using flickr as the interface is simple. Many of its features I do not know how to use. I have a queue of many people that have sent me messages into my flickr account. I have so much e-mail in my other inboxes that I think I will never get to it. So it's not the communication side of flickr that I like. If anything, I like the diagram on the right. It is the overview of the top tags stored in the flickr database. As an information design piece, I think it is the greatest work of 2004 for sure. Just a tiny bit of computation is used ... just enough.

There are many things to admire about this format. Since it is about words, it uses some dimensions implicitly. For instance, it is alphabetized. The order makes complete sense. It is size-based and thus the dominant tags stand out clearly. It is read like a paragraph with its ragged-right margin. The data core is dynamic and thus we can predict different patterns, such as '2005' eventually becoming larger than '2004.' The diagram exudes warmth because it is about images of usually happy events. Some of the biggest tags are 'family,' 'vacation,' 'family,' and 'party.'

Images are so important to our lives. I never realized it fully until one of the students that I coach on my research team, Marc Schwartz, told me a story of how he used to volunteer in an urban complex for destitute people that were at the ends of their lives. He said how he was curious about what these people carried with them to the end of their life, after a lifetime of material things collected. They each had only one shelf to store their items. Marc said that on that shelf, you could usually find an image. A photograph of some memory that is cherished and dear to someone. A memory of their lifetime, to be remembered.

Thus there is something warm about this diagram on flickr that I admire. It has nothing to do with computation or digital this-that as it is the topic matter that is significant, and of course the method only enhances the content. Minard's map of Napoleon's Russia endeavor is no different—the topic matter always makes the meal. Both the flickr map and Minard's map are brilliant on many levels both rationally and emotionally. Is it a coincidence that 'flickr' can be construed as a warm flame that is flickering? Oh yes, and I'm not an investor in flickr so this is coming from the heart. Good day.

Thanks to Ben Kerney of California for pointing out that I was missing the link to the flickr tag page. He agreed that, "[the diagram] communicates volumes in a mind-bogglingly efficient way."

The Car of the Future Is Here

Future sunroof design for a rainy city.

Recently a student showed me a computer application that popped onto the screen with an oddly shaped window perimeter. This was no plain Jane rectangular window, but a twisty-turny shape something like the oceanic part of the state of Massachusetts. When the Macintosh was still raw and new, I recall a similar experiment in odd-shaped windows when someone invented a completely circular-shaped window circa 1986-ish. In the tricked-out world of ridiculous and outlandish cars, a similar feat would be to install hydraulics in each wheel so that the car can gyrate up and down while stationery.

In a younger incarnation of myself, I made a round window. I also made the interaction space round as well such that the mouse obeyed the circular geometry in a non-intuitive fashion. A set of those experiments can be dusted off here as I haven't managed to transfer them to my newer website format.

When I saw the truck to my right at the airport, I could only think of how windshield wipers are the one set of controllable robotic "arms" we have attached to our cars. You can't grab a Coke can or move the car in front of you out of your way with the wipers, but you can accidentally flick away a parking ticket (as I did recently while getting on a highway in an unpremeditated fashion). Having windshield wipers on ever window of your car sounds great in principle, but probably a little dangerous when trying to get into your car, especially on a rainy day.

Today we have windshield wipers and cars, but in a different domain. Our homes are our desktops. And our highways are on the Web. We get onto the roads with different brands of cars: Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, and so forth. Each of the "car" companies compete against each other. Soon they will have big powerful lobbies in the government so that they can try to eradicate each other. There are quiet organizations that control the "fuel" of the Web much like OPEC, such as W3C or the address brokers like InterNIC.

On the user side of the experience, messy stuff sticks to our windshields much like flying insects or bird excrement, such as unwanted popup-ads or banners-from-hell. Browsers like Firefox have windshield wipers (aka "popup-blockers") that hastily remove the unwanted things that obstruct our view. Next will be browsers that automatically remove all ads for us (or already out there). Leather, AC, heated seats, and 1% APR financing are all forecasted for the future of driving on the Internet.

I think the best thing for car companies to invest in, is the development of web browsers. Their experience in the idea of "travel" can map directly to what happens with the kind of mind travel that occurs on the Internet. Look at how IBM has their new Access IBM button installed on ThinkPads as way for people to get access to a live person to help them. Is this not the same as OnStar technology for cars? Or how they now send laptops through forms of crash-tests and other torture much like they do with cars. While computer companies move into the territory of cars, I think it'd be befitting for car companies to move into the the territory of computer companies. OnStar is definitely a step towards this shift in the balance of power on the Web.

Meanwhile, I think I now have 7 to 8 more months to take delivery of my Prius. All this talk of cars is getting me antsy to switch to a different car ... waiting is true torture.

Smoke and Mirrors

Mr. Smith hides in the elevator at Queens.

During my recent snow ordeal at La Guardia, I ended up at an obscure hotel in Queens. The desk staff was cordial behind their glass booth, and the decorum was a bit chintzy, and I did survive.

Before the computer graphics industry shaped how movies look today, you often hear of a time when the special effects industry was the master of "smoke and mirrors." I like this phrase, as it boils down to the essence of deception, or else the warping of what we think we see.

I stepped into the elevator of the hotel and loved the way that the mirrors wrapped around on all sides. I could see into infinity. That night I slept very little as I had to head to the airport at 3AM. I would have stayed in the elevator all day if I could. Well, an elevator and an airplane aren't that different if you think about it. You go up, you go down, you go up, you go down ... you get the idea.

Staying Cool

Fans aren't treated well in the middle of winter.

I don't like my laptop because it is a point of embarassment for me. It's a little iBook so it is cute and all, but I might be sitting down in a quiet meeting, and then suddenly it's fan will come on. Although the fan is quiet, I must admit it's something of an embarrassment. Something to do with the whole expulsion of air bit makes me equate the whole thing as similar to passing gas. Only it really doesn't seem to stop, no matter how carefully you might try to unobtrusively squirm while you use your computer.

We know that fans are important because we demand the highest level of technology always, and speed never comes for free. In order to achieve a grand degree of performance, we have to make our computers work extra hard. They become something like teeny tiny sweatshops that are extremely uncomfortable for the electrons inside. Without some degree of air conditioning, the overworked components would literally melt into slag. So we turn the air conditioning on to give the computer a fighting chance to live. Meanwhile, insensitive computer users like me simply complain about the noise associated with the computer's self-preservation ritual. I must stop.

Cell phones will ultimately be equipped with fans. I see it happening any day now. You will be talking on the phone, and then the fan will automatically come on and your caller won't be able to hear you because of the noise from the fan. We now demand photo-realistic performance 3D graphics, high-fidelity sound, and really a host of things that really don't make the phone part of the gadget any better. But we must pay the price in heat. Where there is excessive heat, there must be an opposite source of excessive cool living in counterbalance. Kind of like in the old TV show (my age shows) Happy Days. For every Fonzie, there must be a Pottsie. Cold and hot are the central physical battle fought inside the computer where most of our minds never really have to dwell. That is, until we use our laptops atop our own laps. I think I smell my thighs burning ...

Wait!

Having been recently stuck on the runway at LaGuardia for 4 hours in the snowstorm, and furthermore standing in line for 3 more hours to determine my future flightfate, and then the next morning standing for 2 hours in a line to get through security, to finally wait for another hour on the runway at LaGuardia, I am now a changed man. The realization that life is about waiting comes later in life to most. As a child, the idea of waiting is something foreign. But waiting is what we do in the adult world. We do it all the time.

Some of the waiting we do is subtle. We wait for water to come out of the spigot when we turn the valve. We wait for water to boil. We wait for the seasons to change. Some of the waiting we do is less subtle, and can oftgen be annoying. Like when we wait for a URL to load, or wait for an Illustrator file to open, or wait for or wait for the computer to awake from sleep. When you think of all the waiting you do, the list really goes on forever. Well, not actually. Because we are all limited to finite lives. This is the final wait, or the implicit queue that we all find ourselves in.

This brings me to the Second Law of Simplicity (the First was discussed here), where each law is at a different level of granularity for the time being.

The positive emotional response derived
from a simplicity experience has less to do
with utility, and more to do with saving time.

One could argue that utility and saving time are synonymous, but I think they are two different concepts. Utility is a matter of convenience; reducing one's time to wait ultimately translates to freeing oneself to use the time saved elsewhere. Ultimately it's about choice. When forced to wait, by definition, you have no choice.

Digitally Deprived 2

I'm having problems deleting this entry remotely from my airplane. I sense a conspiracy.

Digitally Deprived

The idea of digital TV is sound. You get an ultra-pristine quality in image that is delivered without any analog fuzzies painted on your display screen. The image is flawless. Or is it?

When an analog TV has signal degradation, the image gets fuzzy. By fiddling with the rabbit ear antennae or with the mystical application of aluminum foil, the fuzz is often tamed. There are people that have a real knack for adjusting their TV antennae. There should be a TV show about them to tell their stories.

Digital TV does not degrade gracefully. When you've got a scratch on a DVD, you are in for real visual torture. The image skips unrelentlessly, strange digital amoeba crawl across the screen, and in the worst case all you see is an unintelligible digital storm.

At the airport, I think that CNN plots against us in the digital realm. I've seen countless digital fritz-ing on the airport TV sets. As I was getting on the airplane at La Guardia yesterday, there was a CNN reporter talking about how there is new medical evidence that watching a comedy movie versus a horror movie actually improves your blood vessel due to some positive effect of laughing. In the midst of a snowstorm and the eagerness to board, there was a moment where everyone at the gate froze in the middle of their busy-ess to see what the reporter was going to further elucidate about happiness. With most eyes glued and heads turned at the airport monitor, suddenly the broadcast was digitally scrambled! The world literally stopped at an awkward moment in a real-world 404 (File Not Found).

Machines conspiring to prevent us from being healthy and happy. Just a coincidence? I wish I could be sure.

Landmarks

I hope this airplane has lifeboats.

On modern flights today you might be lucky to have one of those little LCD screens that play movies and also displays a realtime flight map. You can see where you are at different levels of detail: 1) the entire world, 2) in your local area, and 3) from the viewpoint of looking forward over the horizon. I am accustomed to flying to Asia over the Alaskan route where land is always in view, and thus when I recently flew over the ocean from Korea I felt a bit more nervous than usual. The forward-looking view on the little map display lost sight of land for a long stretch of time, and I reached for the arms of my seat more than often. Having some sort of reference point can be the key to cognitive comfort. When traveling somewhere, we usually like to have landmarks in the distance that reinforce our sense of being un-lost. The North Star, the Sun, Mount Rainier, the Empire State Building, and so forth. Usually landmarks are either bigger than our own physical selves and by virtue of being large, they can be viewed from far away.

Landmarks are slightly different from metaphors but they certainly live in the same neighborhood of necessity as design elements that support simplicity. However like all seasonings in a fine meal, they need to be used sparingly. Too familiar (literality of metaphor) and the object becomes boring; too safe (landmarks everywhere) and the object lacks the excitement of adventure. Too familiar can have the positive aspect of making complete sense; too safe can have the benefit of never having to worry. There are those that like to get lost, and those that like to be found. Which are you?

Five Dollar Thumbtop

This is not Photoshop foolery.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Browsing the keychain area of the gift shop at Incheon, I happened upon little blinking color key chains. I wasn't sure what I was looking at. They gave the appearance of little color LCD screens. And then the gift shop saleswoman told me they were solar-powered. Solar-powered? How is that possible?

Indeed there was a strip of solar cells surrounding the edge of the display. Cover them up, and the little screen would stop blinking. Huh? And then after five minutes of staring at the thing, it dawned upon me that it was essentially a color image behind some sort of solar-power polarizer. The polarizing field would come on to make the image opaque, and then turn off to reveal the image. Still, I thought this little fella to be quite the magic trick.

There's a lot stirring about Negroponte's "Hundred Dollar Laptop" concept today. I guess the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the keychain display was a "Five Dollar Laptop" ... at the same time my false hopes were grounded in the fact that I was standing in a kitschy gift shop in Seoul instead of some exclusive technobazaar for the US government's elite. In actuality this display really is a binary display. On or off. Image or no image. If your character set looks something like — " " — or translated into timespeak — "" — I imagine you're in the right market for this little display. That of course is the same language as the blinking red LED on your camcorder to tell you that it is recording, or the chirping piezo buzzer that signals that your laundry is finished. Seems to work for me ...

Powerfully Familiar

Until spaceplanes arrive, airports will look the same.

Airports all look the same. I didn't truly feel this way until I got off the plane at Beijing and the first thing I saw as I entered the arrival lobby was a Starbucks. Suddenly, the mysteriously foreign country of China all of a sudden seemed more familiar. I was less afraid of what would come next.

We know that metaphors are the powerful keys that enable people to understand and appreciate something that is foreign. The barrier to understanding may be great, but the perception of difficulty is vastly lessened by injecting that which is familiar. On the other hand, leveraging what is familiar is often a crutch that prevents the introduction of completely new concepts. We rarely like to learn something completely new unless there's some reason of significance that forces us to break the barrier.

Personally I have no desire to fly an airplane, but I know that if I were put into the position of being on an airplane in flight without an able pilot, I think I would try really hard to learn the art of flying. Foreign languages are another kind of skill that although you may try to learn in college or high school, nothing quite beats being stuck in an actual foreign country and being hopelessly lost, while night begins to fall. You learn to speak the language fairly quickly. Swimming is another thing you hear is best learned by being thrown into the water. I know that my mother learned this way. However she never swims due to the trauma of trying to survive in the water that day when she was just a girl. Some things are best not learned in the mode of life or death. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd like to learn how to fly an airplane while the airplane is midflight.

Some day in the future I envision myself using (or maybe a better word is "experiencing") a computer (or maybe a better word is "information") and suddenly I'll see an old Macintosh or Windows titlebar hung over a rectangle of information and think, "That's the way we use to experience information." And I'll go back to doing whatever foreign thing we do in the future with the I can't believe we did things that way-feeling we reserve for events in the past.

Amos Bannister of Australia adds, " A strong argument for not deviating too far from the (de facto) UI standards when writing software. Present users with a familiar interface and they will usually be able to work their way through your software. Present them with something completely different and you will potentially scare them away – only the truly adventurous will overcome the culture shock.
     This is why I personally do not like 'skinnable' interfaces - they remove the 'familiar' and replace it with something 'exotic.' While this is not a problem for the person skinning the system, when someone else attempts to use their computer, even though they are using familiar software packages, the interface looks different and they can start floundering.
     Keeping interfaces simple and consistent should be a UI designers primary goal." Amos presents a most compelling argument for us to think about the paradox of customizability. More on that later.

Invisible

At the extremes of slow and fast you see the invisible.

Speeding along the highway to Seoul Incheon Airport yesterday, I noticed a long trail of highway divider that formed a useful diversion for an otherwise uneventful ride. The posts were evenly pitched and widely spaced enough so as to create the perfect invisible wall to separate the lanes of the highway.

Do you recall the moment as a child when you placed your hand so as to obscure the field of vision by one of your eyes, only to discover that you could see through your hand! (due to the fact that your other eye can see perfectly). I remember that I didn't tell anyone in my family about this secret power, lest I would be taken away for such unique abilities. Adding to my list of secret powers as a child, another way to see through your hand was to wave it quickly in front of your eyes. Again, my hand would become completely transparent so that I could see behind it. Many years later I discovered that I was not some kind of mutant, but that this was a perfectly normal set of secret powers to have. I won't tell you about the powers that are real though.

My Plasma Display's Bigger Than Yours

Nature's answer to Best Buy.

In the race to build the biggest plasma screen (which for today is 63-inches huge), I noticed today that nature's got the lead over all consumer electronics manufacturers. There's this technology called a "window" that seems to scale infinitely. In fact, if you do something called "stand outside," you expand your viewing screen to really something close to infinity ... or at least as far as the human eye can perceive.

Famed artist James Turrell figured this out long ago with his "Sky Space" series in a quite brilliant fashion. Place people in a simple room with white walls on all four sides in a prominent museum or space, and open a hole to the sky. Suddenly the sky becomes a work to appreciate as art. His work helps us to remember that art is everywhere as it is often too easy to forget.

In the context of computing technology, we have yet to cut a hole into the "sky" of the computer. If such a thing were to happen, true technology art will finally emerge. I wonder if "digital nature" will scale in infinite and wonderful ways as in the real world? We may need new eyes to see it. Time to get those cybernetic implants ...

Time Torture

I recently wrote about the magic of the progress bar and how it helps you perceive time to progress at a faster rate. I discovered a corollary this morning on a treadmill at a hotel in Seoul with the digital readout of time and distance that is always on display. At MIT I run on a treadmill that gives you numerical readings to the tenths place—meaning that you see yourself at 1.1 miles, then 1.2, then 1.3. I've also run on treadmills that give you readings to the hundredths place—1.01 miles, then 1.02, 1.03 and so forth. However this morning I was given readings to the thousandths place for the first time—1.010 miles, 1.011, 1.012, 1.013, etc. There was something disturbing about having such fine grain information about how I was doing. I think it was the case of having simply too much information. Even though you would think that by seeing the clear progression of time that I would be experiencing time go faster rather than slower.

What is that saying? "A watched pot never boils." This runs contrary to the argument for the progress bar. Are boiling pots of liquid different from digital data transfer processes? Is the progress of slogging through a run on a treadmill similar to boiling a pot of water? In the latter case, both processes do generate steam vapor. Water being an essential ingredient to life, perhaps we prefer all things to do with water to remain a mystery.

Perhaps there is something about the urgency of our desire for something to complete. I am hungry! That pot of water's got to boil! Watching it get there is sheer torture. Or, I am tired! I want this run to finish! Watching it progress so slowly is sheer torture! Whereas when you are copying a file from place to place, the whole urgency bit isn't there. Actually, not true. Aren't there those times when you really really have to copy a file? Like when you are about to give a presentation to a crowd of hundreds and you are copying a critical file over from a thumb drive to the presentation computer and everyone's waiting for you to start, and the progress bar lazily marches along ... and ... then ... it stops. And waits. Taunting you into wishing to press 'Cancel' to express your doubt in the computer. Hundreds of eyes are on you. Do you have the guts to restart the process? The nice thing about not knowing when a process completes, is you don't have to worry about how or when it will get to the finish line. Because we know that when it comes to technology, often those expressions of "time to completion" such as "Expected time of completion 1 minute and 3 seconds" are generally wrong as they turn out to be anywhere from 20 seconds to 3 hours. Progress bars are becoming less effective as they lie to us.

Thus, more R&D effort should go into making the perfect progress bar that we can one day begin to restore our trust in the computer interface. As for the water pot and treadmill problem: get a more powerful stove to boil your water quicker and/or learn to run a whole lot faster so the numbers fly by.

Snap To Grid

In the days of MacDraw (predecessor to Adobe Illustrator and the like), I could never imagine doing anything without turning on the automatic grid. By doing so, anywhere I click would be automagically nearest-neighbored to the closest grid point. Thus all my digital drawings with the grid enabled would result in complete precision.

Such a simple human enabler like the automatic grid function heralded the power of computer-aided design. Clumsy implements like T-squares and drawing triangles were no longer necessary when the computer could help you draw with true perfection. However, I thought it strange today when I realized that I don't turn the grid on anymore when I make drawings on the computer. I stopped using it for three reasons.

The first reason is that living on the grid is an illusion of perfection. Let's say our grid is set to 0.25" ("=inch) and off you go and draw. You realize later that you need to draw some parts in 0.1" increments so you switch the grid. At that moment you emit a loud shriek because suddenly your two grids don't match up. You go back and start over again with the 0.1" grid, only later to find that you need to work in 0.25" increments still.

The second reason is the problem with scaling an object on the grid. Let's say you are on a grid of 0.25" again, and you draw a triangle with all three points living on the grid. If you haven't drawn a right triangle you will find that by resizing the triangle, one of your points will generally end up off the grid. You can either choose to only draw right triangles, or else be sure you never have to scale the triangles once drawn.

In either the first or second cases, the promise of the grid does not match up to what you can end up with on the computer. The grid is not an absolute law, but a general guide that the computer often chooses to break.

So, getting to the third reason for why I stopped using "Snap To Grid," it is that I do not care if everything I draw is of the highest precision. If some boxes are misaligned, most people won't notice. And if the information I am depicting is sufficiently important, the formal qualities will be of less importance as compared to the actual meaning that I wish to convey. Nonetheless, I can optically recognize .01 point discrepancies in things that I see and I do respect fine craftsmanship and all ... but if the computer isn't going to do it right for me and be of consistent use in this area I plan to stay off the grid.

On an related note, I also used to enjoy "Snap To Guide" or "Snap To Anchor Point" until I realized that I would wave points or objects near the guides or other points in proximity to an object I might be moving but with no "snap" of the cursor. The preconditions for a good "snap" seem to be as hard for me as getting that nice "snap" when you throw a football that flies nice and straight. Maybe the computer is prejudiced against non-jocks? I'm just in a snappy mood today ...

Easy to Eat

My father has an elaborate garden that he tends to on a daily basis. Ever year he has a bountiful harvest that includes zucchini, green beans, and grapes. In addition to gardening, his other hobby is to cook large meals for guests and family. I say large because he never quite gets the quantity right. There is always more food, and never less.

He lives in perfect balance between research and development. Seeds are sewn to grow new crops (raw materials) that can be fed into new meals (finished product). Both tasks are time-consuming and necessary for getting to the other half of the equation, which is eating. Reaping the benefits of one's hard work really is not a difficult task. When you eat a finely cooked meal, is it that hard to do? I see no great difficulty. All you really have is pure benefit on the consumption side of the equation. Insert finished product into your mouth, chew and savor, swallow—satisfaction achieved.

Yet anyone who knows a good cook is aware that the cook him- or herself is also reaping a certain benefit. That is, the benefit of doing something creative well. I think it is called pride. The old adage, "It is better to give than to receive," is somehow connected to this arena of thought I am sure. Although I wish to point out that altruism does have its own sense of satisfaction in a purely selfish sense. Selflessness can be selfish. To be selfish is to survive. To be selfless is to survive well.

My current labor is to switch my brain over from consume to produce. I never read many books as a youth, and spent all my time just making things. Now as an older adult, I find that I enjoy reading and learning things. I just sit there and eat and eat and eat knowledge. To jump into the other mode where you just cook and cook and cook doesn't seem at all as comfortable as it is to eat.

Taking photographs is the perfect balance of cook and eat because the gratification is instantaneous. With a press of a button, I have selected a raw ingredient, created a visual meal, and can feed it to someone else without delay. I think that I ascribe to the 'sushi chef' style of photography where I try to keep my meal simple and fresh. On the other hand you can be a 'French chef' style of photographer that tends to all the conditions of the image and settings of the camera such that it is realized as perfect planning and execution. Maybe if I ever get to cooking school I will defect to the French camp ... I still have time.

Writing text is similar to photography in that the raw ingredients come from the environment and your mind. Unfortunately there's no "shutter button" to press that results in instant capture/creation of a textual expression. Writers should be paid more than photographers in that respect.

Writing computer code has to be one of the worst forms of human expression. I'm not 100% sure why. I think it is because you have to fold your brain into the mindset of quasi-mathematic thinking while speaking a kind of baby gibberish of symbols and codes in text. All your human creativity has to compress itself into a tiny ball and recede, while the mechanical creativity has to surface as the dominant force in order to get the job done. In order to retain some guise of a balance between the two creative forces in my mind, I will scribble a lot in pen on paper to keep my thinking fluid across the two halves. Going into the development of a program is much like the scenes I have seen in movie where the coal miners enter an elevator that goes deeeeep into the heart of the earth where all movements and actions go unseen. Time to enter the mine ... the elevator beckons.

Casey Mehta of Michigan told me an interesting story of his time while working in the automotive industry and the restaurant industry simultaneously during a period of his life: "While working in the restaurant, many time I would compare my day job (design engineer) with my evening occupation (restaurant). I realized that, as an advance design engineer, it took at least 5 to 10 years to conceive new design or system for automobiles and put it into production (only about 1 out of 10 design concepts would make it into production). So the process of conceiving, designing, testing, developing and mass producing a vehicles is approximately a 15-year process. Then came sales and service—vehicles normally stay 5 years on the market and once they are phased out, service parts are stocked for additional 10 years. This way from concept to useful life of an auto is about 25 to 30 years. Whereas, in restaurant all these 25 years of product life cycle is compressed in to one day—first conceive a special item on the menu – buy raw materials – manufacture – sell – get instantaneous customer feedback (every customer is JD Power). And then start the same cycle next day." Casey's story succinctly tells us the difference in scale of effort between preparing a temporary hunger suppressant like a cooked meal versus constructing a vehicle that travels reliably at least 60 miles per hour. Some days you need to get to work, some days you need a fix of jambalaya. Plain and simple.

Aisling Kelliher of the Media Lab related a nice farming story from her youth: "My grandparents made and continue to make their living as market gardeners and I grew up digging trenches for potato plants, tying lady's panty hose to overhead wires to keep tomato vines growing straight and sneaking luscious strawberries fresh from the plant, yet blaming 'the birds' for the thievery :). The joy in gardening and its result, providing, is in the satisfaction of watching something grow under careful guidance and support until it reaches its fullest potential. it is a process. just as cooking a sumptous meal is a process, where those flitting around the kitchen are aware of a work in progress, from the earthy smells of soil washing off cabbage, to the delightful aromas of the final platter. For our family, the cabbage is both a final product (source of income) and the raw material for a domestic activity—it is simplicity itself."