Getting Real: Take it slow if you need it fast

There are only a few smalls shops that I have respect for. One of them being 37Signals. David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails) wrote a quick article about something most people in the industry understand but just don’t realize/utilize it.

“As a programmer in this small shop, I’m constantly reminded of what happens when I try to go faster by ignoring broken windows. It doesn’t work! You can postpone that refactoring or those tests or this automation for only so long before it starts to hurt both motivationally and economically. But its exactly at that point, when the hurt is pressing, that its the hardest to step back.

In the moment of pressure, it’s incredibly easy to commit the fallacy of thinking that you “don’t have time to do the right thing�. That’s a big warning sign and should condition your brain to slap you when the thought pops into your head.

The reason, of course, is that no business and no project lives or dies by what you do today, but rather as the result of your actions over a longer stretch. This goes for any activity, not just programming. Are you answering the same question over and over again in customer support? Inline the answer at the point of trouble. Or otherwise adjust to be self-explanatory.

Realize that “don’t have time right now� is a self-fulling prophesy. You will never have time right now if you don’t take it today. The business is not going to slow down to allow you to clean all these things up one wonderful day. It just won’t happen.

In other words, you want to take it slow if you need it fast.”

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Guilherme Marconi

Guilherme Marconi’s playground has a ton of fresh work, you can pick up some of his stuff at his cafe press.

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Robots can ride bikes too!

“Cycling robot ‘Murata Seisaku-kun’ pedals on a two-centimeter (0.8 inch)-wide balance beam without staggers during its demonstration at the headquarters of Japan’s electronics euipment maker Murata Manufacturing Co. in Nagaokakyo in Kyoto Pref., western Japan, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005.

 

Equipped with a sensor that detects its own posture inclination and controls the handlebar, the 50-centimeter (20-inch)-tall battery-powered cycling robot, that weighs 5-kilogram (11 lb), can cycle along various programmed courses at the maximum speed of 2-kilomter (1.24-mile) per hour and keep its upright position even if it comes to a halt by controling the rotation of a disk built-in at its belly. The name of the robot comes from the company’s Japanese name Murata Seisakusho. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)”

 

 

 

 

 

Electric Sheep

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers “sleep”, the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as “sheep”. The result is a collective “android dream”, an homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience.

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Unicorns – Haunted House Video

Right Click, Save As

Presstube – James Paterson Gallery

Photos and videos from James Paterson’s gallery from July.

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Professor Testifies in Evolution Debate

“As scientists go about their business, they follow a method,” Pennock said. “Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn’t really fall within the purview of science.”

Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.

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Visiting Stefan Sagmeister

Pingmag is a Tokyo based magazine about “design & making things.” They have an interview with Sagmeister that’s worth reading.

“Stefan Sagmeister’s work surprises, touches, provokes, makes you laugh and makes you think. The Austrian Graphic Designer published the book “Made you look” in 2001 containing all of his work up to that point, took a year off client work and toured the world talking about Graphic Design and the importance of content over style. Time has passed and PingMag was just too curious to wait until he comes to Japan next! I visited him at his studio in New York to talk about his more recent projects.”

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Finkbuilt – Ketchup Label Design Contest

“You don’t have to be Malcom Gladwell to notice that in the mustard world, fads come and fads go, varietals and variants are tried and eventually embraced by consumers.

Ketchup always stays the same.

Here at Finkbuilt Labs, our plan is nothing less than to shake the world out of this condiment orthodoxy by introducing a NEW tomato ketchup. Change can be unsettling, but fear not, FINKZ Tomato Ketchup will do everything your old ketchup did, and more.”

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How To Manage The Monster

There’s an article over at CreativeBehavior about How To Manage The Monster (client).

 “You can ask anyone in the creative services industry, everyone at one time or another has had the client from hell. The difference between the good clients and bad clients isn’t actually all that great. Most clients are demanding, and what all the projects done yesterday. In my experience good clients and bad clients will push you to do your best work. It’s the approach the client takes that makes them feel like the “monster” client. Some clients can be micro-managers, asking you to change the design until it look’s like a pile of horse puke, other clients can give you no direction at all yet hate everything you produce. The only constant factor in this equation is you. After working on multi-million accounts with large advertising agencies all the project problems seem to have a common thread.”