More easily asked than definitively answered Some design questions are more easily asked than definitively answered. Inventors are seldom at a loss for problems, and so they must choose which ones they will work on. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things inventionquestionschoice
When Movable Type ate the blogosphere Here’s the crux of the problem: When something is easy, people will do more of it. When you produce your whole site by hand, from HEAD to /BODY, you begin in a world of infinite possibility. You can tailor your content exactly how you like it, and organize it in any way you please. Every design decision you make represents roughly equal work because, heck, you’ve gotta do it by hand either way. Whether it’s reverse chronological entries or a tidy table of contents. You might as well do what you want. But once you are given a tool that operates effortlessly — but only in a certain way — every choice that deviates from the standard represents a major cost. Movable Type didn’t just kill off blog customization. It (and its competitors) actively killed other forms of web production. Amy Hoy, How the Blog Broke the Web constraintschoicetools
Junctions The junction, or place of a break in transportation, has compelling importance for the city observer. Because decisions must be made at junctions, people heighten their attention at such place and perceive elements with more than normal clarity. This tendency was confirmed so repeatedly that elements located at junctions may automatically be assumed to derive special prominence from their location. Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City citieswayfindingchoice
What kind of world it's going to be The wonderful thing about living in a world of our own creation is that we get to choose what kind of world it's going to be—at least in principle. But the promise is meaningful only if a broad enough "we" can be engaged in the process. At present, mechanisms and democratic institutions for making collective decisions about the deployment of technology are hopelessly cumbersome. How can anyone make a sensible choice without being able to weigh one alternative against another? Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape democracypoliticsclimatechoice
Art and science "What the artist does is essentially the same as the scientist. In other words, what you do when you start to do a painting is that you begin with a basic idea, a hypothesis of what you're setting out to do. Then it's just a million yes-no decisions. You try something in the painting, you look at it, and you say, 'N-n-no.' You sort of erase it out, and you move it around a little bit, put in a new line; you go through a million weighings. It's the same thing in science, the only difference in the character of the product." Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees sciencedecisionschoice
What Le Corbusier got right about office space An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com In the 1960s, the designer Robert Propst worked with the Herman Miller company to produce “The Action Office”, a stylish system of open-plan office furniture that allowed workers to sit, stand, move around and configure the space as they wished. Propst then watched in horror as his ideas were corrupted into cheap modular dividers, and then to cubicle farms or, as Propst described them, “barren, rathole places”. Managers had squeezed the style and the space out of the action office, but above all they had squeezed the ability of workers to make choices about the place where they spent much of their waking lives. ...It should be easy for the office to provide a vastly superior working environment to the home, because it is designed and equipped with work in mind. Few people can afford the space for a well-designed, well-specified home office. Many are reduced to perching on a bed or coffee table. And yet at home, nobody will rearrange the posters on your wall, and nobody will sneer about your “dog pictures, or whatever”. That seems trivial, but it is not. workpersonalityownershipmodularitychoice
In Praise of Small Menus An Article by Rachel Sugar www.grubstreet.com The best way to experience a restaurant, I have always felt, is by eating exactly what it wants to feed you. I do not want choices. I want the best thing. A restaurant might have five or ten best things, but it cannot have 45. There are many infuriating things about the world, but one of the more fixable is the sensation of acute regret from having ordered wrong. Why are there possibly wrong orders? Recently, I was at a fancy restaurant with great pastas and bad pizzas. So cut the pizzas! A kitchen that focuses on its strengths turns out consistently excellent things, even if that results in fewer total things. fooduxchoicesimplicity
Become a person who actually does things An Article by Neel Nanda www.lesswrong.com If there’s one thing you take from this post, let it be this: notice the next time you agonize over a choice, or pass up an opportunity. And ask yourself not “what is the right decision” but rather “which decision will get me closer to the kind of person I want to be”. wisdomchoiceprogress
The Alchemist A Novel by Paulo Coelho en.wikipedia.org My own beauty reflectedThicker booksTo find God in the seminaryWhat others want them to beThe soul of the universe+25 More The alchemists in their mixings destinyloveadventureexploration
My own beauty reflected The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said: "I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected." Narcissus and Goldmund beautyego
Thicker books He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows. booksreading
To find God in the seminary If he were to tire of the Andalusian fields, he could sell his sheep and go to sea. By the time he had had enough of the sea, he would already have known other cities, other women, and other chances to be happy. I couldn't have found God in the seminary, he thought, as he looked at the sunrise. religion
What others want them to be When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own. changelife
The soul of the universe "When you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe...And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
When each day is the same When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises. goodnessmonotony
The drops of oil on the spoon "'Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,' said the wisest of wise men. 'The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.'" happiness
Like everyone else "I'm like everyone else—I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does." desire
This language without words There must be a language that doesn't depend on words, the boy thought. I've already had that experience with my sheep, and now it's happening with people. He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren't really new, but that he had never perceived before. And he hadn't perceived them because he had become accustomed to them. He realized: If I can learn to understand the language without words, I can learn to understand the world. The quality without a name language
If my dream is realized "I'm afraid that if my dream is realized, I'll have no reason to go on living. "You dream about your sheep and the Pyramids, but you're different from me, because you want to realize your dreams. I just want to dream about Mecca. I've already imagined a thousand times crossing the desert...I've already imagined the people who would be at my side, and those in front of me, and the conversations and prayers we would share. But I'm afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I prefer just to dream about it." dreams
For something believed in There was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired. Your life adds up craft
Two hours closer Yet the boy felt that there was another way to regard his situation: he was actually two hours closer to his treasure...the fact that the two hours had stretched into an entire year didn't matter. time
They're not my sheep anymore It reminded him of the wool from his sheep...his sheep who were now seeking food and water in the fields of Andalusia, as they always had. "They're not my sheep anymore," he said to himself, without nostalgia. "They must be used to their new shepherd, and have probably already forgotten me. That's good. Creatures like the sheep, that are used to traveling, know about moving on." melancholy
It is written Maybe he was also learning the universal language that deals with the past and present of all people. "Hunches," his mother used to call them. The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there. "Maktub," the boy said, remembering the crystal merchant. intuition
So that we can understand those few lines In one of the books he learned that the most important text in the literature of alchemy contained only a few lines, and had been inscribed on the surface of an emerald. "It's the Emerald Tablet," said the Englishman, proud that he might teach something to the boy. "Well, then, why do we need all these books?" the boy asked. "So that we can understand those few lines." understanding
Because we have to sleep Two nights later, as he was getting ready to bed down, the boy looked for the star they followed every night. He thought that the horizon was a bit lower than it had been, because he seemed to see stars on the desert itself. "It's the oasis," said the camel driver. "Well, why don't we go there right now?" the boy asked. "Because we have to sleep." sleep
Pictures and words He had only one explanation for this fact: things have to be transmitted this way because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words. Because people become fascinated with pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World. Words and Images
Someone in the world awaits you When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. ...He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you. love
Go and try "He asked me if I had ever transformed lead into gold. I told him that was what I had come here to learn. "He told me I should try to do so. That's all he said: 'Go and try.'" ..."So, then try," he said to the Englishman. "That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start now." learning
Love without ownership He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them...if anything could help him to understand, it was the desert. ...He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of love without ownership. loveownership
The history of all things He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things...Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World. A simple grain of sand history
Only a moment of light "If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return." light
Looking only for gold "And what went wrong when other alchemists tried to make gold and were unable to do so?" "They were looking only for gold," his companion answered. "They were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend, without wanting to actually live out the Personal Legend." desire
A world that is perfect "The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect." simulation
A simple grain of sand "The desert will give you an understanding of the world; in fact, anything on the face of the earth will do that. You don't even have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation." The history of all things
We, their hearts "People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly." dreamsfear
A threatening place "Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place." fearwisdom
Just a whinny again "There was a time when, for me, a camel's whinnying was nothing more than whinnying. Then it became a signal of danger. And, finally, it became just a whinny again." Mountains are mountains zen
To become better than we are "That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too."
Everything that happens twice Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.