A sensitively tailored combination of modes Efficiency is produced not by the sort of movement monoculture of cars-only American cities but by a sensitively tailored combination of modes sited to exploit the particular efficiencies of each and providing useful duplication and alternative. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan efficiencytransportation
Conversations, not commandments Good software comes from a vision, combined with conversations not commandments. In a craft-focused environment, care for efficiency, simplicity, and details really do matter. I didn’t leave my last job just because I wanted to make something new. I left because I wanted to make it in a way I could be proud of. Pirijan Ketheswaran, Why Software is Slow and Shitty pketh.org detailscraftsimplicityefficiency
Dwelling densities and diversity The reason dwelling densities can begin repressing diversity if they get too high is this: At some point, to accommodate so many dwellings on the land, standardization of the buildings must set in. This is fatal, because great diversity in age and types of buildings has a direct, explicit connection with diversity of population, diversity of enterprises and diversity of scenes. Among all the various kinds of buildings (old or new) in a city, some kinds are always less efficient than others in adding dwellings to the land. A three-story building will get fewer dwellings onto a given number of square feet of land than a five-story building; a five-story building, fewer than a ten-story building. If you want to go up far enough, the number of dwellings that can go onto a given plot of land is stupendous—as Le Corbusier demonstrated with his schemes for a city of repetitive skyscrapers in a park. But in this process of packing dwellings on given acreages of land, it does not do to get too efficient, and it never did. There must be leeway for variety among buildings. All those variations that are of less than maximum efficiency get crowded out. Maximum efficiency, or anything approaching it, means standardization. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities efficiency
The mirror-image economy When we enter the world of refuse and waste, we cross over into a mirror-image economy. In the "normal" world, we pay to acquire things; on the other side of the looking glass, we pay to get rid of them. Junk isn't merely worthless; it has negative value. A chemical engineer once told me about a recent improvement in a manufacturing process; by fine-tuning a chemical synthesis he had increased the yield of a certain commodity from 98 percent to 99 percent. I congratulated him, but I couldn't help remarking that this seemed like a rather paltry improvement. "Ah, you miss the important point," he said. "The amount of waste goes from 2 percent down to 1 percent. It's cut in half. We save tremendously on disposal costs." Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape wasterecyclingtrashefficiencyeconomics
Taylorism “In the past the man has been first. In the future the system must be first.” — Fred W. Taylor Taylorism was a way of thinking that came at the expense of the workers’ own knowledge of their system. Taylor summed up his philosophy thus: “It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standard and enforcing this cooperation rests with the management alone.” The unscripted practices of the old offices would remain, but as a kind of subterfuge: in the future, a leisurely pace wouldn’t be the norm; time would not be given, but stolen. Nikil Saval, Cubed systemsefficiency
Efficiency is the Enemy An Article fs.blog Many of us have come to expect work to involve no slack time because of the negative way we perceive it. In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. Without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing. One way or another, something gets delayed. The increase in busyness may well be futile. It’s Time to Embrace Slow Productivity efficiencyproductivitywork
Muda, Muri, Mura An Article mag.toyota.co.uk Eliminating waste is the key to efficiency – in the Toyota Production System, this is termed as: Muda (waste), Muri (overburden), and Mura (irregularity). productionwastemanagementefficiency
You and Your Research A Speech by Richard Hamming www.cs.virginia.edu This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?" Important problemsOpen doors, open mindsInverting the problemIntellectual investment is like compound interestGreat people can tolerate ambiguity+2 More The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn researchdiscoverycreativitylearning
Important problems Among the important properties to have is the belief you can do important things. If you do not work on important problems, how can you expect to do important work? Yet direct observation and direct questioning of people show most scientists spend most of their time working on things they believe are not important and are not likely to lead to important things.
Open doors, open minds I suspect the open mind leads to the open door, and the open door tends to lead to the open mind; they reinforce each other. doors
Inverting the problem When stuck, often inverting the problem and realizing the new formulation is better represents a significant step forward.
Intellectual investment is like compound interest Intellectual investment is like compound interest: the more you do, the more you learn how to do, so the more you can do, etc. I do not know what compound interest rate to assign, but it must be well over 6%—one extra hour per day over a lifetime will much more than double the total output. The steady application of a bit more effort has a great total accumulation.
Great people can tolerate ambiguity Great people can tolerate ambiguity; they can both believe and disbelieve at the same time. You must be able to believe your organization and field of research is the best there is, but also that there is much room for improvement! I don't necessarily agree with everything that I say
Selling new ideas I must come to the topic of “selling” new ideas. You must master three things to do this: Giving formal presentations, Producing written reports, and Mastering the art of informal presentations as they happen to occur. All three are essential—you must learn to sell your ideas, not by propaganda, but by force of clear presentation. I am sorry to have to point this out; many scientists and others think good ideas will win out automatically and need not be carefully presented. They are wrong; many a good idea has had to be rediscovered because it was not well presented the first time, years before! Scientific writing
A halo of opportunities It seems to me at almost all times there is a halo of opportunities about everyone from which to select.