The getaway to end all getaways Any attempt to track down the perfect getaway is made all the more complex because almost everything we know about burglary—including how they did (or did not) get away—comes from the burglars we’ve caught. As sociologist R. I. Mawby pithily phrases this dilemma, “Known burglars are unrepresentative of burglars in general.” Great methodological despair is hidden in such a comment. Studying burglary is thus a strangely Heisenbergian undertaking, riddled with uncertainty and distorted by moving data points. The getaway to end all getaways—the one that leaves us all scratching our heads—to no small extent remains impossible to study. Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City failure
The Evolution of Useful Things A Book by Henry Petroski Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity. Spike and sponShaped and reshapedForm follows failureTheir wrongness is somehow more immediateA small corner of the world of things+23 More The evolution of devices formfunctioninventionprogressfailure
My Anti-Resumé An Article by Monica Byrne monicacatherine.com A couple years ago I was having dinner with a playwright, Bekah Brunstetter, and her director David Shmidt Chapman. We talked about how rejection is just part of the landscape for all beginning artists, no matter how talented or hardworking they might be or how successful they might appear. David said he’d love to publish his “anti-résumé” someday—a list of all the things he didn’t get. Spreadsheet Portfolios for UX Designers workfailure
Until we leave the gate behind And yet the timeless way is not complete, and will not fully generate the quality without a name, until we leave the gate behind. Indeed this ageless character has nothing, in the end, to do with languages. The language, and the processes which stem from it, merely release the fundamental order which is native to us. They do not teach us, they only remind us of what we know already, and of what we shall discover time and time again, when we give up our ideas and opinions, and do exactly what emerges from ourselves. At this final stage, the patterns are no longer important: the patterns have taught you to be receptive to what is real. It is the gate which leads you to the state of mind, in which you live so close to your own heart that you no longer need a language. This is the final lesson of the timeless way. Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building The natural thing to do zenending