The glow of grime Of course this 'sheen of antiquity' of which we hear so much is in fact the glow of grime. In both Chinese and Japanese the words denoting this glow describe a polish that comes of being touched over and over again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over long years of handling—which is to say grime. If indeed 'elegance is frigid', it can as well be described as filthy. Jun'ichirō Tanizaki & Thomas J. Harper, In Praise of Shadows timeaestheticsfilthflaws
Monkeys testing random designs A Tweet by Jared Spool twitter.com A/B testing is an effective approach to use science to design and deliver deeply-frustrating user experiences. A/B testing without upfront research is just random monkeys testing random designs to see which of those designs do “best” against random criteria. If drug testing was actually implemented like most A/B tests, you’d give 2 drugs to 2 groups of people and pick the “winner” by whichever group had fewer deaths. uxresearch