What is most easily put into words is not necessarily what is most important.
The Ruins
And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton! What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of men–thus vanish empires and nations?
What Would People Say?
‘Spartacus’ star Andy Whitfield dies of lymphoma at 39
Whitfield’s wife, Vashti, in a statement called her husband a “beautiful young warrior” who died on a “sunny Sydney morning” in the “arms of his loving wife.”
Never heard of him. Also, his wife’s remarks are a tad self-serving, but they did get me to thinking what people would say in the event of my own untimely demise.
Best case: “He was a pain in the ass but at least he was interesting.”
More likely: “He was a pain in the ass. Once in a great while, he said something interesting. You had to wait for it.”
I Had a Threesome Last Night!
My owner and his wife both rubbed my tummy at the same time!
— Lightning 
Kids Can Be Good at Anything
If they want to. If it’s important to them.
For example: My kid has played hockey most of his life. We know some families where all the kids — boy or girl — play hockey, and almost all of them are good players.
I don’t know any families where all the kids play hockey and they’re all bad. Those families have decided for some reason that it’s important for kids to play a good game of hockey.
Another example: We live in a school district with a lot of Asian families. They don’t care about hockey. In Asian families, it’s important for the kids to be good at academics and music.
You don’t see a lot of Asian guys in the National Hockey League, but you do see a lot of Asian kids at our nation’s best universities.
It’s a parenting challenge — getting kids to assign importance to the right things.
Predictions
When did it become so imperative for sports pundits to make predictions on every goddamn game? Predictions are like assholes — everybody’s got one and they’re all full of shit.
Give me some insight if you have some, but spare me the fucking picks!
We may as well listen to people guess how many jellybeans are in the 10-gallon jar.
The Law of Conservation of Ignorance
A false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged, and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held.
The Job of Our Time
The job of our time is to hospice the death of the old unsustainable systems and structures, and to midwife the birth of new sustainable systems and new ways of being.
EppsNet at the Movies: Day for Night
Day for Night (1973)
Directed by François Truffaut. With Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Valentina Cortese..
A movie about making a movie . . .
The director says, “Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive.”
Highly recommended!
Back to School 2011
Students of Irvine –
I say to you what I used to say to my own kid:
Do your best.
Be a nice person.
Let me know if you need any help.
Problems
I attribute my own problems to the trials of life. I attribute the problems of others to their personalities.
Aside
Some days you slap the panda, some days the panda slaps you.
Happy Labor Day
When there’s BBQ ribs to be eaten, it’s every man for himself.
Wait, that’s sexist. Let me rephrase.
When there’s BBQ ribs to be eaten, it’s every mf’er for themselves.
Happy Labor Day!
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People Who “Rescued” Their Dog
How did you rescue it? Run into a burning warehouse? Punch a bear in the face?
No — you got the dog at the pound because you’re too cheap to buy one.
Marco Polo
“You can’t fool me. I investigate things. I’m like Marco Polo.”
“I don’t understand. How are you like Marco Polo?”
“I investigate things.”
“Are you thinking Marco Polo was a detective?”
“Yeah. That guy who died last year.”
“You mean Columbo?”
“Right, Columbo.”
User-Centered Design
Design should:
- Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make use of constraints).
- Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative actions, and the results of actions.
- Make it easy to evaluate the state of the system.
- Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions; between actions and the resulting effect; and between the information that is visible and the interpretation of the system state.
In other words, make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on.
Start by Visualizing Perfection
One can come at improvement from two angles:
- How can we make things suck less? or
- What is the ideal state that we should shoot for?
I’m for the second option. It is the classic Lean approach to improvement, BTW: Start by visualizing perfection.
Refrigerators
Office email:
A friendly reminder that all refrigerators will be cleaned out this Sunday. Please take anything home that you do not want thrown out.
I do not want this carton of Macadamia Vanilla Bean ice cream to be thrown out.
Wait — does it matter if I brought the item in, or just that I don’t want it to be thrown out?
Let Me Save You Some Time
Are you sick and tired of . . . ?
Fill in anything and my answer will probably be yes.