Archive: October 14, 2004

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Say "no" by default

Steve Jobs on innovation: Gives me chills (Signal vs. Noise), via Paul. Say "no" by default. Make yourself be convinced that "no" is the wrong answer. Matt helped to teach me this.

Update: Also see this along the same lines. Via Ned.

Update: One more. See Jeff Hawkins on good design (via Alex). Jeff Hawkins designed the initial Palm Pilot, and the first item in his list of principles is "eliminate options".

Permalink | 4 Comments | id 5767

23:16 (utc-4)
edited: 2004-10-17 21:50 (utc-4)

 

1. BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Teflon's sticky situation, via Keith.

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2. Lucid Cms, based on the now-defunct Whisper (formerly Pages) CMS. Via TinyApps.

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3. Sorting Algorithms, via The Daily WTF. This goes along with my post on Gnome sort.

   Even though you know what sorts are O(n²) and which are O(nlogn), you don't have an intuitive feel for the constants involved, so the graphs are helpful. I wish he'd done an analysis of Gnome sort. I'd be really interested to see where it falls on the graph of O(n²) algorithms.

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4. Study: One in 100 adults asexual. Oh man! Finally, I have an identity. I want my own coming-out day, and someone better get on creating our own symbol.

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5. Conrad relays President Bush's response to those concerned Norwegians. Awesome.

   (For those who won't read through, it's satire... or a parody. Well, half of it is satire. At least intentionally. The other half might be considered self-parody).

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6. Via Drudge, Study finds cell phones could cause noncancerous tumors: South Florida Sun-Sentinel. I keep hearing things like this. I try to use my cell phone as little as possible.

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Есть Два Цвета: Черный И Белый, А Есть Оттенки, Которых Больше.

Ned relayed the following quote:

Есть Два Цвета: Черный И Белый, А Есть Оттенки, Которых Больше.

which he took based on a poor Babelfish translation to mean something like "Between black and white there are many shades". I think it's funny that when the person he got the quote from commented in response he revealed the quote to have the opposite meaning Ned thought it intended:

The more correct translation of the motto is something like 'There are two colors: black and white. Others are just shades'.

Permalink | 1 Comment | id 5760

13:03 (utc-4)

 

1. Webnote - an online tool for taking notes

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2. How to Study: A Brief Guide

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3. Gnome Sort - The Simplest Sort Algorithm, via Dick Grune who has a lot of other interesting stuff such as his book on parsing (which I have linked to before). Incidentally, Wikipedia's pages on sorting algorithms appear to be excellent.

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4. Iwo Jima, if covered by media today (to read), by Zell Miller. Via Power Line. That post on Power Line has a lot more on it.

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5. The Command Post - Op-Ed - A Jewish liberal New Yorker on why she is voting for Bush (to finish reading), via Roger

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6. Carol Gould: An American in London (to finish reading), via Charles and Roger.

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7. A Comparative Look At Some Ruby Idioms, via The Farm.

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