understanding humans
is it just me or have the spammers in China gone crazy lately?
Looking at my spam folder in gmail, not only have I been getting a whole lot more spam than usual (all beautifully captured in the spam folder thankfully), but it all seems to be in Chinese.
Bizarre. You too?
Cameron Reilly posted earlier a story that he heard somewhere about how to catch a spider monkey, or more importantly, how important it can be to let go of the nut.
In order to catch spider monkeys, hunters in South America simply walk through the jungle and drop heavy containers on the ground. These containers have very a narrow top and a wider bottom. Inside the containers the hunters drop a special kind of nut which is particularly attractive to the monkeys. Sometime later, the spider monkeys come down from the tops of the trees, smell the nut, but the tops of the containers are so narrow they have a tight squeeze to get their hands inside. Once they grab the nut at the bottom, their fist is too large to remove if through the opening. And the containter is too heavy for them to carry.
So instead of letting go of the nut, the monkeys just sit there until the hunters come back, pick them up, and throw them in a bag.
The spider monkeys are not prepared to let go of a small nut in order to gain their freedom.
This story and Cameron discussion around it, really resonates with me at the moment. There are some nuts that I’m kind of holding that I think I might need to drop. All of this discussion that I’m engaging with around process and documentation – that’s one nut. There are a lot of people out there who are clinging to the nut (the ‘old’, familiar process) and who are going to be trapped because they won’t let go… but then, at the same time, I think others have just grabbed another nut in place of the other (e.g. Getting Real methodology), which seems like a more attractive nut, but which is not necessarily a good nut. And probably not one worth getting trapped for. (Am I wearing this analogy a little thin?
I’m a Tim Winton fan. Have been for ages.
CloudStreet is one of my most favourite books ever. I love the way this man writes.
But, I’ve been putting off reading The Turning because its a book of short stories and I always tell myself that I find short stories unsatisfying.
This is actually untrue, but I manage to convince myself of this fact regularly. I’m a short story snob.
If you are too and you’re avoiding this book for that reason – give it up for the turning now. It’s amazing and you must read it.
Now, it’s not as amazing as CloudStreet, but the intertwining of characters between each story, picking up the same story from various aspects in time or space or character perspective makes the book a really rich experience. I found myself thinking back on stories I’d read earlier, now with a new piece of information found in the story I’m currently reading… rethinking occurs regularly. Its part of the experience. I really liked that.
and, speaking of definitions…
is there another word responsible for so much confusion as ‘design’.
every time I use that word I have to spend another three sentences defining exactly what I mean by design… because there are so many different types of designing, and everyone has a different default setting.
I give you:
That’s just a quick list. I’m sure you have more.
I propose never to use the term ‘design’ in isolation ever again. From here on, I vow to always use it with a descriptor that ensures me meaning is entirely clear.
Well, as clear as possible.
Who’s with me?
Technorati Tags: design, definition