Letters Remain

Month: March 2009

  • Design Patterns for Errorproofing

    Persuasive technologies are those which are designed to change the attitudes or behaviours of users. Errorproofing, on the otherhand, is concerned not with behavioural change, but in ensuring certain behaviours are met. Errorproof technologies, then, are those which “[make] it easier for users to work without making errors, or [that make] errors impossible in the…

  • 13 + 17 Tips for Startups

    Two articles of fundamental startup tips, from two people who know what they’re talking about: Startups in 13 Sentences, by Paul Graham of Y Combinator. Of the 13 sentences, which one does Paul believe is the most important? Understand your users. That’s the key. The essential task in a startup is to create wealth; the…

  • Tournament of Books

    The fifth annual Tournament of Books is currently in progress. The tournament—dubbed the “battle royale of literary excellence”—pits 16 of the best novels published in the previous year against each other to find the winner of the coveted Rooster. Round one: 2666 vs. Steer Toward Rock Netherland vs. A Partisan’s Daughter The White Tiger vs.…

  • Recipes and Vegetables: Now and Then

    A study looking at recipes in ‘classic’ recipe books such as The Joy of Cooking has found an average 40% increase in calories per serving over the last 70 years—about an extra 77 calories—due, in part, to a vast increase in portion sizes. Lisa Young, an adjunct nutrition professor at New York University, had similar…

  • The Cult of Done

    The Cult of Done Manifesto is a compelling list of ‘rules’ for getting things done. I think the premise of The Cult of Done is: to do; to be unconcerned with failure; to learn from outcomes, be they good or bad. I particularly like the Rubix Cube manifesto poster. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and…

  • Periodic Table of Typefaces

    The Periodic Table of Typefaces is a fantastic visualisation of 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces available. Grouped by families and classes of typefaces ((sans-)serif, script, glyphic, grotesque, etc.), each ‘element’ lists the designer, the year designed and a ranking of 1 through 100. Sites used to calculate the ranking: The 100…

  • Paternal Age and Child Development

    Advanced paternal age at conception has previously been shown to affect the resulting child’s health in many ways. Now, advanced paternal age has also been associated with impaired neurocognitive abilities (“the ability to think and reason, including concentration, memory, learning, understanding, speaking, and reading”). Advanced paternal age showed significant associations with poorer scores on all of…

  • Execution is Everything

    With the premise that execution is everything and that without execution ideas are worthless, the participants of Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA program have produced 999 business ideas free for the taking. The majority; worthless. A few; excellent. Although I think we can still state: point proven.

  • Physiognomy and Looking Creditworthy

    Using data from the person-to-person lending company Propser.com, research is starting to show that—when it comes to analysing creditworthyness—the once discredited science of physiognomy may be valid. In other words, people may be able to tell if we are actually trustworthy just from looking at our facial features. Science proceeds by trial and error. The successes…

  • Visualising the News (The Guardian & New York Times APIs)

    The New York Times Developer Network is the media outlet’s “API clearinghouse” offering details of how you can get access to the extensive data they have released (from stories dating back to 1981). Using this API, Jer Thorp has created some visualisations of NYT trends using Processing (a language I keep promising to take a…