Design with Intent | Three quotes from clever people
“Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artefacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state.”
Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969 (p.129 of 1981 MIT press 2nd edition)
Favorite of the Decade: Film
Here’s my list, to join the innumberable others out there. This one will be a bit smaller than the following Enjoyed List. Don’t expect one for books. I might be forgetting a few as I have been using Wikipedia to jump start my memory and the lists there are no exhaustive.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) 24 Hour Party People (2002) Adventureland (2009) Amelie (2001) Adaptation (2002) American Psycho (2000) Appaloosa (2008) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Borat (2006) Brick (2006) Casino Royale (2006) Children of Men (2006) City of God (2002) Collateral (2004) The Dark Knight (2008) The Departed (2006) Dogville (2003) Doubt (2008) Downfall(2004) Eastern Promises (2007) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) The Fountain (2006) Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) Grizzly Man (2005) The Hurt Locker (2009) The Incredibles (2004) Infamous (2006) Jesus Camp (2006) Juno (2007) Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000) Let the Right One In (2008) Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Lilya 4-ever (2002) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) The Lives of Others (2006) The Lookout (2007) Lords of Dogtown (2005) Lost in Translation (2003) Man on Wire (2008) March of the Penguins (2004) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) Memento (2000) Michael Clayton (2007) No Country For Old Men (2007) Oldboy (2003) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) The Prestige (2006) Redbelt (2008) Rescue Dawn (2007) Russian Ark (2002) Sexy Beast (2000) Shaun of the Dead (2004) Syriana (2005) Team America: World Police (2004) Thank You For Smoking (2006) There Will Be Blood (2007) Touching the Void (2003) Volver (2006) Wall-E (2008) Walk the Line (2005) War of the Worlds (2005) Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) Zodiac (2007)Poor Hulu
Read my lips: Hulu is going to change. A lot.
This is going to backfire. People like Hulu exactly the way it is. If anything, they want more movies and TV.
This is war. This is a war against what consumers want. This is an attempt to forestall the new business model which will eventually come no matter how hard they try to stop it: which is that people will be willing to pay for things they want, as they do with HBO, rather than forcing people to pay for what they don’t want, as cable plans do. Premium plans on Hulu? I think a lot of people would be happy to pay for that if they could watch without ads. I sure would. I can pick up the phone right now and tell Time Warner I want Showtime and it’s there, and my bill goes up accordingly. Or I can cancel.
The Breathtaking Narrow-Mindedness of Eric Cantor – The Atlantic Business Channel
Eric Cantor’s position on tax increases is like the Ghostbusters’ position on crossing the streams. It’s like Meatloaf’s position on that. His position is never, not ever, absolutely not, no way, not unless something extraordinary happens, and only then … probably not! Literally, the Republican House Whip said he won’t consider raising taxes until our unemployment rate is under 5 percent. Eric, that could be more than a decade from now. I’m not annoyed merely as liberal lover of planning new taxes (although that I am). I’m annoyed as a student of history. Eric Cantor loves Ronald Reagan. A lot. And you know who did raise taxes in the middle of a recession with unemployment way over 5 percent, and then plenty of times in the years after to help close the deficit? Ronald Reagan.
The dark side of Dubai – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent
I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand.
Great article about the one of the great fake places of our time
Craig Murray – Obama Is Wrong On Both Counts
Obama’s claim that “Our cause is just” ultimately rests on the extraordinary claim that, eight years after the invasion, we are still there in self-defence. In both the UK and US, governments are relying on the mantra that the occupation of Afghanistan protects us from terrorism at home.
This is utter nonsense. The large majority of post 9/11 terror incidents have been by Western Muslims outraged by our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Put bluntly, if we keep invading Muslim countries, of course we will face a violent backlash. The idea that because we occupy Afghanistan a Muslim from Dewsbury or Detroit disenchanted with the West would not be able to manufacture a bomb is patent nonsense. It would be an infinitely better strategy to make out theoretical Muslim less disenchanted by not attacking and killing huge numbers of his civilian co-religionists.
Our cause is unjust.
In praise of George W. Bush – James Fallows
The former vice president, Dick Cheney, has brought dishonor to himself, his office, and his country. I am not aware of another former President or Vice President behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power, most recently but not exclusively with his comments to Politico about Obama’s decisions on Afghanistan. (Aaron Burr might win the title, for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but Burr was a sitting Vice President at the time.) Cheney has acted as if utterly unconcerned with the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people now trying to make difficult decisions. He has put narrow score-settling interest far, far above national interest.
Craig Ferguson 11/30/9E Late Late Show Carl Bernstein
Bernstein pretty much sums up my general position on current US politics and Congress.
greg.org: the making of: Enzo Mari X IKEA Mashup, Ch. Last
Question: Why did the original cost $14,000? I can understand the process that goes behind the research and design of say, a chair, but I’ve sketched out similar looking desks when bored at a previous job. I guess this is one area of design I need to investigate further to see how and why such things are noted artifacts.
