Deviant Abstraction

I don’t know if you too receive weird mails… They are supposed to be spam. To bypass spam filters, they generate random words with a few meanings. Those sentences have a weird poetry tonality in some of them.

I am sure André Breton would have loved them.

A small excerpt:

“Thus either of these heavenly bodies may be supposed to fillthat space. Have it wellcooked, unspiced and undisguised. Thus ourseas must appear to the moon as the moon does to us. I reveal to men the origin of the first, or perhaps second cause oftheir existence. Some of thechapters belonging to this Section bear the title Prospettiva_(see Nos. The question of the true and of the apparent size of the sun(879-884). The question of the true and of the apparent size of the sun(879-884). In the same way the senses are acted upon byobjects. 4 ounces of virgin wax, 4 ounces of colophony, 2 ounces ofincense. andyou will see that men are selected to be doctors for diseases theydo not know. I reveal to men the origin of the first, or perhaps second cause oftheir existence. The Common Sense, is that which judges of things offered to it bythe other senses. Posidonius composed books on the size of the sun. Feeling passes through the perforated cords andis conveyed to this common sense. Within the lower circle is written _simulacro_ (image). To measure how many times the diameter of the sun will go into itscourse in 24 hours. And the rocks with their various strata? “

What do you think?

Could it be fun?

It is a way to configure your wifi connection with a little bit fun…

On a second thought, the idea is fun; the execution is really easy to hack (for instance, you just need to spoof the mac address). I should try it on a Wifi hotspot.

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(Thanks Fred)

Wired writes about the Google SoC. So to answer one of Fred comment, I am too in Wired!!!

I confirm one point of the article: the $ 4.5 k is a lot for Indian people, not for us. It makes me wonder who are really rich?

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It costs around $ 200 and allow you to remote control your PC.

Isn’t this totally cool?

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Via O’Reilly

I am back from vacation. Ready to blog a lot this summer… It is just so hot!

I attended last night to Depeche Mode’s concert at the Arènes in Nîmes (South of France). There was a concert before with Goldfrapp first.

It was simply a great show in a great place (we heard Depeche Mode under the stars in this antic and marvellous place).

I am now in Marseille for a copple of days. I will be back on Monday quite late.

I am in vacation from my Project Manager current job. I will be back on Tuesday for a whole meeting day. How cool…

Some minors bugs though…

MotherLoad Use your digger to excavate as much ore as possible

Play this free game now!!

His advices apply also to most creative outsourced work.

Here they are:

1. If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.
2. On the other hand, if you want great work, you’ll need to embrace some simple facts:
3. It’s going to offend someone. If it doesn’t offend them, then it will make them nervous. The Vietnam Vets memorial offended a lot of people. The design of Google made plenty of people nervous. Great work from a design time means new work, refreshing and remarkable and bit scary.



4. It’s not going to be easy to sell to your boss. That’s your job, by the way, not mine. If you want me to do something great, you’ve got to be prepared to protect it and defend it. Come back too many times for one little compromise, and you’ll make it clear that #1 was what you wanted all along.
5. You can’t tell me you’ll know it when you see it. First, you won’t. Second, it wastes too much time. Instead, you’ll need to have the patience to invest twenty minutes in accurately describing the strategy. That means you need to be abstract (what is this work trying to accomplish) resistant to pleasing everyone (it needs to do this, this and that) and willing, if the work meets your strategic goal, to embrace it even if it’s not to your taste.
6. Help me out by pointing out the work you’d like this to be on a peer with. If you want a website to be like three others (in tone, not in execution) then point it out. In advance.
7. Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!
8. You don’t know a lot about accounting so you don’t backseat drive your accountant. You hired a great designer, please don’t backseat drive here, either.
9. If you want to be part of the process, please go to school. Read design magazines or take a course from Milton Glaser or get a subscription to Before & After. By the way, that one link is the single best part of this post.
10. This one may surprise you: don’t change your existing design so often Not when your kids or your colleagues tell you it’s time. Do it when your accountant says so.
11. Don’t get stressed about your logo.
12. Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging.
13. Say thank you.

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This article proposes a valorization of a network of n log(n) instead of n^2 according to Metcalfe’s law. They try to differenciate value in each link through this.

A must-read.

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