Archive for December 6th, 2011
In which I seek the answer, but deliver a disjoint set of links with no thesis, no conclusion, and very little clarity
Joe and I have a couple set conversations; one of the most frustrating can be summarized as “technical purity/superiority is almost certainly the mark of a doomed product.” I’m going to say something incredibly obvious here, just to get it out of the way: delivering the wrong thing, no matter how pure the birth, is a failure. If people don’t want it, well, I hope you got something out of it other than the big exit you dreamed of; “valuable life experience” is just a polite way of saying “I got fucked”, and the number one fucker is the fuckee.
One alternative to wonderfully crafted, ignored product is to just ship random shit and hope something sticks. I’ve seen this succeed, but who wants to work on shit products all the time? People who want to sleep on pillows stuffed full of cash, apparently.
Of course, popularity does not mean low quality or longevity; if running a bar in the valley is your idea of a good exit, well, there you go.
Perhaps it’s because of the mood I’m in, but Unicorn Free is really speaking to me today; some of bmf’s work is on my wavelength, but orders of magnitude brighter. I remember the 90′s fondly, the 2000′s rather less so. Perhaps it’s time to focus. Twice now recently I’ve had people say, essentially, they’ve never seen me express a strong emotion; perhaps constant snark and irony have reduced my ability to engage honestly, so I’ll work on that now.
In which reality is not represented
Looking at the “visit us” website for a local employer, I was struck by two things: how close they are to where I live, and how few 60+ story skyscrapers there are near my apartment. Compare and contrast (click to embiggen):
I understand the use of stock photos, but were I from not around here, looking around to find this cyan empire of success would only lead to heartache. Seriously, here are the tags from the photo on the left:
3d; architect; architecture; banking; blue; blueprint; building; business; center; color; colour; company; concept; corporate; corporation; cyan; district; economy; empire; environment; finance; financial; general; glass; growth; illustration; isolated; limit; marketing; model; modern; office; perspective; render; rendering; scale; scrapers; sky; skyscrapers; success; tall; towers;
In which people with no experience are not able to figure it out on the fly
They say experience is what you get right after you need it, but I’m not sure these bright sparks are getting it even then. I haven’t slaughtered a cow myself, but I’ve seen it done and I can’t imagine how it starts with shooting it in the ass with an arrow. Or shooting it and trying to drag it down the road. I’m picturing someone that has a model of a cow as a bunch of shrink-wrapped cuts wrapped in leather being mighty surprised when killing one didn’t end in a piñata-like shower of white Styrofoam and steak.
In which a person refuses to be a victim
I can only laugh at the photo. Of course, a long career in crime does suggest that eventually you’ll run into a victim who isn’t going to just give it up; given the relative scarcity of UFC and MMA fighters, it probably isn’t reasonable to prepare for running into one. When you do, though, try to rob an MMA fighter, prepare to look like Anthony Miranda.
In which I am unable to influence Christmas
R was at MCS tonight, laser cutting a nine layer puzzle for his family members; the idea is you get a baggie with seven puzzle layers, each of which can be oriented four ways, a ball bearing and two transparent ends. Add the bolts and wing nuts and you have a diabolical puzzle; once you figure out how to assemble it, you have to get the ball bearing through the 3d maze. There are multiple dead-end paths, and the winning solution requires you to go “back”.
My suggestion was that he include a few extra parts the would make the puzzle unsolvable. Although we all laughed heartily, the suggestion was not adopted.
I was inspired by his puzzle-crafting skill, though; I think you could make and sell these for $100 or so in wood. Furthermore, if you wrote a program to generate the maze, each one could be unique. Collector’s puzzles, if you will.
