http://thatgraph.com The Stimulating Habits of Michael Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:45:09 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Humans are immensely complex machines. It's insane that we don't come with an actual user manual. Then again with all of the education, so called self help gurus, and psychologist there's an abundant support staff on hand to mend the injuries caused by trial and error. We stumble through life ... http://thatgraph.com/1008 This is one "big" reply to all of the feedback that I received from my article, Everybody is Faking It. First I wanted to thank all of you who took the time to read my post as well as those who made the extra effort to leave a comment. Thank ... http://thatgraph.com/997 This is a declaration. I want to declare that from this point on I will no longer look back. There's been something that I've let keep me from enjoying life to its fullest and I need to let it go. In the spirit of the holidays I'm officially casting my ... http://thatgraph.com/989 If you read this article you'll be a better designer/developer/producer because it's going to be a swift kick to your groin. There's a reason why 99% of all of the shit out there fails. It's because somewhere in the design process common sense gets thrown out the window. I know ... http://thatgraph.com/986 A few months back my company Pattern Making Co. decided to enact an indefinite boycott on the iPhone SDK, because our application the Cool O'Meter 3000 was denied live status on the App Store. You can read up on our rationale at the following blog post. When we heard that ... http://thatgraph.com/983 When it comes to designing products a modicum of restraint should be employed to ensure a successful result. Sure there are many features that could be added just because they are possible but I ask you to live strictly by the following cliche - keep it simple stupid. The notion ... http://thatgraph.com/972 I was driving expediently from Boulder to Denver yesterday with my friend the barista. We were discussing what she wanted to do with her future and a masters degree came up. I asked her why she wanted to study Art History and she said to get the proper credentials for ... http://thatgraph.com/961 One of my favorite professors in college once said, "Computer experts were those who had put up with windows long enough to get used to it." He couldn't have been more right. Recently, Microsoft has done a great job of pantomiming the Apple operating system but in understanding the rationale ... http://thatgraph.com/948 In the film, A Beautiful Mind, the brilliant yet flawed professor John Nash has an epiphany that he publishes as "Governing Dynamics." This theory alone has been my obsession for the past few years. Governing dynamics, in it's blithe simplicity, stipulates that if all participants of a system are interested ... http://thatgraph.com/939 There was an inside joke in college that if you wanted to occupy a class with nonsense for a good hour all you had to do was raise the following question; What is the difference between art and design? Someone would pose a statement and then another would refute it. ... http://thatgraph.com/930 Let us begin the week the proper way. With a bittersweet Japanese love story by Haruki Mirakami. The following piece is entitled On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Maybe it'll drive you to take those opportunities ... http://thatgraph.com/923