Cheap Turpentine

I've been reading a lot about discovery and the art of design. Here are two quotes that I particularly like:

 

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea." - Francis Bacon

 

This invites the question, "But isn't that the road to self-delusion?" Not necessarily. You may have reasons to believe there is something there which don't involve having actually seen land. You may have seen seagulls in the distance, or you may have analyzed the ocean currents and things that drift through them, or you may, like Christopher Columbus, have calculated the circumference of the earth relative to Marco Polo's reports on the size of Asia. That's where faith comes from, actually, before it becomes a perfect knowledge: evidence that you comprehend and believe, but imperfectly. You may even have no evidence that you can articulate, but curiosity or a feeling that there must be land out there closeby--this is more like hope than faith, but it still can lead to discoveries. (You just have to be prudent about pursuing such hopes full-time because they don't always pan out.)

 

When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine. - Pablo Picasso

This doesn't really need comment, does it? Sometimes theory is no substitute for practice, which yields experience and hones intuition. Plus I just think it's a funny quote.

 

-Max

--
"When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honour and keep it." --Brigham Young

If you're so evil, eat this kitten!

Sketch-a-Move toy car

This video is discussed by one of my textbooks on design as a great example of how "sketches" of concepts can help you decide what to build, even if you don't have the technology to actually build the thing yet. It's a lot better than investing $100 million in a technology and then finding that it isn't any fun to use.

Plus, wouldn't it be cool if toy cars DID work like this?

http://www.vimeo.com/5125096

-Max

--
"When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honour and keep it." --Brigham Young

If you're so evil, eat this kitten!

Temptation tax

Some thoughts from Edge.org on the psychology of temptation. Has implications for anyone trying to build wealth. Even has some implications for getting in shape or improving your education: you need to find a way to avoid frittering away your gains on your own personal "temptation tax." Not only will this help you make progress, but knowing that you will keep your gains improves your motivation to get started saving/exercising/whatever in the first place.

When you're very poor, you have very little income to spend on anything other than food. There's very little spending on temptation goods. At some point you might start to spend more on these temptations. You can start to eat dosas, doughnuts, lots of things that you might not value so much, but they're around you when you have cash and you buy them. And of course because of the regressivity, that flattens out. Once you're over here, you can now spend on things like education, etcetera. So, we've got an S-shaped curve: very low spending on temptation goods at deep poverty, but an increasing amount as income increases and then it flattens out as you get wealthier.

If you have somebody like this, notice that being here is very good. Being [at the top] is very good. But moving from [along the middle of the curve] is ultimately pointless—it looks like your income has doubled, but so much of that extra discretionary income is being spent on wasted things, on things that you don't think are that important. [emphasis added]

The key thing is to find a way not to waste the gain on things you don't care about.

-Max

--
"When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honour and keep it." --Brigham Young

If you're so evil, eat this kitten!