Square Signals

2009-12-01

Idle Creativity

I’m not sure where the pros get their mojo, but for me, creativity is a background process.

I don’t sit around in brow-furrowed rumination, trying to think of great ideas or something really clever to say. No—I’m eating a sandwich, and suddenly: “holy crap, that cat should have a rocket-propelled scratching post!” I just can’t control that kind of brilliance.

When work piles up, my brain doesn’t have any idle cycles. It jumps directly from one task to another, so there’s no background processing. No creativity! And it feels like all the color and life has been sucked out of the world.

I don’t mind being stressed or doing lots of work or losing sleep, but I’ve been noticing that I’m a boring person when it happens!

2009-10-28

"Finding Focus While Trying to Work"

Michael Angeles provides insightful techniques for focusing during a work day at a computer one click away from social networking and other distractions. The photo at left is by Caterina Fake from a whiteboard at Hunch.

He suggests reducing noise by turning off email and Twitter except for a few appointed times; RSS digestion services like Fever and Tabbloid to limit subscription weight; and a low threshold for unsubscription.

For focus, Michael likes having his computer nag (I might suggest Concentrate); having only one app visible at a time; and getting away from the computer when it’s architecture or thinking time.

I’ve been experimenting with a few of these suggestions for the past couple months, and I think it’s been helping. I feel like I’ve got so little time and so much I want to do that I need to fight for every minute of lucidity!

2009-10-21

"chopped," Your Personal Iron Chef-Style Randomizer

chopped is very clever little site by Michael Hoy. It’s like Iron Chef but 5-way. More constraints do make it easier, especially if you split the results into multiple courses.

2009-10-20

Recently, a door appeared in Blacker’s courtyard here at Caltech. In particular: a rotating darkroom door. Excellent for fort-building and frosh-trapping.

It’s a pretty common pastime here to root through the fruitful dumpsters at Caltech’s physical plant; other recent findings include: a GeForce 5-series video card, a caster-mounted concession stand, and a giant box full of toaster ovens.

2009-10-12

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Sympathetic Vibrations”, from The Paper Raincoat’s self-titled album

I first heard The Paper Raincoat opening for Vienna Teng, and I was absolutely entranced.

Their self-titled first LP (an $8 download) features some of my favorite musical attributes: diverse instrumentation; tons of vocal harmony; storytelling in the songwriting; and harmonic complexity. The genre? “Electronic/orchestral folk.”

I love Amber Rubarth’s infectiously positive voice, and Alex Wong’s skills as a multi-instrumentalist have me a bit green in the face. Their first LP is definitely worth a listen.

2009-10-09

Techers vs. Tacky

Trying to entice freshmen, one of the Caltech dormitories posted these incredibly tacky flyers all over campus:

Techers responded—not with outraged calls to the deans and mandatory sensitive training—but with counter-posters like these:

I like the sense of humor around here.

2009-10-09

Cooks Illustrated vs. The Internet

mrgan:

Christopher Kimball, founder and editor of Cooks Illustrated, defends his dismissal of recipes and cooking advice found on the Internet:

In terms of recipes, no, I do not believe in a Wiki website, with a community opining on recipes as a means of creating a valuable database. Making a recipe 75 times in a test kitchen under controlled circumstances … is vastly better than the voices of millions under less the ideal circumstances

[…] We need trusted editors, and we need people with strong opinions. For me, what stands out about Cooks is that they’re committed to challenging their own subjective tastes. Their authority derives from repeat performance and comparative taste tests. Their recipes are not lists of instructions; they’re stories that tell the whole process, from the idea to the finished dish.

When I started learning to cook, I just Googled things and used the first reasonable-looking result. “marinara recipe.” “bread recipe.”

I made one of the biggest leaps in quality of my food when I simply started using trusted sources. My strategy now is mostly to buy cookbooks from chefs with restaurants that impress me. Then I can guess how good the final product will be—provided I don’t mess it up.

One example: I make great ice cream. I learned from Mr. Keller; he prescribes 10–12 egg yolks per quart and aging the custard overnight so the fat droplets agglomerate. Googling for “ice cream recipe”, I find largely no-egg recipes, recommendations for arrowroot (a thickening agent), and a generally terrible signal-to-noise ratio.

As for Cooks Illustrated, it has good advice, but you have to pick and choose. I’m getting increasingly leery in the face of points like “put mayonnaise in your vinaigrette to help it emulsify” and “your roasted chicken is done when it’s 175°F in the thigh”.

2009-10-07

Spy photo of a student’s presentation in a Caltech neurobiology class.

And candidate for the best slide title ever.

2009-09-24

A Better Home

We got a lot of email about helping out with Pixen—surprising given that it’s been open-source for six years with no major outside contributors!

But maybe that’s because our attitude with Pixen was always: “Pixen is a product of the Open Sword Group; you can check out the source here.” There was no public mailing list, bug tracker, or patch review process.

Now Pixen’s switching to a more traditional model. Philippe Casgrain has graciously volunteered to be the project’s maintainer; development will take place on GitHub; there’s a mailing list for discussion and planning. We’ve already gotten some pull requests!

Want a decent free raster image tool for the Mac? Go help build it!

2009-09-12

Better Making through Empathy

Having just played a piece for my piano teacher, I made a remark that’s more or less inherently wrong: “I don’t know what else to work on here.”

I didn’t miss any notes, after all; there were no ham-fisted articulations. So my teacher (in his infinite wisdom) suggested I play the piece again while he recorded it. The last notes sounded, and we turned to some other topic for a few minutes.

Then we listened to the tape. It was brutal.

Recordings are merciless and unforgiving: I could even hear the pedal “thunk” whenever I released it too rudely! So, mortifying, yes—but also extremely useful.

My teacher actually wrote a book on the value of recording in music, but the idea applies much more broadly.

Essentially: a second opinion can always help. Taste this soup, read these lyrics, check out these colors. But sometimes, no one’s around—or your work feels a little too fresh to share.

In these situations, we can simulate a friend (putting aside the sociopathic implications) with some strategically-placed empathy. I have a few principles:

Spend a few minutes doing something completely unrelated before examining my work.
As much as possible, experience what I’ve made like a total stranger.
Take cruel, merciless notes on everything that comes to mind.
Iterate.

Maybe that’s a little vague. What’s it mean in practice?

When I write something, I read it aloud. I’m cruising along and BAM—bad diction trips me like a speed bump.

When I cook something, I taste all the components together to check the balance. Making a vinaigrette? Drink some water, taste it on the greens, and suddenly it needs more salt.

When I make an interface, I try to be the dumbest user imaginable. Why do I have to click this button before I can drag the whatsit to the where? How am I supposed to know that this feature only appears when I hold Option?

We’re always learning how to make better things, and this is just one tool in the box.