Design Sapling.com

To help me learn vocab for the GRE, I’m writing paragraphs using new words from Kaplan’s GRE word list. The new words are linked to their definition at Dictionary.com

The inventor of the world’s best anodyne was cheered by aching people everywhere. To requite the inventor’s generosity in offering the soothing agent to the world, an encomium by the President of the United States honored the inventor. The President’s choice of holding the celebration in a desert was odd. The heat rarefied the moisture, leaving the coastal dwelling inventor feeling dry. He soon returned to his Florida hometown. There, he was greeted with a downright gaudy party. Even though it was meretricious, it was what the inventor was used to. It was, after all, Florida.

To help me learn vocab for the GRE, I’m writing paragraphs using new words from Kaplan’s GRE word list. The new words are linked to their definition at Dictionary.com

Today paragraph:
Because the water was so limpid, Nemo could see for miles as he peregrinated across the ocean. Nemo was unaware that a king crab he came upon had arrogated the title of “ocean master”. Nemo found his officious demeanor silly and soon convinced the crab to abdicate the “throne”. When the crab realized how silly his claim to royalty was, he blushed and became uncharacteristically diffident.

To help me learn vocab for the GRE, I’m writing a paragraph using new words from Kaplan’s GRE word list. The new words are linked to their definition at Dictionary.com

Today paragraph:
The tawdry prestidigitator’s legerdemain was easily revealed through his use of a diaphanous clothe to hide his disappearing lapidary machine in his stone themed show. The magic epicures scoffed throughout the event.

Recently went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art where Modern European Design is featured in a special exhibit (no photography allowed). Works from people like Phillipe Starck, Marcel Wonders, Ron Arad, and Marc Newsman.

This lead me to research some of the art I saw.

Which lead me to this cool bag found on designboom:

…because everytime I turn on the TV, I see an ad for a new “disposable” razor or a flushable mop head.

They say “disposable” as if it’s a feature….but it’s just irresponsible design.

Throwing something away doesn’t make it go away.

With Mac OS X 10.5, the new look of the dock makes it hard to see what programs are open, however you can get a nice high contrast dock if you place it to the sides of the screen instead of at the bottom. But, if you’re like me, you prefer the dock at the bottom of the screen.

To get the look of the side dock at the bottom, open up terminal and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

then type

killall Dock

If you want the low contrast dock back, repeat the above, replacing YES with NO.

GOOD Magazine has an easy to understand graphic describing why we’re in a recession.

GOOD.is Transparency: Making Sense of the Financial Mess Submission from Liam Johnstone.

Seems to me that getting into statistics and visualizations of data is a smart career move. There’s so much information available these days. We need to package it in a way people understand. Maybe that will help avoid recessions like this in the future.
I’m starting to learn some open source statistic packages, including R and GGobi.

Here’s a simple, easy way to fix the stupid, cluttered design of remote controls.

A few months ago, I wrote about how to use Gmail as your To-Do list.

I just came upon some email innovation ideas from Lifehacker.com.

Good suggestions for better email usability.

CNN released this article about entrepreneurs featuring the Segway inventor, Dean Kamen.

It’s an interesting piece about entrepreneurship, with quotes from Kamen and popular entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki.

In brief, the article says entrepreneurs’ strength is their ignorance: they don’t know that the odds are stacked against them. They don’t know when to quit.

I think that’s a little off base. Knowing at the beginning of a project whether or not you have the passion to stick through it is hard. Seth Godin understands that knowing when to quit is a strength. And pushing through a project when the odds looked stacked against you isn’t evidence of a character flaw. It’s a sign of passion, guts, and creativity.

Godin has a name for those early days of the project when things aren’t fun and easy anymore: the Dip. In his book, The Dip, he shows readers what it takes to push through and the rewards that follow if you do it right. Like the rest of his books I’ve read, it’s well-written, concise and intelligent.