Tinker, Tailor

I will be diconnected from the internet for at least 2 weeks.

Call or SMS to contact me.

Since I’m still in a googly mood, I decided to download Google Earth.

Bad mistake.

One hour after installing it, I’ve just found the SPH building (partially hidden by clouds) at Toa Payoh/Braddell. That’s after I’ve found my home, bus stop, office, primary school, basketball court, swimming pool, Holland V (very tricky), Wheelock Place, a quiet neighbourhood I was strolling through 2 weeks ago, the Istana (don’t look for it - you’ll be appalled by the amount of land it’s occupying), etc. etc. etc…

I must stop. Now.

Google just launched the beta google talk.

I immediately downloaded and installed it, and sent a slew of invites to bunch of people, thinking they might be interested too.

Then I got this email reply from a mac-loving friend:

windows only lah..

Dang.

I like google, but they don’t do anything for macs. I’m beginning to hate them.

Google talk sux.

Update: How to set up Google Talk on your Mac

Canon recently announced a slew of high-end digital photography products.

The most interesting would probably be the 12.8 megapixel EOS 5D, creating a new category of DSLR cameras.
Here are some notable points:
- full frame sensor (yay)
- spot meter (yay)
- no built-in flash (yay)
- no built-in vertical grip, but the optional grip BG-E4 can take in AA batteries (boo)
- 3 fps (boo)

Then, we have the EOS-1D Mark II N which is an incremental upgrade from the EOS-1D Mark II (their naming scheme is getting ridiculous). Nothing really notable there.

They also have 2 new lenses - the 24 - 105 mm F4.0L IS USM and the 70 - 300 mm F4.0 - F5.6 IS USM. Both have the IS (image stabilizer) feature.

The 24 - 105 mm F4.0L IS USM is quite interesting. Having used the (heavy) EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM before, the light weight of the new 24 - 105 should be good news, even with it’s longer zoom range and the IS mechanism. You lose some light from the smaller aperture, but the IS compensates somewhat (unless you need the shallow depth of field). However, the 24 - 105 mm is more interesting to those using a full-frame camera (EOS 1D+, 5D), especially since it has some new distance metering information for the new E-TTL II flash system (see below) which works only with the 2 newest cameras (see above) .

The 70 - 300 mm F4.0 - F5.6 IS USM is a little less interesting. This also has the new E-TTL II flash system, but I wouldn’t bet my money on this one, having used the previous version of the lens (very poor image quality - way too soft). Especially if you’re using one of the above new hi-res cameras.

Finally, Canon also announced the Speedlite 430EX flash, replacing the 420EX. It’s an integral part of the new distance linked E-TTL II system. It also has an interesting white balancing feature:

The Speedlite 430EX automatically transfers colour temperature information to recent models of digital SLR cameras . The camera then sets the white balance optimally for the flash shot. This feature works when the camera’s white balance mode is set to Auto White Balance (AWB) or Flash white balance mode.

Okay, back to reality. Everything via dpreview.com.

Is technology in schools the future or just a fad?

Research results are mixed. But most studies conclude that for computers and other technology to have much effect on student performance, a number of conditions are necessary: Teachers have to be technologically adept; classroom assignments have to allow for exploration; and curricula have to abandon breadth for depth.

Although schools have made changes in some of those areas, particularly increasing teachers’ technical proficiency, the predominant uses of computers remain word processing, heavily filtered Internet searches and the occasional PowerPoint presentation. In addition, with pressure rising to improve test scores, more schools have embraced skill-drilling software that contributes little to long-term student learning, observers say.

This reminds me of Todd Oppenheimer’s the Flickering Mind which I never really got to read. Maybe I should.

Slashdot has a good discussion on the article.

Don’t ask me what I was thinking when I picked up the Likeability Factor. Sure, I may not be a contender in the next Mr Likeability contest, but I don’t think I’m in dire need for this book either…

Come to think of it, I probably wanted to crystallize some ideas that have been floating in my head partly triggered by observations of recent happenings around me. So I picked this up despite the cringeworthy subtitle (”how to boost your L-factor & achieve your life’s dreams”). Achieve your life’s dreams? Sure.

The book comes in two parts - the former attempting to prove why likeability is important to be successful through numerous anecdotes, and the latter showing you how to become more likeable.

Part 2 was more interesting to me, since I wanted to see if the author Tim Sanders had any insights that I could adopt.

He posits 4 elements of likeability, and explains how to develop them:

1. Friendliness
- observe no unfriendliness
- develop a friendly mind-set
- communicate friendliness

2. Relevance
- identify your frequent contact circle
- connect with others’ interests
- connect with others’ wants and needs

3. Empathy
- show an interest in how others feel
- experience others’ feelings
- respond to others’ feelings

4. Realness
- be true to yourself
- be true to others
- share your realness

Interesting, but really nothing new at all, unless, I suppose, you’re one of those unlikeable fellows.

Not a bad read, except that the cringeworthiness sometimes extends beyond the subtitle. Check this out:

Now close your eyes and pretend you are in the person’s shoes - literally - standing on his or her soles. Imagine yourself looking down at the tops of those shoes. […] With your eyes closed, raise your head and say the feelings aloud. For example, “I feel sadness.” Now say aloud the “because.” For example, “I feel sadness because my best friend has moved across country,” […]

I can’t do such stuff. I’ve seen motivational speakers getting their conference attendees to do such activities, while I just have to keep my eyes open just to see how ridiculous everyone looks. But if you don’t mind doing such stuff, you’d probably love this book.

* * * * *

Looking at the 4 elements of likeability (friendliness, relevance, empathy, realness), and with my thoughts still lingering on business management especially after the last book I reviewed (the Naked Corporation), I’m sure that corporations will do well to adopt these elements of likeability. The Likeable Corporation?

We often confuse urgency with importance, and that causes all kinds of problems because we keep focusing on the urgent tasks, neglecting the really important ones.

It’s easy to justify running for your plane when it’s leaving in two minutes and you’re only five gates away. It’s much harder to justify waking up 10 minutes early to avoid the problem altogether. Alas, waking up early is the efficient, effective way to deal with the challenge. Waking up earlier may seem foolish to the person lying in bed next to you, but when you enjoy the benefits of a pleasant stroll to the gate, you realize that your difficult decision was a good one.

From Seth Godin’s Hurry!

I just tried Blogger for Word. Pretty user-friendly, like most of Google’s stuff, and it even supports multiple blogs (for the same user). Unfortunately it doesn’t support multiple accounts. Nor tables (which might turn out to be a good thing). Worst thing is that it doesn’t support images. Maybe next time.

The best place to learn in a museum is often on a seat.

Tell me a story.

It’s been a while since I read a hardcore management book, and frankly I wasn’t really expecting this to be one when I picked it up.

You see, hardcore serious books don’t normally have the word NAKED splashed across the cover (which got me quite a few extra glances from bemused passers-by as I perused it in a Burger King joint).

To be sure, the Naked Corporation isn’t just about hardcore management (by hardcore management, I mean that it interests only management freaks) and corporate governance. It also covers how corporate transparency (or opacity) affect and is affected by stakeholders of the firm, including whistleblowers and other employees, business partners, customers, communities, and the owners and shareholders.

The authors Don Tapscott and David Ticoll start the book by arguing for openness and transparency.

Leaders see transparency as a threat or an opportunity. Some fight it or hide from it. Others believe they will do better for shareholders when they openly align their business with the interests of stakeholders, sorting out trade-offs along the way. Increasingly, in the face of transparency and legitimate expectations, smart firms take the second path.

“Do well by doing good” sounds simple, maybe too simple. Isn’t that what preachers have been telling us for thousands of years? Why is this any truer today than yesterday? One reason: Today’s business environment depends on trust - and mandates transparency - like never before.

The authors also give general characteristics of the transparent firm.

Open enterprises display similar qualities […]. [T]he firm infuses the values of the new integrity: honesty, meeting commitments, caring, transparency, and the maximization of economic, social, and environmental value.

In the ending chapter “breaching the crisis of leadership”, the book zooms in to the most important person of the firm if an open corporate strategy is to be pursued:

It all starts with the CEO.

Ok the quote sounds rather duh here, but in the context where I ripped it out from (p. 299), it did have some impact. The point is that intentionally or not, CEOs lead by example, and their actions speak loudly.

Go read this book if you’re a CEO or aspiring to be one, or if you’re a business student (it’s brimming with useful case studies for that next paper of yours).

Local firms really need this.

Many of us have a lot of trouble saying “no” to others. Even though that is really what we want to say. We’re hesitant about hurting or offending the person, we’re afraid to come across as callous and unfeeling, we fear to tarnish our nice and pleasant reputation…

Question: “Wanna have lunch?”
Honest answer: Not with you!
Answer that comes out: “Ermm… okay.”

“Let me get you a drink.”
No thank you.
“Thanks.”

“Let me accompany you home.”
Over my cremated body!
“It’s okay…”

The next time when “no” is meant, just say a gentle “I don’t think so.” If necessary, an emphatic “I really don’t think so.”
This way, the other person’s ego is left (mostly) intact, and we still get to keep our reputation.

A Japanese guide to Japanese grammar has an interesting approach to learning Japanese (via Languagehat)

In the Introduction, Tae Kim points out some weaknesses with the approach of the typical Japanese textbook:

The problem with conventional textbooks is that they often have the following goals.

1. They want readers to be able to use functional and polite Japanese as quickly as possible.
2. They don’t want to scare readers away with terrifying Japanese script and Chinese characters.
3. They want to teach you how to say English phrases in Japanese.

Traditionally with romance languages such as Spanish, these goals presented no problems or were nonexistent due to the similarities to English. However, because Japanese is different in just about every way down to the fundamental ways of thinking, these goals create many of the confusing textbooks you see on the market today. They are usually filled with complicated rules and countless number of grammar for specific English phrases. They also contain almost no kanji and so when you finally arrive in Japan, lo and behold, you discover you can’t read menus, maps, or essentially anything at all because the book decided you weren’t smart enough to memorize Chinese characters.

The root of this problem lies in the fact that these textbooks try to teach you Japanese with English. They want to teach you on the first page how to say, “Hi, my name is Smith,” but they don’t tell you about all the arbitrary decisions that were made behind your back. They probably decided to use the polite form even though learning the polite form before the dictionary form makes no sense. They also might have decided to include the subject even though it’s not necessary and excluded most of the time. In fact, the most common way to say something like “My name is Smith” in Japanese is to say “am Smith”. That’s because most of the information is understood from the context and is therefore excluded. But does the textbook explain the way things work in Japanese fundamentally? No, because they’re too busy trying to push you out the door with “useful” phrases right off the bat. The result is a confusing mess of “use this if you want to say this” type of text and the reader is left with a feeling of confusion about how things actually work.

The solution to this problem is to explain Japanese from a Japanese point of view. Take Japanese and explain how it works and forget about trying to force what you want to say in English into Japanese. […]

Sounds good to me. I’ll come back to this site if I ever decide to learn Japanese. The other resources that might be very helpful in learning the language would include manga, J-pop songs and Japanese pron movies.

Claire, a 9 year old girl got her dad to give her a piggyback.

“My legs are sleeping!” she explained after my friend asked her about it. We all had been standing for more than an hour.

“Well,” I commented with mock disapproval, “soon your dad’s legs will be asleep as well!”

“Then you’ll have to carry my dad!”

Darn. Some kids are just too witty.

Update:

My friend who knows Claire much better tells me “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Now that’s very scary.

Was playing with the University of Delaware’s Typography Workshop, trying out my feel for typographic kerning (letter spacing).

To access the kerning exercises, click on “guest”.

In each exercise, a word will appear (e.g. “RICE”) with bad kerning. To adjust, click on the letter you want to move (some letters are fixed), then use the arrow buttons (or arrow keys on the keyboard). Click on “compare” to see how you fare (the lower the score, the better).

I found that my feel for sans serif fonts was almost perfect, and it was quite bad for serif fonts (”FLAT” really threw me off). But after a few pathetic scores, I suddenly got it, and I started hitting perfect scores.

The feeling, after you make minute adjustments just to get that right feel, yet having that discomforting feeling of uncertainty, then checking the results, only to find that you got the perfect score, is truly sublime.

I just learnt today that in Malay, tuhan is god, and hantu is ghost.

Hmmmm….

Later, I learnt that mata air (mata is eye, air is water) is boyfriend/girlfriend (it can also mean fountain or well), and air mata is tears.

The result of the reversals?

P.S. I’m sure there are more of such examples. Tell me if you know of more.

I’m now officially a sell-out (see the google ads on the side bar).
I’m still tweaking and tinkering with things, so expect some changes.
Who knows, I might become rich from this. hurhurhur.

An expensive but “not too lavish” dinner at Cafe Amigo at Specialist Shopping Centre.

My second attempt at cartooning. Recycled part of the picture.

Tell me if this works for you.

Attended a great seminar on infographics by Alberto Cairo. Alberto was formerly from elmundo.es, the world’s top Spanish news site, where he won too many international infographics awards.

Quote from my email to him:

Besides learning about infographics, the session has widened
my perspective on design.

Indeed it did. I’m never going to look at toilet signs and MRT maps the same way ever again.

We also had a good discussion the next day on very diverse topics, including design, storytelling, culture, language, semiotics, journalism, blogging, and politics. Cool guy.

* * * * *

Stuff to check out…

Books
Wordless Diagrams by Nigel Holmes
Designer’s Guide to Creating Charts and Diagrams by Nigel Holmes
Graphic Design by Richard Hollis
Design for Impact by Eric Ericson, Johan Pihl, Der Kern

Sites
John Grimwade Information Graphics
Nigel Holmes - Explanation Graphics
Squeezing the tube: How did a map (that wasn’t a map) reshape London?
Charles Joseph Minard’s Napoleon’s March

Just finished Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas (PDF, about 10 short pages) by Scott Berkun (via soulsoup).

Since I like to surround myself with smart people (and hopefully become smart myself, perhaps through osmosis if nothing else), I figured that this article would come in handy.

Except that I don’t agree with everything there…

The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong.

If you want your smart people to be as smart as possible, seek a diversity of ideas.

When it comes to defusing smart people who are defending bad ideas, you have to find ways to slow things down.