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Video: My Pumpkin Carving Hero
This guys is crazy with his pumpkin carving skills. Read the whole story at WSJ.
Note: This video will not play if you have had blocking software. I don't have ads on my site so you can disable for my domain safely and no animals will be harmed.
Related articles
- The Science of Carving Pumpkins (designhouse9.wordpress.com)
- Mid-Mod Pumpkin Carving Templates (speckless.wordpress.com)
- Pumpkin Sundays: So You Want to Carve Your Pumpkin? (thedilettantista.com)
To My STC Friends At the Summit
What I'm doing while my friends all meet up.
On Failure
Image via Wikipedia
I've been thinking about failure a lot. My career has some doozies in its wake. I've heard people speak about failures at conferences. The current trend is to tell people failures are okay because they learn from them. I've seen some suggest extremes like encouraging failure. Back in the late 80s, "failure was not an option" and other similar platitudes ruled the business rags. People wanted to be Gordon Geko so bad. I think the discourse is starting to swing back toward allowing no failures. Certainly political discourse is.
Why must everything be either or? This black and white view of the world is killing us all. Failure is relative. Mistakes are not synonymous with failure. So stop equating the two. The "fail" internet meme is really a series of photos and videos pointing out mistakes. Failure is not achieving a set goal. Failure is not falling down in public; that's just embarrassment.
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UX Machina: On Being All Things To All People All Of The Time
Can you be all things to all people all of the time?
Lis Hubert (@lishubert) wrote this week about UX needing to grow up. It got me thinking (an unfortunate thing for those nearby). She wrote how UX designers want to be Jacks of all trades and how, unless they want to go into management, this is career limiting (see UX… It’s Time to Grow Up). Among many cogent points, she wrote:
…by us being jacks of all trades it can stump our own individual growth. How many of you out there know what your career path is? Ok you can do wireframes, interviews, task analysis, etc… but what next? UX management? But you don’t want to be a manager. What else besides management is next for a UXer? We can’t answer that question, because there are not career paths that have been established in our field.
Then I thought about Don Norman's (@jnd1er) essay on design education (see Why Design Education Must Change). This excellent post should be a launching pad for real change in the world of design education. Here is an example of what he had to say:
Today's designers are poorly trained to meet the today's demands: We need a new form of design education, one with more rigor, more science, and more attention to the social and behavioral sciences, to modern technology, and to business. But we cannot copy the existing courses from those disciplines: we need to establish new ones that are appropriate to the unique requirements of the applied requirements of design.
While Don wrote about education and industrial design and Lis was focused on UX (read: software/web design), it appears their philosophies collide. Can you be all things to all people all of the time while having a practical career? Is it possible to specialize without pigeon-holing yourself out of the market?
Previous Posts
A Few Thoughts and Memories on MLK Day
Image via Wikipedia I grew up in central Arkansas and for those of you from other places, growing up there is like growing up twenty years in the past. The place never seems to be culturally caught up to the rest of the country. Fashion trends hit there last. Back in high school, I had [...]
Rest In Peace, Mary; You Will Be Missed
I just found out a good friend of mine passed away. Mary Wagoner (@MaryroseWagoner) was introduced to me by a mutual friend fifteen years ago. We worked more projects together than I can count. I helped her with website work, application design, and documentation. She did marketing and PR. The thing about Mary was she [...]
Bookmarks for 11/30/2010
Even when I don't have time to write I still read. Here are bookmarks I've saved in Delicious.
We Can Put A Man On the Moon But Can't Sync Contacts & Calendars
In which I rant about the inability to reliably sync Outlook and Google Apps and also the Plaxo UX failure.
Bookmarks for 11/16/2010
Even when I don't have time to write I still read. Here are bookmarks I've saved in Delicious.
Not As Recent But Still Good
I Do Suck At PowerPoint
Just in case you haven't seen it yet. YOU SUCK AT POWERPOINT! View more presentations from @JESSEDEE.
On Guard Apologetics Conference 2010: Super Summary
Over the weekend, I attended the On Guard Conference 2010, a Christian apologetics conference. Here is my take on the conference and the speakers.
Artifact: And Now For a Completely Different User Manual
Keith Anderson reminisces with an old 16-bit computer game user manual. Humor him and read the post and then download the manual. There are starving children in a third-world country who don't have access to such an artifact.
Blasts From My STC Past
As I purge all of my old paperwork and throw three-ring binders into the trash heap, I can't let go of at least a remnant of what I'm purging. Hence the fancy pants scanner and the attention to detail. Surely in my old shit there is something useful for the Apocalypse. If not at least [...]
Sex. Murder. Art. by Slayer
Oh Awkwardly Worded Spam, It's Hard To Stay Mad At You
Nov 9, 2010 By mkanderson Leave a Comment
I'm ashamed of how much amusement I get out of some spam comments.