Items of Interest

Collecting amazing and interesting things on the web.

Page 54

Three lessons for living a good life. I found it truly fascinating that this was posted on Harvard Business Review. Anyway, they are: Cultivate (your better self). Create (something dangerous). Forgive (and fail). The last one, especially, shook me a bit. I’m only 28, but sometimes I feel like the directions I wanted to go are impossible because I didn’t realize where my choices would, in fact, lead.

December 29, 2011

business / story

“We must never forget that our causal beliefs are defined by their limitations. For too long, we’ve pretended that the old problem of causality can be cured by our shiny new knowledge. If only we devote more resources to research or dissect the system at a more fundamental level or search for ever more subtle correlations, we can discover how it all works. But a cause is not a fact, and it never will be; the things we can see will always be bracketed by what we cannot. And this is why, even when we know everything about everything, we’ll still be telling stories about why it happened. It’s mystery all the way down.”

December 28, 2011

medicine / science

I’m gradually reading up on this whole Lean UX thing. While at times I don’t think it’s different from “good UX,” at times the model they present and the specific methods are really helpful. This one is one of those, especially with the way it talks about integrating usability testing. Where I think this particular one falls apart is that design and development aren’t going on simultaneously. I think that’s something that responsive design requires.

December 28, 2011

design / lean / usability-testing / user experience

“i think the trouble is i actually long for pain removal. the absence of pain. the abracadabra kind of pain removal that some parts of my faith experience once promised. pray harder, hope more, surrender more, and it will be “gone”. i know better by now, i really do, but still, if i’m really honest, i keep wanting (and in weird crazy ways still expecting) pain removal. what i got instead was a reminder that hope this side of heaven is about pain relief.”

December 28, 2011

kathy escobar / prayer / spirituality

Richard Beck rethinks the “proper response” to the gospel. “Specifically, the soterian gospel has tended to emphasize a response of faith. Cognitive assent. But when we come to see the gospel as the declaration that the ‘kingdom of God has come near’ the issue is less about belief than repentance. Jesus declares in Mark ‘Repent and believe the good news.’”

December 27, 2011

bible / new testament / richard-beck / theology

I meant to link this one a long time ago. Brilliant, for anyone who works with people. “Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It’s written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don’t have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they’ve either never done the work or have forgotten how it’s done. These are the people who show up when your single best engineer casually and unexpectedly announces, ‘I’m quitting. I’m joining my good friend to found a start-up. This is my two weeks’ notice.’”

December 23, 2011

“Going forward I am going to make the following argument: Death is the spirituality of the principalities and powers. Thus, to be ‘possessed’ by the principalities and powers—to be engaged in idolatry, wittingly or unwittingly—is to be possessed by death.”

December 22, 2011

atonement / christus victor / richard-beck / theology

“Whenever I start working with a new team, I have to — quickly! — diagnose what they need and how I can be most useful. The impact and usefulness of my UX research hinges on my understanding of their product strategy, goals, constraints, and concerns. But I often know very little about their businesses, their users, or their products. So, I do the only thing I know how to do as a researcher: I ask a lot of questions.”

December 22, 2011

design / research / user experience

“Give your grid an infinite number of columns, so that no matter how wide you make your viewport, more and more columns come into view. Imagine you’re looking at an infinitely wide honeycomb filled with columns instead of hexagons.”

December 21, 2011

css / design / grid / responsive design

Samasource is a social enterprise that brings dignified, computer-based microwork to people living in poverty via a proprietary microwork distribution platform.

December 21, 2011

activism / economic activism