The Mu - Latest Comments

Re: Current TV Dramas

djmmuir — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:11:01 -0000

My personal opinion is that Dr. House is not redeemable in any way. It would be a spoiler to say what he did at the end of last season. I just want my characters to be on a path that leads upwards, not a downward spiral. I think the only downward spiral I ever liked was Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.

Re: Current TV Dramas

Alicjamarie — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:05:15 -0000

I have not seen House in some time but do you really think it has gone down to a one star show?

Re: The Illusion of Space

dogging — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:15:43 -0000

The new office features floating glass partitions to give the illusion
of space. The office decor consists of book matched walnut veneer full
height doors ...

Re: The Illusion of Space

Modern Bedroom Sets — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:13:41 -0000

“Remember that built-in appliances create the illusion of more space in a small kitchen, whereas if you have space in abundance a freestanding appliance can make a real impact,” points out Ian Johnstone, senior design manager for New World Appliances. ...

Re: Closing in on a goal

Darryl — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:00:16 -0000

Thanks for the shout out, Dave and congrats on passing the exam!

Re: Creativity: logical or lateral?

chasWalt — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:24:43 -0000

I have trained Creative Thinking for about 5 yrs, and am a "card carrying" deBono fan.

Surely the discussion is not that Lateral Thinking is either better or worse than Lineal Thinking, merely that you need both to succeed. Humans (especially when working in teams or organisations) tend to minimise the role of anything that cannot be proven or clarified.....black hat security perhaps?

Personal testimony: When I have worked with groups (or individuals) creatively, and you start to see fresh (provoked) perspectives from individuals or groups, they are always accompanied by a visible boost of energy - laughter, increased focus etc. You just don't get that from solutions with a lineal (logically rationalised) solution.

So for me:

Both are necessary, although many people (esp professionals) are a bit squeamish about anything that cannot be rationalised

So any process that increases the Laterality is good.

To be clear, I have no formal research to back this up - just several years of working with groups and seeing what happens.

Re: Closing in on a goal

Brian — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:49:42 -0000

Best of luck with the last push to being licensed! Certainly a need for competent reps.

Re: Net neutrality now

Swing Trading — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:03:22 -0000

Interesting post. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.

Re: Gather requirements but just do the right thing

Anime9200 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:01:59 -0000

I would just say one thing to you and that is, “FANTASTIC”!! Keep it up and wish to get more details from your blog.
regards
sears parts

Re: The documentation sucks

Louis Marascio — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:23:54 -0000

David, interesting post. I know it's over two years old but it still surprises me how often people have instantly negative reactions to documentation, especially docs that are published online. I tried to distill some of those thoughts in a recent blog post, you might be interested given your background: http://blog.lugiron.com/2009/0...

Take care,

Louis

Re: Comfort in media

djmmuir — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:46:53 -0000

Thanks for the comment and the links, Brian. The work being done to improve readability through typography without increasing resolution is fascinating. In addition to the resolution, what bugs my eyes on an electronic device is the light (either from the screen itself or glare from the room's lights), which is why I still prefer to read from paper. However, I sometimes wonder if the readability really was better on newsprint than today's hi-res screens. That's because I find the bleeding of the ink into the newsprint fibres often makes a newspaper's font look fuzzy.

Re: Comfort in media

Brian Hogg — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:01:01 -0000

I personally find it hard to read at length on the computer, and I'm sure the Kindle is similar. The resolution just doesn't cut it for our eyes - the IEEE had an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/p...

and this post has some good comparisons:

http://macviews.brucemcl.com/2...

If the resolutions can get there, we'll be paperless eventually.

Re: Conceive then execute

Julian Cardarelli — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:35:45 -0000

Good post. Me-too products are all over the place and do quite well with little differentiation. You don't necessarily need to create a new product that creates a sea change. Those kinds of products are relatively far and few between. For what it's worth, Google was not exactly a sea change - I remember when it came out. Just a variation on an already popular idea (search engines) with Yahoo and Altavista at the forefront at the time.

What google did was they discovered something very important. Nobody else gave a shit about the customer or the value delivered. Google delivered value to its visitors because the quality of its search results were better and it also delivered a much scaled down user interface. Back in the day when broadband wasn't readily available, slow loading banners and advertisements killed the user experience. Google still today only provides textual ads.

The subject matter you are delving into here is commonly understood to be value and management of a customer relationship - namely that you are nothing without your customer and that naturally by focusing on what your customer wants - and listening to their needs, not what you think they want - you can do quite well with any kind of service or product.

I don't understand why most companies fail to understand this over and over again. Yes, you must prospect and sell at the front end. But in so doing, you can't burn the relationship. It must grow and be reciprocal.

Pareto's principle is simply applied here: 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers. This includes especially current customers. Maintaining customer loyalty is paramount.

Anyhow to make a long story short, you touched on a subject which has been debated greatly in the business community.

My preference is to give people honest, reliable service. Everybody says they do that, but few really do it. It's a deceptively simple concept.

Re: The Big Change

Kushal — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:38:49 -0000

Sorry to hear about you leaving IBM Dave. I hope everything works out well. I just wanted to say it was a pleasure working with you. I'm sure you'll get to work on new and exciting technologies pretty soon. Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Re: The Big Change

frodenas — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:58:10 -0000

Hi David. I'm really sorry to read you're not working anymore for IBM. If I can help you, let me know.

Re: The Big Change

Adam — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:42:54 -0000

Sorry to hear that, Dave. When I heard SWG was getting wide cuts I thought about all of you and hoped the best. Sadly you're one of many, and the year has just begun. Things aren't looking too good.

Anyway, best of luck in your new endeavors. You were always a pleasure to work with and I'm sure some new and exciting work will find its way to you.

Re: Buggy whips

seemsArtless — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:04:03 -0000

Best of luck, David, I'm sure you'll find something interesting that takes advantage of your skills and insight. I look forward to hearing what you find. IBMs loss, for sure.

Re: Cold wind and tragedy

djmmuir — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:42:33 -0000

Thankfully we did not see it happening and I am basing my post on knowledge we gained from people who also probably didn't see it firsthand. I would not consider it factual.

Re: Cold wind and tragedy

Andrew Slade — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:09:17 -0000

What an awful thing! Did you see this happening? The news reports I've seen don't mention the cliffs, just that the mom and son were swimming.

Re: Cold wind and tragedy

Andrew Slade — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:17:55 -0000

Greetings from Duluth, Minnesota. I'm researching recent Lake Superior fatalities. It's interesting to see your observation about the boy being washed into the rocks. None of the news reports mention that. It's so hard to get to the truth of these things!

Re: The game is under foot

Peter A — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:57:38 -0000

The Wii has another interesting demographic:
http://tinyurl.com/7alf4n
http://tinyurl.com/9drlfr

Perhaps that "Silver Surfer" description is more apt than it first appeared?

Re: What is news?

djmmuir — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:42:54 -0000

Raw news is pretty depressing. The network news did a lot to clean it up and make it more like entertainment. But still my wife calls it "the body count" because they do tend to focus on the bad, never the good. I think the success of shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition prove that overcoming adversity and the generosity of the human spirit can make for compelling entertainment. Maybe they won't say "everything is fine" but they might say: "Things got really bad but look how people overcame it." I'd love that.

Re: What is news?

joelhalse — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:49:37 -0000

I love reading the local news. On the other hand, how much global media I consume seems to be directly related to the level of stress in my life.

Me starting to think dat it's no worth the ulcers.

I know the sky is falling all day everyday but it hasn't seemed to land on me yet.

Imagine the impact of a newspaper reporting, "It's ok. Today you can relax. Everything is fine."

That would be shocking!

Re: Lego and programming

Peter A — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:35:49 -0000

"LEGO is full of WIN" declares Roo Reynolds, and who can dispute that?

http://rooreynolds.com/2008/06...

Re: Recognizing and increasing value

joelhalse — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:39:04 -0000

Imagine how much money you could have made servicing the crowds lined up waiting to buy an iPhone.

My point - when you have something that attracts a crowd, you've got a source of revenue.

Why did Cold Play release their CD online for free? (they did.. didn't they?) Giving away the crowd pleasing commodity for free creates a market place.

hmm.. sounds like open source.