Driving me crazy .. know this song?

Someth'n my society... anyone recognise this song?

As usual I was casually playing around on my guitar while chilling out, and I hit this chord seuence. Can't vouch for the key, but if you comp this do you recognise it?

Am-Am Am Am | Dm7- Dm7 Dm7 Dm7 |
E7-E7 E7 E7 | Am-Am Am Am

And the chorus/bridge is E7/Am.

It's driving me crazy! I know this song. At first I thought Annie Lennox with Dave Stewart doing an acoustic jazz guitar bit, but after 30mins on amazon mp3 came up empty (such a useful resource though!)

If you recognise it ... let me know, and release me from my anxiety!

Postcript 2-May-2008: GOT IT! Tanita Tikaram - Twist In My Sobriety. I am sane again.

My Job Went to India (and all I got was this lousy book)

The title may be provocative, and immediately engender some strong reactions, but having just read My Job Went to Indiaby Chad Fowler, I'd strongly recommend you get past the emotions and read this book now! It is actually a very sensitive and insightful treatment of career pressures of the modern age, and how to respond positively. Although primarily targetted at a those working in the software industry, the book is a great career coach for any white-collar information worker. The book contains 52 very well-written pieces of advice, all introduced with some fascinating personal introspection. Get it on your bookshelf! The sooner, the better.

Doing the As

Had some work on the weekend, so I've had my iPod on "song play". So far it's at 144 of 4981 and still working through the "A"s. I'm up to Always..

• Always - Bon Jovi, Bounce
• Always by Kuraki Mai 倉木麻衣 from Fever Pitch: Official 2002 Fifa World Cup
• Always On The Run [Explicit] Lenny Kravitz Greatest Hits
• Always The Way - James Reyne from his cool 80's pop-rock self titled, the first album he released after leaving Australian Crawl
• Always With Me, Always With You - classic melody line by Joe Satriani from Surfing with the Alien

Best song in the "Always" category? At the moment, my vote's going to Kuraki Mai. And like pretty much everything these days, it's on YouTube too, complete with user-generated anime mtv;-)


  
 

A380 - how to spend €billions and still get simple things wrong

lancerlord@tomorrow.sg picks up on a Telegraph article asking "why are there still ashtrays in the Airbus A380?"

Good question, but not the only example of seemingly stupid "missed opportunities" to innovate in the A380.

One of the first I noticed was the new positioning of the inflight entertainment controller in the seat back. At first it seems perfect, since it avoids the accidental activation which is a real problem when the controller is built into the armrest (which is the case in most other cabin fitouts I've seen).

But then consider the way it is oriented - mounted on the side. This results in a classic failure to "get the mappings right" (one of Norman's design rules in "The Psychology of Everyday Things"). If you use the controller without removing it from its holder (which turns out to be a very handy usage), then you need to transpose the controls 90°. Up means right, down means left etc. Ironically, when the controller is mounted in the armrest, the horizontal layout tends to "get the mappings right" if you use it in-situ because of the way the hand is positioned.


It could have been so perfect if the controller designers were collaborating with the seat designers, with a clear focus on usability. The controller could be mounted vertically, or redesigned for a side-side layout.

As it is, a missed opportunity to produce the very best design. And a very, very minor usability problem is one of my lasting impressions of my first A380 flight, overshadowing all the billions of euros invested in the plane.

What else? Well, I'm surprised they persist in using the special 2-prong audio jack. I'm sure there's some weird logic about discouraging passengers from nicking the headsets (even though policing headset issue and collection still seems to rate as one of the cabin staffs' most important duties!)

But as I look around the cabin more and more people are using their own earphones. The ones that aren't probably forget to bring the special adapter. For planes like the A380 starting their service life in the 21st century, I'd expect it would be the norm for most air travellers to be carry a headset of some description, and it would make sense for cabin designers to take advantage of the fact and use standard audio sockets, and provide headsets "by exception". Win-win: passengers get to use their own familiar headsets without needing an adapter, and cabin crew get to save time for more important things.

See, I can get cranky about the smallest details;-)

Brain Rules

Geoffrey Grosenbach took a diversion on the Ruby on Rails podcast recently, with a fascinating two-part interview with John Medina (part 1, part 2). Medina is a very engaging speaker, with some controversial but well researched ideas on how the brain works, and why so many of our social conventions in school and the workplace actually conspire against optimal brain performance. I gather its a discussion of many of the ideas from his book Brain Rules. Well worth a listen.

Earthcore & Infected

Scott Sigler has the book launch of Infected coming up on 1-Apr. No joke, you can pre-order on Amazon already. ..a cinematic, relentlessly paced novel that mixes and matches genres, combining horror, technothriller, and suspense.. Sigler's been one of the stars of the free podcast-audiobook scene, and its great to see him on the mainstream bookshelves. In fact, you can still get Infected as a podcast download here at podiobooks. Sigler reads his own works, and he's got the voice for it too. See the Infected promo page at podiobooks for more info. Earthcore was the first Sigler novel I came across, also highly recommended. I found it some time ago, before I started blogging about books actually, which is why you are only seeing a post about it now. I listened to Earthcore as a podcast available here at podiobooks. In fact I think it was my very first podiobook download, and got me hooked on the whole podiobooks idea (from which I've since discovered other great authors like Terry Fallis and Nathan Lowell). These authors are all making podcast versions of their works freely available. It is a fantastic way to discover new authors and enjoy their books in audio. They deserve our support if you like what they do. Podiobooks takes donations directly. And for authors like Sigler we can buy their books in print too! Infected: at Amazon Infected: at podiobooks Earthcore: at Amazon Earthcore: at podiobooks

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton has a penchant for popping up in literature. Take Greg Keyes' Age of Unreason historical fantasy series for example, which starts with Newton's Cannon. Or Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, the first book of Baroque Cycle. Even in popular fiction like The Da Vinci Code. It soon becomes hard to separate fact from fiction. Was Newton an alchemist? [Yes] A member of The Priory of Sion? [No] A little bit mad? [Probably. And not helped by his experiments with mercury]. Needing a fix in reality, I picked up James Gleick's Isaac Newton. It is a wonderfully written account of Newton's life and accomplishments. The picture is of a complex character. Extremely private and absorbed in his research into any and all questions relating to understanding the system of the world. He tended to keep his ideas from the public to avoid controversy, yet when his views are debated he is perhaps as bad as the worst for letting his ego get out of hand. He is famous for his feuds with the likes of Robert Hooke for primacy in optical theory, and Leibniz over the invention of calculus (Newton and Leibniz are generally agreed to have developed calculus independently, but that didn't prevent them both from scrapping over the issue to no end). Newton's Wikipedia entry provides a good overview of the amazing range of his work. To understand more, James Gleick's book is an excellent place to start.

The Psychology of Everyday Things

POET - the familiar name that Donald A. Norman gave his 1988 classic "The Psychology of Everyday Things" which I recently picked up in the library. It has since been updated a little and reissued as The Design of Everyday Things. But I like POET. There is, after all, great poetry to be found in the workings of even the simplest device. And when things are not so artfully conceived: great tragedy and boon for cranky geeks everywhere. How can one not enjoy, for example, subjecting alarm clocks that have identical "snooze" and "reset" buttons to exemplary castigation? Or lambasting the purveyor of inappropriate door handles: those that are designed to "pull", but require a label that says "push" because that is the way the door swings?

Norman's approach is refreshing.

Humans do not always behave clumsily. Humans do not always err. But they do when the things they use are badly conceived and designed. Nonetheless, we still see human error blamed for all that befalls society.

Despite being published in 1988 and primarily drawing its examples from the world of simple electro-mechanical devices, the book's philosophy and advice is remarkably enduring.

It is all about user-centered design, and as relevant today as it was in Internet Prehistory. Norman posits Seven Principles of Design:

1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head
   
2. simplify the structure of tasks
   
3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation
   
4. Get the mappings right
   
5. Exploit the power of contraints, both natural and artificial
   
6. Design for error
   
7. When all else fails, standardize

The Lego Heresy

I do take issue with one example however. Norman presents the case of a Lego police motorcycle model as an example of excellent design.

Why? The design cleverly exploits physical, semantic and cultural constraints so that there is basically only one construction solution.

Which is great if the objective is to make construction quick, easy and repeatable with a high degree of quality.

Great! Its teaching kids how to be highly productive assembly line workers.

And that is where I think Lego started to go badly wrong. New Lego, personified by custom molded pieces and kits that could only make one design, may win design awards.

But it does not serve it's purpose and it's users. The beauty and enjoyment in Classic Lego came from the very fact of its flexibility and lack of constraints. With a little squinting, it was possible to believe you could build anything. As Norman himself argues, there are situations where it is useful to pervert the design principles (such as with safety features).

Classic Lego is a perfect study in the appropriate application of Norman's principles in reverse, whereas New Lego is just a great way to waste money.

To mangle a famous quote..

Give a child a Lego Police Motorcycle Kit, and you have bought a few hours of peace.
Give a child a Lego Basic Bulk Set, and they are set for a lifetime.

Which would you prefer?