Archive for the ‘ Rants & Opinion ’ Category
Following on from last week’s post on wicked problems, I got to thinking about the general sorts of challenges that occur in design, whether it be design of software, bridges, posters, web sites, or even social policy. It seems there’s three main types of challenge: Problem definition – exploring a problem space, identifying a particular problem [ READ MORE ]
Today I read a paper from 1971 by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber about “wicked problems” – problems that are intrinsically difficult or impossible to solve in the sense that one can solve a crossword or mathematical proof, or win a game of chess. Wicked problems abound in policy questions and design, and it’s interesting [ READ MORE ]
So, everyone knows what r stands for, right? What about v? Or f(x) and f’(x)? OK. How about x, y, and z? If you’re not a math geek of some kind, you’re probably not reading anymore, but just in case you are, the point is that each of these letters has a common meaning in a [ READ MORE ]
While waiting for pizza this evening, I read an article by David Allan Grier in IEEE Computer about the ways in which technology has changed entertainment, particularly the theatre, over the last 40 years or so. In particular, he discusses how automated lighting, sound and so forth can afford a stage manager the opportunity to calibrate [ READ MORE ]
I’m surfing a rather strange mood right now. I got home from gaming 20 minutes ago, feeling strangely bemused and disappointed with the world, largely for broad social and political reasons than for anything one particular thing. I’ve been grappling a little of late with the troublesome conflict between ideas of social fairness and communal action [ READ MORE ]
While slowly uploading 3 years of email archives to gmail this afternoon, I spent a while poking about random video blogs following links from last week’s Epic-FU. While the content is amusing, it’s the fact that they even exist that really interests me – random people creating not only content, but regular shows, of quality [ READ MORE ]