Sunspots: the Gestalt edition - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Sunspots: the Gestalt edition 37signals 11 Apr 2006

8 comments Latest by Stephen

Art by Committee: the most/least wanted paintings: Some artists polled consumers in various countries to see what they like/dislike in paintings and then painted according to that spec.
The story of William LeMessurier and Citicorp Center: "What's an engineer's worst nightmare? To realize that the supports he designed for a skyscraper like Citicorp Center are flawed -- and hurricane season is approaching."
Apple Human Interface Guidelines: "The best approach to developing easy-to-use software is to keep the design as simple as possible.": "A simple design is a good design and the best tools are those that users are not even aware they are using...The more complex your application's task, the more important it is to keep the user interface simple and focused."
Do snakes have bones?: Snakes are full of bones, from their sectioned backbones, to which are attached from one to 145 pairs or ribs, to the ball and joint sockets, which attach the many sections of backbone together, and allow them to contort themselves like pretzels.
Book: "Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It": "We're bombarded from childhood with so many images putting 'us' -- the individual person -- at the center of the universe that we cannot help thinking that this is where we belong."
Stop looking for occasions to be offended: "Anytime you're filled with resentment, you're turning the controls of your emotional life over to others to manipulate...If you have enough faith in your own beliefs, you'll find that it's impossible to be offended by the beliefs and conduct of others."
The Secret to Small Business Success from Firewheel Design: The secret? Raise your rates.

The Personal MBA: "Business schools don't have a monopoly on worldly wisdom. If you care more about increasing your effectiveness at work than a diploma and a few lines on your resume, the Personal MBA is for you."
"And One More Thing...": Five Steve Jobs-inspired tips for making your next talk mesmerizing.
Book: "Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary": "The book for when you know what it is, but not what it's called...the words here are grouped according to general categories, such as animal and insects, food and drink, the human body and mind, and occupations."
Joyent platform on edge Rails: "we've been able to simplify + improve our code a lot using '1.1' features": "Another big, constantly improving 'feature' of Rails is Sam Stephenson's incredible Prototype JavaScript library...which has become a vital part of the framework. It almost single-handedly changed my entire mindset about JavaScript."
Work made by random people in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher: Assignments start with ideas like these: 45. Reread your favorite book from fifth grade. 38. Act out someone else's argument. 35. Ask your family to describe what you do. 30. Take a picture of strangers holding hands.
Maeda on the iPod and the "grouping" principle of Gestalt psychology: "We can read this sequence of iPod evolutionary steps as 'starting simple, then getting complex, and finally becoming over-simple.'"
WhatTheFont: Upload a scanned image of a font and instantly find the closest matches in WhatTheFont's database.
Goo Gone: Use to get rid of those disrespecting stickers on products.
How to stamp and customize text in PDF files for free: "I realized that to 'stamp' PDFs, all you needed to do was change placeholders in the text...Et voila, I had a working copy of my PDF with 'Prepared exclusively for Fred Bloggs' on every page."
How I Work: Bill Gates: "The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen."
SpamSievel spam filtering for Mac OS X: David Pogue: "The setup is none too friendly...But once it's installed--holy cow. Spam Sieve is just incredibly, amazingly accurate; my In box is clean, baby, clean!"
Quickcamp: Quick access via keyboard to the most common features in Basecamp: You need Firefox and Greasemonkey to make it work.
Complete listing of common camera symbols: Lost your camera's manual? This page can help decode mysterious camera icons.
Email continues to be the de facto standard for team collaboration: "We must take a closer look at this killer app and apply the same rules of simplicity and ease-of-use to our own products if we ever expect to become more than a cottage industry."
Learn how to read people and detect lies: What to listen for when someone is lying: a rise or fall in pitch, changing rate or rhythm of speaking, force, and/or a cracking voice.

8 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Mark 11 Apr 06

Goo Gone has been an indispensable kitchen cabinet staple in my home for years.

Matt Dempsey 11 Apr 06

That last link doesn’t work and I’m quite interested in that article. I enjoyed the Steve Jobs article, thanks!

Claudio Perez Gamayo 11 Apr 06

why Gestalt edition?

Edmundo 11 Apr 06

I wonder if you guys checked out Maeda’s sixth law of simplicity:

“In order to “feel,” you gotta have noise.
Too much noise, and all you’ve got is noise.”

George 11 Apr 06

That Bill Gates thing surely begs the question of what browser does he use, and then, how does he avoid spyware/enjoy his pop-ups?

Vishi 12 Apr 06

Looks like your new aggregator is working on all cylinders. Is it called sunspot? We have something similar in our pipeline too.

Stephen 12 Apr 06

I especially liked Bill Gates tacky Ikea office and the Learning To Love You More web site. One wonders if Bill would really need three screens if he had a more productive operating system, or maybe virtual desktops?