beansprouts – (pl. n.) tiny thoughts from the brain of a Tinabeans
This past Sunday, we visited the ICA in Boston, one of my favorite art museums ever. Nick Cave (not the singer) and William Kentridge were on show. New Yorkers may remember Nick Cave for his Grand Central Station performance with the colorful horses. I did not manage to witness that particular spectacle, but his work…
We have a very close relationship these days, fear and I. It hadn’t always been this way, but 2013 has been a particularly intense year for the two of us. For instance, I’ve developed a strong fear of the suboptimal. Counter-argument after counter-argument, I would stand battling myself at the drugstore, unable to choose toothpaste….
Wake up and blow your nose But keep the PJs on. Email into work: “Please excuse me today…” …from time’s careful accounting. Climb back into bed and Consider the options. Perhaps you will Wrestle back that feeling of what it was like To approach an absolutely clean day As a small someone, capable only of Pouring…
I was talking to a friend today. She felt like she had hit a brick wall at work. She had been at a startup for over 2 years as the community manager, and was ready for some harder problems. But she also felt that she didn’t have the technical skills to contribute in a meaningful…
In this digital age, it’s easy to take immateriality for granted. Books weigh nothing more than typography rendered as pixels, music albums are tangible only as waveforms passing through the air, and photographs live in the infinite shoebox of the cloud. So lately, when physical things press their surfaces onto my life, I’ve begun to…
Perfection doesn’t matter—that much seems almost obvious today, when daring mantras like “Make mistakes! Kill your darlings!” permeate the discipline of design. But there was a time when perfection actually sorta kinda didmatter. And many of us came from that time. Print design is known to be fairly rigid. You only get one shot at getting…
It’s been 4 months since I started work at Fog Creek Software, and boy have I learned a lot. Among the things I have learned are: Designers ain’t got nothing on engineers when it comes to “agile.” People can always tell when you are trying to impress them. You can practice foaming milk for lattes…
Do you remember what life was like when you were seven? I was thinking about this today while eating a raspberry ice cupcake. The adult in me came up with that just now—”raspberry ice cupcake”—partly because it sounds kind of awesome, but mostly to distinguish it from what it should have been (a raspberry ice…
I’ve been meaning to write this post for about a month! And now that it’s finally happening, I don’t know what to write. So, maybe I’ll start with a list. A list of things I’ve done since grad school ended on May 10, 2012. Here goes: cleaned the apartment traveled to China bought my grandparents…
In the tech blogosphere, there is very rarely a discussion of the ethics of what we produce. Jonathan Harris decided to do something about it with his essay, “Modern Medicine,” which posits that technologists are really “medicine men” for today’s society. The metaphor is apt, getting to the ability to harm or heal, as well…