otrops quotes

Jun
30th

Tue

In our research, every time we found a site where the search results were doing what they should, we also found a team that had worked really hard to make it that way.

Those teams all have something in common. They’ve experimented thoroughly, trying out dozens of designs and repeatedly watching users. They’ve frequently scoured their search log data, studying the terms users employ and comparing them to the results the site generated.

They’ve ended up with great search result pages, but it has taken months (and in some cases, years) of constant studying to get to this point. There is no way, as far as we know, that you can produce a great search results page without spending the time and effort to build it.

— Jared M. Spool, Producing Great Search Results: Harder than It Looks, Part 1

Jun
28th

Sun

I submit that obsessing about celebrity is unhealthy for the single reason that it is also unproductive. Celebrity is to mentality as smoking is to food. It is an unhealthy waste of time.

— Doc Searls, Beyond celebrity obsession

Jun
26th

Fri

Uncertainty is inherent and inevitable in software development processes and products.

— Hadar Ziv, Debra J. Richardson, René Klösch The Uncertainty Principle in Software Engineering (via The roots of agile project management)

Jun
22nd

Mon

[C]onspicuous consumption” is being replaced by “conspicuous expression” as the driver of identity. This new paradigm emphasizes the conspicuousness of ideas, interests, and opinions rather than accumulating more stuff than your neighbor. This is not insignificant.

— Stephen Lino , Brad Bate , Michael Keating, Conspicuous, but not Consuming

What matters most, more than anything, is getting the right words in front of the right people. That’s what the Internet is for. Everything else is the icing on the cake.

— Tim Bray, The Internet’s Payload

Jun
20th

Sat

I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money.

— Ray Bradbury in A Literary Legend Fights for a Ventura County Library, June 19 2009, Jenniger Steinhauer (via Tim O’Reilly)

Jun
17th

Wed

[T]ools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. It isn’t when the shiny new tools show up that their uses start permeating society. It’s when everybody is able to take them for granted.

— Clay Shirky, How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history (TED talk)

I like the concept of wearing in instead of wearing out.

— Bill Moggridge, Objectfied

Jun
15th

Mon

The purpose of computation is insight, not numbers.

— Richard Hamming, Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers (1962), epigraph (via Leisa Reichelt on twitter)

Jun
13th

Sat

Maybe it’s time to dispense with modernism and all its prefixes.

— Ursula K Le Guin, Into the cosmos with Qfwfq, The Guardian, Saturday 13 June 2009