Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It’s a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less. That’s especially important during this economic crisis when everyone is trying to move forward while consuming fewer resources.

via OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | | In Pursuit of Elegance: 12 Indispensable Tips.

Which came via Guy Kawasaki

Also interesting is The Inside Scoop on Design: Ten Questions with Hartmut Esslinger. He notes the following which I think all can agree on.

Question: What are your top ten products of all time?
Answer:
1. Electric Light Bulb
2. Japanese Lunch Box(es)
3. Mercedes 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut”
4. Boeing 707
5. Porsche 911
6. Apple Macintosh (after the Macintosh SE)
7. Arne Jacobsen Chair “3107” by Hansen
8. Sony Walkman 2
9. Gibson Les Paul Custom Guitar
10. Hubble Telescope

Question: What are your ten worst products of all time?
Answer:
1. Gas-guzzling SUVs
2. Neck-pain-causing Notebook computers
3. Typical conference chairs and ambiance in hotels
4. Software UI on mobile phones
5. Most hospital equipment
6. Violent video games
7. Fake “crafts” products (e.g “Hantcraft” dustpan & brushset)
8. Computer accessories requiring 2+ hour installment
9. Restaurant table that “kill” your kneecaps
10. Myriads of power adapters

I just finished listening to the audiobook on Steve Jobs life, called iCon. Interesting.

Reason Magazine – Typing Errors

This article goes on at length about the myth of of the QWERTY typewriter being slow and the Dvorak one being so much more efficient. I’ve told the story before but now I see that I am partly wrong.

The story is that the original mechanical typewriters had to have their keys arranged to make people’s typing slower so the mechanical arms that hit the paper wouldn’t jam. And the myth is that we have been stuck with a slow QWERTY keyboard key arrangement in the computer age when there are no mechanical limitations to typing speed. So the Dvorak keyboard has the keys arranged to speed up typing by putting the most commonly used letters in the home key positions under our strongest fingers.

You can also see this article for more on the myth.

Original link from Productivity 501

Though clearly it can carry a lot but I get it will run out of gas pretty quick.

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control

If I only had access to all the stuff you can get at Home Depot here in Kuwait. Such a cable mess we have. Partly due to the mix of cord end types: British, two types of European and even American. And cheap power bars. The Ikea desk cable support trays won’t hold on to a power bar because of these types of ends and also the different end types in the power transformers that have to plug in. Arghh …

I think Saturday a trip to Home Hardware to see if we can do something!

Neatorama » Blog Archive » The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos

Not only global warming, there is also global dimming.

Should you be worried about global dimming? – By Brendan I. Koerner – Slate Magazine

Feature: The 20 Best iPod Utilities

This is interesting. I wonder how popular it will get though. The number of people needing this isn’t what is used to be now that plumbing is mostly plastic

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