We’ve had a couple of storms run through Los Angeles over the past week. Last Friday, I went up to the top of a parking structure after work to look at the clouds, and stayed to watch a double rainbow and the play of light at sunset.
This was the view that surprised me the most: Bright orange (a little more magenta in real life than it looks here in the photo) on the underside of the clouds, but plain gray on the sides.
Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself, “Is the problem I’m trying to solve really the problem I want solved?”
For example, “I can’t connect to this coffee shop’s wifi” may be worth trying to fix for a couple of minutes, but the real goal is connecting to the internet. The coffee shop just happens to be the most convenient/obvious means of doing so. If you have another way of connecting — say, by tethering to your phone connection — you’re better off switching methods instead of continuing to chase what may be a dead end.
Similarly, with software design, whenever you begin with a set of parameters and start off down a path that seems to be getting more and more complicated, it’s worth taking a step back and asking: what am I really trying to solve here? Are the constraints real, or can I drop some of them and take a different, more effective approach?
If the problem is presented as: How do I use these tools to accomplish this task, sometimes you’ve got to use those tools — but sometimes another set of tools will do the job better.
I spotted something interesting while walking to lunch, took a photo with my camera, and then took a photo with my phone so that I could post it to Twitter immediately.
Then I thought: why?
And on the flip side:
I decided that in this case, it was self-explanatory, and neither the timing nor the quality made much difference. But since I had the better photo, I might as well wait until I could upload it. (Sometimes the photo quality really matters, though: my phone’s photos of that rainbow cloud just weren’t worth the effort, so it’s a good thing I rushed back to the office for a better camera.)
There was a time when if I wanted to post a photo online, I had to finish a roll of film, send it to a photo lab, wait for them to develop it, and then scan the print. I really like not being limited by that, whether it’s because I’m posting about a current event like Comic-Con or an election, or just because I think something’s fantastic (or hilarious) and really want to share it.
Sometimes it’s really useful to be able to post photos online instantly. Other times, it’s worth asking: Is now better?
A bit of craziness: I wrote this post in June 2010, about this sign. Then I decided it needed a bit of work before I posted it…and forgot about it. Interestingly enough, the post is still just as valid as it would have been a year ago, and it demonstrates that sometimes, now isn’t better, even if it’s not worse.
Of course, it also demonstrates an advantage of posting immediately. There’s no chance of forgetting about it that way!
When I was twelve, I went with my mom, brother and a family friend to see the Space Shuttle land at Edwards Air Force Base. It was the first mission after the Challenger disaster, and the orbiter was Discovery.
I took a roll of slides using a manual SLR camera and (for the landing itself) a telephoto lens. With the last shuttle mission ending tomorrow, I decided to track down the slides and scan them. Continue reading
A doodle I made on a piece of scratch paper when J was a couple of months old. He’s a bit better about this now.
At the time I planned to redo it using actual drawing tools, but I stuffed it in my backpack and forgot about it until I found it today.
It’s astonishing how many times I’ve seen drivers stop near the entrance of a parking lot or structure and wait for someone else to load their car, get in the car, start the car, fumble around for sunglasses, make a phone call, put the car in reverse, check their messages, and then back out…even though there are 1306 open parking spaces on the upper levels, and a line of six cars behind them waiting just to get inside.
If the other driver is actually ready to back out, then yeah, it’s nice to pause and let them out. But if they’re not even inside the car, or if they haven’t even started it? The only thing you’re accomplishing by waiting for this space is annoying the people behind you.
Though I suppose for some people, that’s reason enough.
We recently watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Accession, in which an ancient Bajoran ship comes out of the wormhole carrying a single passenger, who claims he is the Emissary of the Prophets. Kira recognizes his name as a revered poet from hundreds of years ago, one whom every Bajoran studies in school.
There will be spoilers for this 15-year-old episode, so stop reading if that sort of thing bothers you.
Sisko is all too happy to hand over the Emissary job until Akorem gives a speech insisting that the Prophets want Bajor to return to a rigid caste system from their past…something with implications both political (the Federation is less likely to approve their petition for membership, and the First Minister belongs to the farmer caste, not the political caste) and personal (Bajorans start deferring to “higher” castes, and Kira is faced with resigning her position to become an artist).
About halfway through the episode, I came to the following conclusion: Akorem was a fraud, put in place by an organization that wanted to keep Bajor out of the Federation, depose the current leadership, and specifically re-establish that caste system. They’d specifically chosen a figure who would be instantly recognized and revered, but who (as was mentioned early on) had no descendants, and therefore no one to do a DNA comparison against.
That’s not how it turned out, though. In the end, he turns out to be exactly who he claimed to be, just misguided about what the Prophets wanted…which was basically to remind Sisko to do his job as Emissary.
Katie had an interesting thought, though: If it had been an episode of Babylon 5, there’s a good chance I would have been right (or at least close). I was just trying to figure out the story in terms of the wrong show.
Maybe I was thrown off by the mysterious figure from the past who repeatedly asked the Captain, “Who are you?” in a dark part of the station, trying to get him to give the right answer. 😀
