Book Review - The Design of EveryDay Things by Donald Norman

I recently finished reading this book. It is a worthwhile read. Although not all of the aspirations of the author are realistic(atleast for the area of software), its good to aspire for what is ideal.

After reading this book, one important thing is that you will start appreciating the beauty of design even in the simplest thing like a safety pin or needle. You will also realize that not all newer versions are improved designs since there are so many factors contributing in production of a new product, its not always true that the latest is the greatest.

One needs to go by the old thumb rule that you are best Judge when you have the knowledge, so get the knowledge and decide for yourself.

The beauty of the book is in the way author communicates his ideas with the simplest things around us and with the excellent examples like door bars, water faucets, motor panel design, the mapping of vertical movement with the circular steering wheel.

There is one part of the book, which talks about how digital clock is better than analog. Whoever invented the concept of having 2 needles for the clock and why it is hard to teach a child to read a clock. Interesting things which typically we would not notice or care to observe.

Assuming that the author wrote this book in early 90s, his expectation about computer design to evolve to solve the actual problem rather than becoming a part of the problem is to some extent true if you see in today's progressed computer world. But we are still long way from becoming as advanced and perfect as a motor industry and this will take its time. The ideal day would be when using a computer becomes like using electric current, to solve the problem - lighting the bulbs and lamps, cooling for refrigerator, heating for iron . But the computer world is a lot different from the other worlds so coming times will tell us how best they evolve into.

I like reads like this , since they enhance your view or improve your perspective about what is around you, they make you more cognizant human being ultimately.

Vacation

I took off a long vacation of complete 15 days from office. This was after a long time, so much so that i made a list of things i need to do during vacation.
Well I could cover atleast 80% of it. But most importantly it just provided me this time to just come out of office and just be somebody who I would be if I am stripped of my job.

I enjoyed it in my own way, not that I spent all the time laughing and going around the world. But I did do some thinking, some reading, some shopping and watched quite a few movies - in a sense I did a few of everything. I watched interesting movies - Hachiko, The Gods must be crazy, Memento(third time and still can watch again), The social network, Falling in love , The Lovely bones and a few more.

It amazes me how time passes by and how people are always , in their own ways, trying to make meaning out of their lives. Almost everybody understands that time is precious, but nobody is really sure if they are really using it to the fullest.

I accidentally came across Nikola Tesla's feature and about how although he was so intriguingly knowledgeable, but still did not have so much of luck with the world. Well Well well, for one thing , I realized, its not important whether the world thinks if you are good, that's a question you ought to answer yourself. You might not be famous or somebody who gets a huge salary or somebody with a lot of political influence, but it does matter how your family treats you and how you respond back . This is what probably makes one feel good , and spice it up with achievements in your work life, one would feel a life worth lived. Do check out this link about Tesla.

Meaning of life

So I am reading a serious but a very meaningful book from Viktor Frankl about Man's search for meaning in life.
I chose to buy and then read it because this book addresses something which is like a eternal question for me. I am still reading it , but it is one book everybody should read.
Its a constant thought at the back of my mind, if I start worrying about anything - is this the purpose of your life and if you continue to do what you are doing, how will you feel 10 yrs down the line?
Anyways there is no general answer for these questions , each person and each person's life is unique so I could continue to write a few pages and still don't conclude about the meaning of one's life.
I came across this very interesting site - Khan academy. The interesting thing is the person - SalmanKhan - provides online videos - like online classrooms. This guy is so learned and his effort is something which seems to make the technology we have meaningful and worthwhile. Imagine how many people are getting benefitted out of this . Some thing like this, which helps the other human beings and also gives the satisfaction for the person of achieving something - this is called as meaning for one's life in my opinion.

The Weatherman

Watched "The Weatherman". Good movie and states the obvious. Its human tendency to make sure to keep everybody in his family happy and every family person tries it. But all can't go the way one wants it this is what is narrated in this story. There is one quote I liked very much by Micheal Caine .
"Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. "Easy" doesn't enter into grown-up life."

You don't have to be intelligent to be happy

Although Intelligence and happiness are two different things altogether. A lot of the time I keep thinking that anybody who is intelligent will be happy. I usually get fascinated when I meet people who are close to "genius" . Post the meeting, I usually get into thinking, how lucky and blessed this guy is... he is so intelligent and he should definitely be happy and satisfied with his life.

But Its not true. Intelligence does not mean happiness, all intelligence gives you is at the bare minimum you own your actions and even when you are not happy, you are fine to some extent. An intelligent person weighs pros and cons of each of their decisions and is cautious. I know all this is very abstract but then thats what this space is all about :)

Now let me talk about the book I finished today - " the search" by John Battelle. Its an amazing book. It narrates the story of search, how google has become a synonym for search. How in future search is going to encompass every second of our life but still, its a little far from getting us what we actually want. I remember one comment from one of the movies " You cannot consider yourself an expert and have done a research just because you went and browsed about it on google". This is very true.
This book is a very good read and sometimes goes on to show, how the right things like the google's good will and hardwork of making sure they have the best algo for search has paid them a long way in their business.

God is within yourself

I am not an Atheist, but I am also not fond of or believe in day to day rituals. I am believer that you need to do your best and as long as you are sure you are right, nothing can go wrong.

But off late the books I am reading all point towards the subject I have for this blog. I recently finished Dan Brown's - "Lost Symbol".
The book is as usual woven around the cryptic symbols and how Robert Langdon solves them - again its within a time span of two days I suppose. But its a big drag towards the later half. What interested me was the idea - "God is within yourself" and this is the famed secret of Free Masons.

Post this I finished reading a very good book from William Dalrymple - "Nine Lives". Its excellent in terms of the way small stories in far corners of India are told. It is more interesting to see how our lives are closely knitted with the religious beliefs and the daily rituals associated with those beliefs. Again some of the stories in this also point out the same - "God is within Yourself".

Then I went on to read some articles about Rama Krishna Matt and again encountered the same concept.

Now I am starting to read more on the same topic, Its interesting the way so far this concept has been emphasized in my reads. Lets see where this takes me :)

Dog's Life

I got up from sleep pretty early at around 5:00 AM today. As usual the wandering mind keeps thinking. I was thinking about 3D movies in Bollywood. For some reason, we still don't have too much luck with 3D in Bollywood. May be somebody is working hard on the next one to come while I am writing this blog.

3D looks good either when the animation is either larger or very smaller than the normal human size. This was the case with Avatar, the aliens (I keep forgetting the name of the species) were larger than the humans. For a while I was thinking how good a street dog's life in a Bollywood movie be.

For one, this is unique to Bollywood since people here can relate to a street dog. Going from childhood of the dog, when it gets fed by some neighbors to the day it starts putting it borders on the road to the time it starts having puppies the whole story can be told so well and made so interesting. We could have examples of how dog has premonition of anything bad and cries out load, its a belief in India that when the dog cries, there is something bad coming up. Or when it attacks any other dog entering its territory or barks at anybody coming home late beyond 11:00PM, I usually have a lot of dogs barking at my cab whenever I end up late in the night and they all stop when they see the person getting down :). Or the idea of a dog making a girl friend or a boy friend and having puppies and protecting them. After some thought I decided this is a very good idea for movie and their ended my thoughts when my alarm rung for 6:05 AM telling me - "enough of thoughts get started for the work".

Also I recollect a lot of times - "Marley and Me", I just loved the simple story and loved the ending sentences - "How many people can make you feel that you are extraordinary? " that's an interesting question and an important one too.