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Showing posts from September, 2010

Is Design the result of Frustration?

Design is a complex thing to define and further designer is a difficult thing to figure out. What you call design may not be a design at all. Moreover, it is very difficult to make out even if there has been any designing. I have been trying to look into myself for answers and figure out what is it that makes me think that something is a design. I have been a passionate observer of design since my childhood, and I have promised myself to follow it till the end. Source:georgebuehler.com Recently, I have found that Design could be a result of a frustration. An immense urge to act so that the frustration could be pacified. It is similar to problem solving. In one of the interview, Richard Feynman (physicist) said that problem solving is an act of getting rid of frustration. He gave a good example of a monkey trying to reach out to the tree for the fruit. But the monkey could not reach out, so out of immense frustration, he grabs one of the stick and tries to shake the branch of

The Fountain Head and Steve Jobs

I have been following this persona for quite a while, not because I own one of his products or that I find him god like. But simply because I find his character interesting and the decision he makes intriguing. Long time back I had read a novel  by Anny Rand (The Fountain Head), the main protagonist of the novel - Howard Roark is an individualist who has high value for human integrity. He is also an architect which gives him more reasons to have those values. The whole story is a conflict between the ideas and value of human. In overall perspective, it is a battle between objectivism and collectivism. The story also has other 5 strong characters with different ideology. Some are salve to society, some are manipulator, some are lost, some are broken and some are as strong as steal. This was also the novel which pushed me to contemplate about the effect of media over human and how they are influenced to position themselves. I could not help reminding myself of the conflict between

Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

Decision making is a fundamental action that we are involved in our day to day life. Every time we make decision, we have this feeling that we are making a right one. We look into the pros and cons of the situation and try to understand the effect of our decision. But we tend to forget that when we make decision we have cognitive limitations similar to physical limitation. This video below is a very good presentation by Dan Ariely on how we are affected by the choices and how that influences our decision. It is a wonderful presentation.