May 26, 2004
wasting on a corporate scale
file under: thoughts about things
i got a piece of junk mail from AOL today.
AOL goes beyond your average junk mail peddler. a simple piece of printed matter is not enough for this purveyor of bytes. no - they have to send CDs in packages that keep getting bigger.
remember when CDs were first released, and they came in tall cardboard boxes? (ok, maybe you don't remember, but i do). over time, the manufacturers reduced the size of the packaging to something that fit the bill, as it were - a package the size of a CD.
not so with AOL. they decided that their marketing would be more effective if they increased the size of their packaging over time. the box i got today was a double-wide jewel case with hosting-porn splattered all over the inside.
the waste makes me angry. i know it's just the tip of the iceberg, that there are bigger fish to fry in the world of waste, but this example just made my blood boil.
dare i say it? [whispered voice - no one is listening - spam would have been better...]
Posted: 05.26.04 at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 25, 2004
for my friend dianna rawleigh
file under: my life
my friend dianna rawleigh passed into memory on May 14, 2004. cancer ended her life decades before it should have ended.
she and i worked side by side for a few years, and i got to know her a little (as well as anyone does at work, i suppose). few people are lucky enough to meet someone like dianna, let alone befriend them. and now i'm left struggling to regain my memories of her, because that's all i have left.
i suspect dianna would be angry if i wrote something too sentimental, too sad, too anything. i suspect she would want me to do what the irish do at a wake - celebrate life, not mourn death. that's what she was best at - celebrating life.
a few of my perceptions:
- she wore her salt-and-orange dreadlocks like a crown, a rave queen full of strength and charisma and charm and spirit
- she was filled with passions and followed them through (art, dance, activism, design, spirituality)
- she was a funny, vibrant woman who never, ever took herself too seriously, and often helped others to see what a wise thing that is
- she always took the time to step outside of herself and engage with others and their lives and passions
- she was a little shy sometimes, not liking to draw attention to herself, which made her that much more endearing
- she was a wonderful, connected human
was was was.
she is now only memory, and the world will miss her.
Posted: 05.25.04 at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
May 24, 2004
coasters have two sides
file under: design
"these coasters are defective!!! why did i buy these damn things?"
buyer's remorse takes many forms, but one that's common for me is the form-function problem. i buy something that has great form and a supposed function, only to find that function forgot to show up.
or did it?
...
i've got a nifty set of rubber coasters from Crate & Barrel. elaine and i bought them about a year ago; what can i say - they were orange and yellow and square and looked cool, and i thought to myself, "damn, those would look fine on that IKEA coffee table." [it almost hurts to write this...]
well, that's all they did. they looked fine. they failed miserably as coasters.
a few minutes after setting a cold glass on one of the aforementioned orange squares, a small pool of condensation would gather. this pool would create a rather nice seal between coaster and the base of the glass, one strong enough that picking up the glass brought the coaster along for the ride. of course, the coaster wouldn't stay for the ride. oh no - it would detach itself from the glass about two-thirds of the way to your mouth. this resulted in the partially wet coaster going splat! on the table (face down, per murphy's law).
and so one of those orange coasters has been sitting on my desk for some time, wearing another cardboard coaster like a condom for condensation. the others sat forlorn on the coffee table, waiting for their day in the sun.
until saturday.
elaine was looking through the Crate & Barrel catalog (like a Victoria's secret catalog, it's not ours), and noticed some coasters with nifty little ridges to capture the moisture from whatever glass they held. she said, " hey, these are better than those crappy ones we bought."
and then a light bulb went on - our crappy coasters have two sides. they're asymmetric, with one side totally flat, the other with raised dots, like a Lego designed to hold martini glasses. we had been resting our glasses on the flat side, not the Lego side. what if it was meant to be the other way around?
sure enough, it was. it's like our coasters have a new lease on life, and we've rediscovered joy and can live in harmony with IKEA and Crate & barrel products again.
this got me to thinking about the question of form and function. is it odd that an object designed for a very specific purpose could be used in multiple ways to serve that same purpose, with one usage superior to others? not really, actually. a hammer, for instance, could be used in many ways to pound a nail, although hitting the nail with the right side of the hammer brings Miller time that much more quickly.
the difference here is that the two ways of achieving the same end were not so obviously distinct. most coasters will work equally well whether used on one side or the other. those coasters that require a little more effort usually have very obvious sides (this side up, this side down). for some reason, the "up" side of our C&B coasters was not so obvious.
why did i pick the wrong way of using these coasters? after all, you'd have to be a few beers short of a six-pack to misuse a coaster, right? the only thing that i could figure out was the the display at the store showed the coasters in the improper orientation, and i just followed along, like a lemming off the cliff.
but all is right with the world now, and i can drink my martinis without fear of the dreaded splat!. it's all about the little things.
Posted: 05.24.04 at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
