Nathan's Possibly Interesting web site
Commonsense design blog
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of everyday product design
We live in an age of throw away technology, and for me, the silver lining of this has always been to take old products apart before trashing them. It’s fun, and it’s instructive to see how computers, home electronics, even the occasional appliance are built inside. And of course, you may bring to light gems … Read more
New on my Possibly Interesting site: a weird superhero comic spoof that I drew when I was studying Mathematics in College. It follows closely the style of 60’s Superman comics, but it takes place entirely in the domain of geometrical figures (and no, at that time I hadn’t yet read Abbott’s Flatland). Lost for years, … Read more
Last year I reported on the inefficient design of a teleconference system, as far as respect for the user’s time is concerned. Today I sat through a really lovely case of this design issue. This system, speaking with a booming, ebullient voice, took me through the following: System: Welcome to the conference center! System: Please … Read more
A picture is worth a thousand words – when it is a good picture. There is a huge gap in effectiveness between the best and the worst illustrations you see in technical and scientific publications. The trick is to convey the essence of what’s being shown, whether it is a machine, a building or an … Read more
I already praised my Nokia E71 smartphone, that marvel of miniaturized power. Well, today I tried to update Nokia PC Suite, the software that runs on my notebook to allow it to sync with the smartphone. And as I was clicking through the installation process, something caught my eye in the dialog below: It was … Read more
Driving on today’s highways can be an aggravating (and dangerous) experience, and it doesn’t help that you can only communicate with the other drivers around you by honking your horn – not exactly a medium conducive to feelings of brotherly love. So one day, while wishing I could yell at the driver of the truck … Read more
Sometimes we need a reminder to realize the triumphs of Science and Engineering that went into the most common everyday objects. Take our ubiquitous stainless steel cutlery: what was it like when this recent addition to materials science – and our dinner table – suddenly made rust a non-issue? Check out a somewhat quirky tour … Read more
Used to be, at the beginning of every (face to face) meeting ten minutes would be wasted on getting the slide projector going. Today many meetings are virtual, but the same time is still wasted while people try to log into the shared meeting workspace… A case in point: I’ve just participated in a meeting … Read more
I met a guy who had an old Swiss chronometer watch, a self-winding mechanical one. As I looked at it, admiring the fine workmanship, I suddenly noticed a detail that used to be taken for granted: the thing had a seconds hand that was moving around the face of the watch. So what, you say? … Read more
I was checking some French using Google translator, and discovered that – contrary to my French teacher’s insistence back in high school – “La langue Francaise” means “English language”! Of course one doesn’t expect perfection from machine translation, but this was different than the usual silly mistakes: a translation program ought to know the meaning … Read more