Amon Tobin on why leaked copies of his latest album means you won't find many copies of it in the stores

Amon Tobin's latest album was leaked to the net a number of weeks before it was to go on sale. On his website he comments on the effects of this (www.amontobin.com - it's a flash-based site, so I can't link directly to the text, but it's in the 'Logbook' section)

[...] Today, the release date for my album, it's unlikely that you will see it in most high street shops and after the initial run it's unlikely that you will be able to order a copy even from online stores. this is because in-spite of more people having access to and apparently listening to my music than ever before, the predicted sales of the record were so low that it didn't justify the manufacture or distribution to any significant level. strange? not when you consider how hard it might be to convince any retail outlet, physical or digital, that they should try and sell something everybody could already get for free months beforehand.

so what does this mean in the wider context? who the fuck knows. like I say I won't speculate on the wider picture and you can draw your own conclusions as to what this means with regards to my own future output. again I stress that I'm not talking about what should happen here. I'm not saying I should be able to 'keep on doing what I'm doing' or even that my record deserves to be bought. all I'm saying, mainly for the benefit of those who might otherwise have been unaware, is that if you personally like what I do and wish to continue hearing more then the only way that will happen is if you support it.

Most descriptions of microbial evolution avoid using the term ‘evolution’ - and why this matters

[Update: the article is now found here.]

A quite readable article in PLoS Biology by Antonovics et al "Evolution by Any Other Name: Antibiotic Resistance and Avoidance of the E-Word".

"The increase in resistance of human pathogens to antimicrobial agents is one of the best-documented examples of evolution in action at the present time, and because it has direct life-and-death consequences, it provides the strongest rationale for teaching evolutionary biology as a rigorous science in high school biology curricula, universities, and medical schools. In spite of the importance of antimicrobial resistance, we show that the actual word "evolution" is rarely used in the papers describing this research. Instead, antimicrobial resistance is said to "emerge," "arise," or "spread" rather than "evolve." Moreover, we show that the failure to use the word "evolution" by the scientific community may have a direct impact on the public perception of the importance of evolutionary biology in our everyday lives."
[...]

"It has been repeatedly rumored (and reiterated by one of the reviewers of this article) that both the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have in the past actively discouraged the use of the word "evolution" in titles or abstracts of proposals so as to avoid controversy."
[...]

"Nowadays, medical researchers are increasingly realizing that evolutionary processes are involved in immediate threats associated with not only antibiotic resistance but also emerging diseases [1,2]. The evolution of antimicrobial resistance has resulted in 2- to 3-fold increases in mortality of hospitalized patients, has increased the length of hospital stays, and has dramatically increased the costs of treatment [3,4]. It is doubtful that the theory of gravity (a force that can neither be seen nor touched, and for which physicists have no agreed upon explanation) would be so readily accepted by the public were it not for the fact that ignoring it can have lethal results. This brief survey shows that by explicitly using evolutionary terminology, biomedical researchers could greatly help convey to the layperson that evolution is not a topic to be innocuously relegated to the armchair confines of political or religious debate. Like gravity, evolution is an everyday process that directly impacts our health and well-being, and promoting rather than obscuring this fact should be an essential activity of all researchers."

Some beautiful pictures of Chinese landscapes

Some beautiful pictures Chinese landscapes. Apparently they're of the Guilin area.

Article: Illegal drugs can be harmless, report says

As reported in The Guardian:

The report, which is likely to spark fierce controversy, said: "The use of illegal drugs is by no means always harmful any more than alcohol use is always harmful. It called for the concept of drugs to be extended to take in alcohol and tobacco.
...
Current laws, the panel claimed, were been "driven by moral panic" with large amounts of money wasted on "futile" efforts to stop supply rather than going after the criminal networks behind the drugs on British streets.

At the heart of the report was a call for an end to what the panel called the "criminal justice bias" of current policy in favour of an approach that would treat addiction as a health and social problem rather than simply a cause of crime.
...
"Drugs policy should, like our policy on alcohol and tobacco, seek to regulate use and prevent harm rather than to prohibit use altogether," the report concludes.

Article: Taking our leaders at face value

The Star reports: "A new study suggests that how we respond to a candidate's face could determine who we vote for". The research was undertaken by the psychologist Anthony C. Little, and published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Researchers started with pictures of political candidates such as John Kerry and George W. Bush, and used software to blend each picture with an image of an 'average face'. The resulting image wasn't recognisable as the candidate, but "nevertheless bore a sort of family resemblance to the originals".

"Then the researchers asked people to look at the faces and say who they would vote for.

In all eight races, the votes based on composite faces gave the same results as the actual elections."

The article also says

"The problem is, despite our specialized cognitive machinery for dealing with faces, it turns out that faces aren't a very good guide for judging other people.

Studies show that people think they can read all sorts of things about people based on their faces, including intelligence, basic character and personality traits. Unfortunately, the same studies show that we're not as accurate as we think we are.

Like everyone else, I know that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. And like everyone else, I do it all the time – summing someone up in the street, or at a party, or on the subway, based largely on what I think I see in his face. I'm usually pretty confident I'm right, but I'm also probably wrong."

AV Club interview with Ricky Gervais, incl his thoughts on creative control

AV Club interview (single page version)with Ricky Gervais, co-creator of 'The Office' and 'Extras', from Jan 10 2007.

Two answers on 'creative control' I wanted to note:

AVC: How do you establish that kind of creative control?
RG: I just demand it. I just simply wouldn't do anything that I wasn't terribly in charge of. I don't let anything go. I worry about the font on the back of the DVD, and I'll do this as long as that continues. Even if it does continue, I could still get bored with that, but I certainly wouldn't compromise anything.
[...]

AVC: When you're working on something, do you ever have to struggle to tell the difference between comedy that can succeed commercially and what you think is good?
RG: Never. It doesn't come into it. We only do what we think is good and what we're happy with. I do that in stand-up, I even do it with my children's books. I don't do market research, I don't have focus groups, I don't care. I don't care if it fails, honestly. I'd rather have something that's completely mine fail than something succeed that I'm not proud of.

Debatepedia

Debatepedia (about, FAQ). Kinda like wikipedia, but rather than emphasising neutrality, it emphasises the differences in positions on contentious topics, providing a structured way for each side of the argument to be presented. Much like the (seemingly) unrelated OpenDebateEngine I mentioned last year.

Will be interesting to see how well it works.

Some recent Signal vs Noise posts on communication

Some recent Signal vs Noise posts on communication:

1) and 2)

Both of these concern Chip and Dan Heath's book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

1) is about the usefulness of counterintuitive-seeming statements, for getting people's attention.

2) looks the book's notion of "the Curse of Knowledge." They quote an interview with the authors that mentions it:

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

The amazon description of that book says it's "an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of "stickiness"—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable."

3) '[On Writing] Describing a slice instead of the whole pie'

Here’s a look at how four great writers describe an amazing athlete. Note how all three spotlight a single play to explain a larger idea. By zeroing in on a specific moment, they are able to explain to readers what general, big picture platitudes can’t.

4) What being a speechwriter is like, and how it's similar to doing graphic design.

Favourite Recipes: Lamb Shanks with Dates and Pumpkin

Lamb Shanks with Dates and Pumpkin, served with Mashed Potatoes

It's a good one for entertaining.

Adapted from a recipe in Good Taste magaine, June 2002.

Serves 8, Prep 25 mins, Cooking: 1 hr 40 mins
(This is how long the shanks take to cook, but the mashed potato can be made while the shanks are simmering, so they don't have to end up adding mcuh to the time.
Note also that you need quite a large dish to fit 8 shanks - I often halve the quantities of the ingredients).

• For the lamb shanks
  • lamb shanks, 8, French trimmed
    
  • plain flour, to coat
    
  • jap pumpkin, 600g, peeled, deseeded
    
  • veg oil, 2 tbsp
    
  • sauce flavourings
    • brown onion, 1, finely chopped
      
    • stock
      • boiling water, 750 ml (3 cups)
        
      • chicken stock cubes, 2 large, crumbled
    • dry red wine, 250ml (1 cup)
      Wine suggestion: Lamb shanks need a full-bodied South Australian red.
      
    • whole peeled tomatoes, 400g, crushed
      
    • whole pitted dried dates, 150g (1 cup), halved
      
    • cinnamon stick, 1, 7cm
  • salt and ground black pepper
    
  • fresh continental parsley, 2 tbsp, chopped
    
  • mashed potato, to serve
  
  
• For the mashed-potatoes
  • evenly-sized medium unpeeled potatoes, 700g
    best potatoes to mash: kind edwards, pink eye, pontiac and sebago (brushed).
    Use evenly sized potatoes so they all cook in the same amount of time, resulting in a smoother mash.
    
  • salt, ½ tsp
    
  • butter, 100g, at room temperature, chopped
    
  • milk, 100ml
    
  • salt and ground black pepper

• Cooking lamb shanks
  • Preparation: cutting pumpkin and preparing stock
    • Cut pumpkin lengthways into four 2cm-thick wedges. Cut each wedge in half crossways.
      
    • Combine the boiling water and crumbled stock cubes in a heatproof jug. Stir to combine and set aside until required.
  • Brown the lamb shanks
    • Place the flour onto a large plate and coat the lamb shanks all over with the flour. Shake off any excess.
      
    • Heat the oil in a large heatproof casserole dish over medium-high heat.
      
    • Add the lamb and cook, turning occasionally, for 2-3 minutes or until well browned. Remove from pan and set aside.
  • Frying the onions
    
    • Add onion to pan and cook, stirring, for 2 mins or until onion is soft.
  • Slow-cooking the dish
    • Return lamb shanks to pan with reserved chicken stock, red wine, tomatoes, dates and cinnamon stick, and bring to the boil.
      
    • Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covereed, turning lamb shanks occasionally, for 45 mins.
      while this is cooking, you can make the mashed potato - see recipe below
      
    • Add the pumpkin and simmer, uncovered, for 35 mins or until the pumpkin is tender and sauce thickens slightly.
  • Serving
    • Divide the mashed potato among serving plates. Top with lamp shanks mixture and sprinkle with parsley.
  
  
• For cooking mashed potato
  • Wash the potatoes
    • to remove any excess dirt
      
    • and being careful not to break the skin
  • Cook the potatoes
    • Place the whole potatoes in a large saucepan
      (Cooking the potatoes in their skin, and not piecing them too often during cooking, stops them absorbing too much water, which can result in broken up and flavourless potatoes, and a watery mash.)
      
    • Cover them with cold water
      
    • Add the salt
      
    • Cover and bring to the boil over high heat.
      
    • Remove the lid and reduce heat to medium-high.
      
    • Boil, uncovered, for 30 mins or until the potatoes are soft when tested with a skewer.
  • Dry and peel potatoes
    
    • Transfer the potatoes to a colander with a slotted spoon.
      
    • Set them aside for 5 mins to cool sightly.
      
    • Drain the water from the pan.
      
    • Once the poatoes are cool enough to handle, use a small sharp knife to peel and discard the skins.
      
    • Return the potatoes to the dry saucepan.
      
    • Shake the saucepn over low heat for 1-2 mins to remove any remaining moisture from the potatoes.
  • Mash potatoes
    • Using a potato masher
      (avoid using a food processor to mash them as they will end up being gluggy).
    
    
  • Add seasinings and falvourings.
    • Add the butter and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth.
    • Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring, for 4 mins or until milk is hot (being careful not to boil).
      
    • Gradually add the hot milk to the potatoes and continue to mash until smooth.
    • Taste and season with salt and pepper.
      Serve immediately.
    
    
  
  

Mashed potato variations

Garlic-infused mashed potato
Peel and thinly slice 4 garlic cloves and add with teh milk in step 5 before heating. Strain the hot milk and discard the garlic before using.

Creamy herbed mash
Stir 2 tbs finely chopped fresh continental parsley and 1 tbs chopped fresh chives into the mashed potato in step 6 before seasoning.

Patient managed e-health records

Michael Lawley has a sensible-sounding suggestion for electronic health records: rather than trying to implement some top-down, nation-wide system, let the patients take responsibility for their own data, just as they do with their financial records. Presumably, the patient could choose to pass this control to a third-party service.

Article: government funding overemphasises the utility of research collaboration

IT researcher Ricky Robinson writes:

Why, then, do so many Australian government funded research organisations emphasize the need for research collaboration, when all the evidence shows that few significant scientific breakthroughs have come through such collaboration? Granted, there needs to be some kind of collaboration between research institutions and industry when it comes to exploiting the results of research, but this is a completely different thing, and it comes at a later stage in the development of a research idea.

Acquiring knowledge is acquiring a skill

I recently described one way that acquiring knowledge is like learning a language. This post describes another.

That earlier post argued that like our language ability, knowledge (particularly that forming the core of our picture of the world) is mainly constructed out of innate types of structures, by unconscious processes that integrate the information received from our environment.

The similarity I want to draw here is that both acquiring knowledge and learning a language are matters of acquiring skills. While that last post concentrated mainly on unconsciously obtained knowledge, this post seems to apply more to consciously learnt knowledge.

Acquiring knowledge is, in particular, like an adult acquiring a second language.

Acquiring a language is developing a skill: a skill in using the language. This process has the following properties.

You can't just memorise the details. You have to actually practise hearing and speaking the language.

As you learn more, you're not just learning more details of the language, you're also refining your existing abilities.

And of course, it all takes substantial time and practise.

What you end up with is fluency. Whatever you want to say, in whatever context, you just know how to do it. You don't have to think it through, you can just do it, in real time. Not only can you speak the language, but you can think in it.

All skill acquisition goes through such drawn out processes of refinement, ending in fluency. What I want to suggest is that acquiring knowledge is like this too.

Like with language, acquiring knowledge is really a matter of being able to use the information.

Like with language, it is not something you can just memorise. It's not just a matter of fixing a bunch of facts in you head. You need to see the information being used in different contexts, and try using it yourself.

You need to see the information being related to different things, reasoned about in various ways, and so forth. You need to apply it yourself, in thinking and other problem solving tasks.

Similarly to language, as you learn more, you're not just learning more information, but you're refining your existing picture of things. You refine your appreciation of how the bits of information relate to each other, and you refine your ability to make use of the information in your thinking.

Also, you can come to see how the information conflicts with other beliefs you hold (and potentially try and resolve these conflicts).

And like with language, it all takes substantial time and practise.

What you end up with is a kind of fluency, too. In a given situation, you know if the knowledge is relevant or not, and in what ways it may be relevant. And you can just do this, without having to think it through (or without having to think it through as much). And not only can you recall the knowledge, you can think in terms of it.

This is pretty different to the usual view of knowledge. There's a common belief that knowing something is just knowing the fact(s) associated with it, and being able to express them. And that if you know this, then that's all there is to it -- it's just assumed that you understand how it relates to other things, that it is genuinely assimilated into your worldview, that you understand what other beliefs it conflicts with, that you are able to reason effectively with it, and that you in fact do apply the information, that knowledge, when it is appropriate to what you are thinking about.

But all of these things don't come for free, from just knowing the facts. They are developed over time. And its probably quite rare that anyone's knowledge of a particular area gets as fully developed as it can be.

If acquiring knowledge is acquiring a skill, then this explains, I think, why writing about or teaching a topic is a good way to learn it. In other words, if acquiring knowledge was not a skill, then going to such lengths in applying it wouldn't be of that much use.

Why does writing about it help acquire that skill? The drafting process helps you build an understanding of how the information fits together. It helps you to explore the relationships between things. It gives you the necessary practise to build the knowledge.

That process tends to drive you forwards, to fix lackings in your understanding of these things. Wherever your writing contains a lack of coherence or forcefulness, this tends to reflect an lacking in your understanding of it, and working on these problems means improving that understanding.

InnoCentive problems more likely to be solved by 'outsiders'

An article in the Wall Street Journal titled 'Prizes for Solutions to Problems Play Valuable Role in Innovation' says:

[...]

Now, a proliferation of prizes is attracting bright minds to stubborn problems.

InnoCentive, a company spun off six years ago by drug maker Eli Lilly, charges clients ("seekers") to broadcast scientific problems on a Web site where scientists ("solvers") are offered cash -- usually less than $100,000 -- for solutions; more than 50 challenges are now pending (see the site).

...

After examining 166 problems posted by 26 research labs on the InnoCentive site over four years, Karim Lakhani, a Harvard Business School professor, found 240 people, on average, examined each problem, 10 offered answers and 29.5% of the problems were solved. (Read Mr. Lakhani's blog.)

One surprise: The further the problem was from a solver's expertise, the more likely he or she was to solve it. It turns out that outsiders look through a completely different lens. Toxicologists were stumped by the significance of pathology observed in a study; within weeks after broadcasting it, a Ph.D. in crystallography offered a solution that hadn't occurred to them.

I mention this because of the common, though not always explicit, belief that you have to be formally trained in something to have any sort of 'expertise' concerning some aspect of it.

How do societes evolve?

How do societies evolve? I’m quite interested in this question, and I want to explain a little about what I mean by it and why I think it's an important topic.

How, is a society built, from its beginnings in ‘primitive bands’ to the complex forms we see today, with their many laws, insitutions, and so forth?

It seems to happen by piecemeal evolution -- you can't jump straight from a hunter-gatherer society to a modern democratic society -- but what are the actual details of this process? (i.e. like other complex systems, it's a matter of laddered skills).

For example, how does a policing system arise? What conditions are required for that to happen? And what developments does it enable?

What sorts of structures are found within our socieities, and what is the ‘division of labour’ between them?

What are the general themes at work societal evolution? One seems to be the ability to put increasing levels of trust in individuals and insitutions, which seems to enable more complex structures to be built within socieities.

What are the general driving forces behind the development? One seems to be improved communication mechanisms, that allow information to be transmitted more accurately, over greater distances in shorter amounts of time. That example is, in turn, an instance of technological evolution, which seems to be a significant driving force, though it is of course only one of the many facets of this issue.

I have limited knowledge of what we currently know about these issues. How much do we know? Under this general umbrella of ‘the evolution of society’, there is a lot of exiting work, but how much of this goes beyond just chronicling the changes, to an analysis specifically focused on the nature of the evolution itself?

What is the value of understanding how societies evolve? I can think of two main areas. I think it's important for understanding the nature of the institutions and other elements within our societies, and I think it's a large source of insight into human psychology.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of the instituions and other elements of societies, and I think understanding them from an evolutionary standpoint would be a good way to understand their nature.

For example, the law seems to be commonly thought of as some sort of abstract force. John Searle's book The Construction of Social Reality is an attempt to clear up some of these misunderstandings and understand such institutions in concrete terms.

By understanding such things from an evolutionary standpoint, it's easier to appreciate their actual, concrete realisation, because you can see the processes by which it is built, and thus the way that it is realised. And it helps us hone our intuitions about how elements of socieites can change, and how the ways in which such change is constrained.

You need to understand these sorts of things if you want to think effectively about them -- which is important in many social/political/economic matters.

It's pretty obvious that human psychology plays an important part in the evolution of societies. If we can understand such changes (and similarly, when changes were not able to occur) then we can get some useful insight into our psychology. For example, by looking at the various conditions when people will or will not put trust in institutions.

37 signals say rewriting is key in software development and writing

A 37signals post with this message: whether we’re authoring software or prose, rewriting is key. Just get started, the say -- the bulk of the process is rewriting, anyway. They also talk a bit about what you’re goals should be when re-writing. The post also contains some nice quotes on its central theme.

On the issue of writing well, one of the comments under that post recommends the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which I hadn’t heard of. The reviews on amazon are pretty positive -- seems it's a bit of a classic. (seems this guy has also written a book called Writing To Learn, which also sounds interesting).

Labels added to blog, and updated blog template

Blogger recently added the capability to add labels to posts, so I've added labels to this blog's backlog of posts. I also updated the blog template, removing the old sidebar with links to external sites etc, and replacing them with a list of the labels and the updated blogger blog archive widget.

These are the labels I've added

• biographical
• effectivePerceptionAndReasoning
• humourFunInteresting
• ladderedSkills
• miscDevelopmentsAndAdvances
• natureOfPerceptionAndMental
• potentiallyUsefulInfo
• recipe
• simplicity
• thoughts

Knowledge as a Creole

Sketching out an idea, seeing where it goes... probably shouldn't be taken too literally.


Creoles

There's a type of human language known as a creole.

During the 1800s, there were situations where slaves from various different cultures were brought together to work on farms. They didn't speak speak common languages, so they developed pidgin languages to communicate: simplified languages without proper grammatical structures.

But something interesting happened when their children grew up in this pidgin environment. By themselves, the children turned the pidgin into a proper language with a proper grammatical structure. These sorts of languages are known as creoles.

Similar things have happened in the development of some sign languages.

In his description of creoles, the psychologist Steven Pinker says "...all it takes is for a group of children to be exposed to the pidgin at the age when they acquire their mother tongue" (The Language Instinct, pp 21 - 30)

Creoles provide significant insights into children's language development.

Creoles emerge naturally, without explicit decision or design by the children or their parents. There seems to be innate structures and processes in the children's brains that are looking to build a language from the pidgin.

It's like the structures and processes in the child's brain have a plan already sketched out for a language design, and facing an impoverished language like a pidgin, it modifies it and fleshes it out according to the plan.

And in fact, it seems that all language is a creole, in the sense that a child learning their mother tongue is going through the same sorts of processes as those children building a creole. That is, when a child is learning a language, they aren't just passively taking in the linguistic elements and deriving the language from that, but are actively constructing one according to an inbuilt plan, and only using the available linguistic elements as raw material.

But because in normal situations the child is growing up in environments containing fully-fledged language(s) rather than incomplete pidgins, the language they build is constrained to match the features of those existing languages.


Knowledge as a creole

I want to suggest that knowledge is also like a creole, in that the primary means by which we acquire it is like language acquisition: it is automatic, happens relatively young, and it is directed by innate processes and structures.

It is primarily responsible for building the knowledge that shapes how we see the world. And like with language-acquisition, and how we are limited in our ability to learn language once we have reached a certain age, our ability to change the way we see the world is limited after we have built our initial picture of the world.

If this was the case, it would help explain why people's worldviews tend to be fairly fixed, and it would also help to explain how worldviews and paradigms evolve over generations.

To see its role in the evolution of worldviews and paradigms, we need to see what happens as we build our knowledge.

Like with language, this knowledge-acquisition process is not a passive, simply absorbing the details out there, but is directed by innate processes and structures that look for certain types of details and build certain types of structures. So it's really less 'knowledge-acquisition' and more 'knowledge-building'.

To build our picture of the world, we have to integrate lots of different knowledge. This integrative process is not neutral.

Some of the knowledge may be overlapping, covering similar ground, but perhaps from different angles or at different levels of abstraction. Or it may be conflicting. To integrate these it needs to choose certain beliefs over others (not that it's necessarily going to build something that's fully consistent, though).

So in building a picture of the world, and integrating together knowledge, it has to streamline the input it receives. This can clean out dead-wood, like cleaning out beliefs that clearly don't make sense in terms of what we now know, or ad-hoc beliefs.

And this streamlining may actually make things explicit that were only implicit in the input knowledge. When certain facts are discovered about the world, the middle-aged person who has already built a picture of the world has great difficulty to deeply integrate these facts into their picture of the world.

But the person growing up, building their picture of the world can take these facts as just part of the existing knowledge and integrate them at a foundational level in their picture. So they may be able to, for example, make explicit consequences of those new facts that were there implicit in the data, but no one else could see before.

I suspect that this could play a role in why ideas often get invented by multiple people around the same time, and help to explain why brainwashing/propaganda efforts are so difficult to undertake in the longer-term.

And interestingly, this would mean that certain ideas can be there, latent in knowledge, for quite some time, until the next generation grows up and deeply incorporates them into their picture of the world.

Norman and Spolsky on ‘Simplicity’

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I think that the currently popular obsession with ‘simplicity’ is a bit misplaced. People's notion of simplicity is quite vague, and what they're talking is not really realy simplicity, anyway. Value attributed to 'simplicity' is often the result of other properties.

Recently there’s been a couple of articles on a similar theme in the blogosphere, one by Donald Norman and two by Joel Spolsky. I’ll take them in turn.

Norman’s article is called ‘Simplicity Is Highly Overrated’. I think highly of Donald Norman, from reading his “The Design of Everyday Things” book, but I think this article is a bit superficial. What he’s really arguing is about what people tend to want -- which he says is appliances with more features -- rather than being about the relative merits of simple or complex appliances.

Spolsky argues that what people label as ‘simplicity’ isn’t really simplicity at all, but something that is both different and more specific: specific sorts of functionality

Devotees of simplicity will bring up 37signals and the Apple iPod as anecdotal proof that Simple Sells. I would argue that in both these cases, success is a result of a combination of things: building an audience, evangelism, clean and spare design, emotional appeal, aesthetics, fast response time, direct and instant user feedback, program models which correspond to the user model resulting in high usability, and putting the user in control, all of which are features of one sort, in the sense that they are benefits that customers like and pay for, but none of which can really be described as “simplicity.”

A lot of people say that iPods are successful because they are simple, and he comments on this:

I think it is a misattribution to say, for example, that the iPod is successful because it lacks features. If you start to believe that, you'll believe, among other things, that you should take out features to increase your product’s success.

To summarise his argument, he thinks that people tend to talk of simplicity as ‘minimal and focused set of features’, yet the only potentially valuable sorts of simplicity -- which aren’t really simplicity per se -- are where there’s a close fit between user model and the program model, resulting in ease of use, or where there’s a ‘minimalistic aesthetic’.

If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product in which the user model corresponds closely to the program model, so the product is easy to use, fine, more power to ya. If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product with a spare, clean visual appearance, so the term is nothing more than an aesthetic description much in the same way you might describe Ralph Lauren clothes as "Southampton WASP," fine, more power to ya. Minimalist aesthetics are quite hip these days. But if you think simplicity means "not very many features" or "does one thing and does it well," then I applaud your integrity but you can't go that far with a product that deliberately leaves features out.

Slashdot has a discussion of these two articles.

In another article, Spolsky refines his point a bit. He talks about the notion of ‘elegance’ meaning 'grace and economy at achieving some task', which is related to simplicity (and, though he doesn’t make this point explicit, what people often really mean when they talk about ‘simplicity’). He says that while ‘elegance’ is valuable, ‘fewer features/capabilities' -- which is often what people talk about simplicity as -- is not so useful.

Sitting straight upright is not the best sitting posture, say researchers

The best sitting posture is not sitting bolt upright, but leaning back, with a 135 degree angle between your thighs and your torso. That’s the judgement of researchers who used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that enabled them to determine the weight-bearing strain being placed upon the spine. The study was conducted at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Up to 25% medication errors related to illegible dr handwriting

A CNN health article from a while back says:

Experts say up to 25 percent of medication errors may be related to illegible handwriting: A pharmacist misreads an illegible prescription, one drug is mixed up with another. [...]

Also last year the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, reported that medical mistakes overall -- including those stemming from unreadable notes from doctors -- may cause up to 98,000 deaths a year in the United States. Other researchers later termed those numbers exaggerated, but the authors stood by their report.

The article mentions handwriting seminars being given to doctors, and says the following

"It's good they're doing a seminar, but I'm surprised they're not going with automated bedside and hand-held computers, which cut the errors by up to 50 percent," Inlander said. Such devices require doctors and others to type orders into a computer system.