In the old days, before 3.0, Safari had an annoying habit. If you pressed Cmd-Q with many windows and tabs open, then Safari would quit. This could be incredibly frustrating; especially when you accidentally pressed Q instead of W.

Taboo, a questionable InputManager hack, provided a work around.

Safari 3.0 fixes it properly. Apple has included the option of prompting the user on close if multiple tabs or windows are open.

However, if Taboo is still installed, you cannot close top level windows.

Taboo lives in one of the following two directories.

~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins
/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins

Remove it, and Safari 3.0 will work as intended.

People’s first reaction to such a device (“WOW”) is amazing. It is, therefore, incredible disappointing to realize that the product is unusable.

- from elements blog, on the Prada phone (by LG).

The two smartest designers I know spawned their own consultancy for user experience on mobile devices. Thanks to blogging, you can get their insights for free!

If the tone of this book seems steeped in the culture of Darwinism and evolutionary thinking, it does not come from any remotely formal training in the natural sciences, but from the evolutionary way of thinking taught by my Monte Carlo simulators.

Nassim Taleb revised his book on the way humans deal with randomness; how we rationalize luck. It is worth a read. (Recommended by the likes of Tom Peters, and Peter Bernstein).

The part that grabbed my attention was Nassim’s use of Monte Carlo simulations, to test out scenarios. The simulator allows exploration of alternate paths, both past and future. Evolution is a search technique to find successful survival strategies for a particular scenario. In biology, we have only one scenario to investigate: ours. The Monte Carlo simulator allows testing strategies under different scenarios.

This is very similar to the work on complexity theory being done at the Santa Fe institute (as told in the Origin of Wealth). Nassim refers to their work later in the book:

The so-called complexity theorists came to the rescue. … Clearly these scientists are trying hard, and providing us with wonderful solutions in the physical sciences and better models in the social siblings (though nothing satisfactory there yet).

The key is the yet.

I’m holding out hope for complexity theory as applied to economics and finance. The classical equilibrium models don’t resonate strongly with my understanding of this world. Early research into the application of complexity theory rings very true.

Even if the numbers don’t hold out exactly, the model provided matches my understanding of people and markets much better. Nassim himself says it best:

Mathematics is principally a tool to meditate, rather than compute.

Lets hope it can deliver both.

What I’ve Learned, an article by Tony Blair, covers his time as prime minister of Britain.

From the title headings alone, you can learn something:

1. Be a player not a spectator
2. Transatlantic co-operation is still vital
3. Be very clear about global terrorism
4. We must stand up for our values
5. It’s about tomorrow’s agenda too

The article includes much more. Tony provides an insightful view on world politics today and the why behind some of his choices.

From The Origin of Wealth:

Markets win over command and control, not because of their efficiency at resource allocation in equilibrium, but because of their effectiveness at innovation in disequilibrium.

Evolution, genetic algorithms and complexity theory, as applied to economics: It is a search problem.

This book foretells the demise of economic theories based on equilibrium. To tell the story, a wide path is walked through the history of economics, advanced computer science, physics and some chaos theory. Very interesting reading, if you are interested in economics, or why economics works or doesn’t (quite) work.

For a review, see John Hagel’s article.

Generation Me

Generation Me is a phrase coined by Jean Twenge to represent the millennium generation, those born from the late 70’s to today. This includes her, this includes me, this may include you.

Her book, summarizes her research into this generation, how it differs from the Boomers who went before us; the implications that generational trends hold for the world of today, and for the world of tomorrow.

Danah, an expert on the myspace generation, recommended the book on her blog:

Unlike most books on generations, this is a social psych analaysis of different behavioral characteristics over the decades. Translation: there’s a shitload of data here. The book is a bit too pop psychology for my tastes, but it makes it very accessible.

And:

Twenge unpacks the problems with the “You can be anything you want!” value, looking critically at how this sets up unrealistic expectations that result in all sorts of social chaos.

From the book

On life’s plan:

More and more young people are going to find themselves at 30 without a viable career, a house, or any semblance of stability. (page 83)

On relationships:

Lower rates of divorce in previous decades might even suggest that they were better at relationships than we are. Maybe we love ourselves a little too much. (page 90)

On the church of self:

This is the dirty little secret of modern life: We are told that we need to know ourselves and love ourselves first, but being alone sucks. Our ultimate value is not to depend on anyone else. (page 91)

Outcomes of the focus on self

Chapter three highlights some of the outcomes on Generation Me’s focus on self esteem and self actualization.

• The appearance obsession - 8% of twelfth-grade boys admitted to using steroids.
• Tattoos, nose piercings and God-knows-where piercings - Sixty-nine percent of students with body piercings named self expression or “to be different” as their reasons.
• Extending adolescence beyond all previous limits - ask someone in GenMe when adulthood begins, and a surprising number will say 30.
• Materialism - GenMe has always lived in a time where possessions were valued.

Not everything is bad however. The belief in the individual, and that each of us can be whatever we want to be, allows for an incredible amount of tolerance. This is shown in the improvements in tolerance for minorities that have been shunned in generations past.

My Thoughts

I learned a lot reading this book. The sheer volume of data and the implications are overwhelming. My view on the world has changed; the context in which I view things has changed.

Watching television, reading newspapers, listening to peoples conversations, all have been re-framed for me; based on the trends and analysis of my generation. With just a touch pop psychology, Generation Me presents the information in a package that is accessible by all.

The research is US based and, to some extent, rings true for Australians of the same generation. The trends seem to be generic to western culture, the only question in my mind is to what degree they impact each country. I would like to believe that we have not gone as far as the Americans.

This is a book I’d happily loan to anyone who is in Generation Me, or deals with Generation Me. Most importantly, however, is for those raising the next generation to be aware of generational influences. Without this understanding, there is the risk of compounding some of the worst attributes while missing the benefits.

After all, this is not our parents world, and certainly not that of our grandparents.