I could see this being a result of conditioning. It’s less likely that you get credit or praise for not doing something. If you’ve removed something in a design there isn’t necessarily something...
I could see this being a result of conditioning. It’s less likely that you get credit or praise for not doing something. If you’ve removed something in a design there isn’t necessarily something to point to and claim ownership of. This makes me wonder if we could fight this effect by occasionally adding a non-feature where one had been before. A wireframe or placeholder calling out our ingenuity while holding no actual weight or value of its own.
As the story goes, the artists had created all of these animation cycles for their game, and it had to pass through the review stage of a project manager. One of the artists knew the way these guys tended to want to "leave their mark" on things, and did something a little extra.
Apparently, the queen was given a little companion. As she came to life and moved around, so did the duck. It would just follow her around the board.
Supposedly, the PM saw this and said "it's great... just remove the duck". So, the artist went in and removed the duck (which had been carefully placed to make that easy), and that was that. The sacrificial duck kept the meddling manager away from the stuff that was important.
It goes to show that any rule can be misused. The PMs knew that people tend to add more than is needed, so in return the PMs always look for something that needs to be removed.
It goes to show that any rule can be misused. The PMs knew that people tend to add more than is needed, so in return the PMs always look for something that needs to be removed.
This strategy or removing stuff from a thing to make the thing better in some way is actually not at all a secret to many software developer communities. Ken Thompson, one of the fathers of Unix,...
This strategy or removing stuff from a thing to make the thing better in some way is actually not at all a secret to many software developer communities. Ken Thompson, one of the fathers of Unix, famously said:
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
Further creative developments at Bell Labs, such as the experimental operating system Plan 9 From Bell Labs, had removing things as one of the tenets of their philosophy. In Europe, meanwhile, Niklaus Wirth, one of the Elder Gods of software development, has been working on his Oberon series of programming languages which is notable for the fact that each consecutive language was smaller than the previous one.
Despite the slightly clickbait title, I found this article pretty interesting and wanted to share it here. It's about how most humans automatically default to considering additive solutions to...
Despite the slightly clickbait title, I found this article pretty interesting and wanted to share it here. It's about how most humans automatically default to considering additive solutions to problems rather than subtractive ones.
I'm surprised by how much sense those balance bikes make. I'd never heard of one, but now that I think of it, I imagine they'd work fantastically. Rather than give the kids propulsion first and...
I'm surprised by how much sense those balance bikes make. I'd never heard of one, but now that I think of it, I imagine they'd work fantastically. Rather than give the kids propulsion first and then train them to balance, give them nice slow balance first and then propulsion. Though I'm not sure I'd ever be tempted to shell out money for one. Half the draw of training wheels is they're removable, whereas pedals aren't exactly addable. Maybe a children's bike with removable cranks is the economical solution here.
Due to the drastic lack of moving parts (sealed bearings on each wheel and that's pretty much it, you can strip and rebuild a Strider bike in a handful of minutes) and the fact that kids age out...
Due to the drastic lack of moving parts (sealed bearings on each wheel and that's pretty much it, you can strip and rebuild a Strider bike in a handful of minutes) and the fact that kids age out of them fairly quick, used balance bikes are cheap and totally worth it. Although even new they're not particularly expensive.
My kid has had one since age 2, if we'd managed to find a standard bike in his size and presented him with it at that age (even with stabilisers) he would have had no idea what to do with it, but the balance bike makes perfect sense to him. He loves it and you can almost see his balance and co-ordination stats ticking up as he uses it. I'm pretty anti buying-stuff-for-kids but a balance bike is absolutely a good investment.
Oh, and they work like magic. Kids who have had balance bikes tend to get on normal bikes - without stabilisers - age 4-5 or so and just... ride off.
Funnily enough, when teaching adults how to ride a bike teachers do specifically remove the pedals to let them learn to balance first. The nice thing about the transition from scoot bikes to...
Funnily enough, when teaching adults how to ride a bike teachers do specifically remove the pedals to let them learn to balance first. The nice thing about the transition from scoot bikes to geared ones is that if you teach your kids to ride early, they can be on a (cheap, mechanically simple) scoot bike and then as they outgrow it and have the coordination for pedaling you get them a larger, more complex bike.
Balance bikes and scooters actually teach counter steering. To steer a two wheeler left, you briefly turn right, which initiates a left lean, and once leaned you turn left into the turn....
Balance bikes and scooters actually teach counter steering.
To steer a two wheeler left, you briefly turn right, which initiates a left lean, and once leaned you turn left into the turn.
Perhaps our brains tend to complicate things. We do this all the time. Life has been made complex, design has been complex, programming has been confused. We tend to add rather than simplify. This...
Perhaps our brains tend to complicate things. We do this all the time. Life has been made complex, design has been complex, programming has been confused. We tend to add rather than simplify.
This is a common example of how this knowledge can be used:
§ 110. Dividing by two as easy as changing channels
I could see this being a result of conditioning. It’s less likely that you get credit or praise for not doing something. If you’ve removed something in a design there isn’t necessarily something to point to and claim ownership of. This makes me wonder if we could fight this effect by occasionally adding a non-feature where one had been before. A wireframe or placeholder calling out our ingenuity while holding no actual weight or value of its own.
https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/
It goes to show that any rule can be misused. The PMs knew that people tend to add more than is needed, so in return the PMs always look for something that needs to be removed.
This strategy or removing stuff from a thing to make the thing better in some way is actually not at all a secret to many software developer communities. Ken Thompson, one of the fathers of Unix, famously said:
Further creative developments at Bell Labs, such as the experimental operating system Plan 9 From Bell Labs, had removing things as one of the tenets of their philosophy. In Europe, meanwhile, Niklaus Wirth, one of the Elder Gods of software development, has been working on his Oberon series of programming languages which is notable for the fact that each consecutive language was smaller than the previous one.
Despite the slightly clickbait title, I found this article pretty interesting and wanted to share it here. It's about how most humans automatically default to considering additive solutions to problems rather than subtractive ones.
I'm surprised by how much sense those balance bikes make. I'd never heard of one, but now that I think of it, I imagine they'd work fantastically. Rather than give the kids propulsion first and then train them to balance, give them nice slow balance first and then propulsion. Though I'm not sure I'd ever be tempted to shell out money for one. Half the draw of training wheels is they're removable, whereas pedals aren't exactly addable. Maybe a children's bike with removable cranks is the economical solution here.
Anyway back to actually reading the article.
Due to the drastic lack of moving parts (sealed bearings on each wheel and that's pretty much it, you can strip and rebuild a Strider bike in a handful of minutes) and the fact that kids age out of them fairly quick, used balance bikes are cheap and totally worth it. Although even new they're not particularly expensive.
My kid has had one since age 2, if we'd managed to find a standard bike in his size and presented him with it at that age (even with stabilisers) he would have had no idea what to do with it, but the balance bike makes perfect sense to him. He loves it and you can almost see his balance and co-ordination stats ticking up as he uses it. I'm pretty anti buying-stuff-for-kids but a balance bike is absolutely a good investment.
Oh, and they work like magic. Kids who have had balance bikes tend to get on normal bikes - without stabilisers - age 4-5 or so and just... ride off.
Funnily enough, when teaching adults how to ride a bike teachers do specifically remove the pedals to let them learn to balance first. The nice thing about the transition from scoot bikes to geared ones is that if you teach your kids to ride early, they can be on a (cheap, mechanically simple) scoot bike and then as they outgrow it and have the coordination for pedaling you get them a larger, more complex bike.
Balance bikes and scooters actually teach counter steering.
To steer a two wheeler left, you briefly turn right, which initiates a left lean, and once leaned you turn left into the turn.
https://www.adventurecycling.org/default/assets/resources/201102_MechanicalAdvantage_Cornering_Heine.pdf
Most adult bikes have removable pedals. I can see kids' bikes just welding them on, but I'm sure some have them threaded.
Perhaps our brains tend to complicate things. We do this all the time. Life has been made complex, design has been complex, programming has been confused. We tend to add rather than simplify.
This is a common example of how this knowledge can be used:
§ 110. Dividing by two as easy as changing channels
https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/110/