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Things I’ve learned to do which I do no longer

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The illustrious Bronwyn Jones pulled me into her scheming, meming ways today, and I’m powerless to escape.

The rules of the game are as follows:

  • Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
  • Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
  • Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
  • Let them know they‚Äôve been tagged.

Here I present seven skills that I have acquired and cast aside along the way in these past (almost) three decades. I will echo Bronwyn and Ethan’s themes of marching band and literature studies. (I knew there was a reason I liked you people.)

  • I’m a former literature student, primarily of the French sort. I turned my back on Proust when I heard the siren song of HTML back in 2000.
    Discarded skill: the French language
  • In high school I was in marching band for a year. I quit due to a loathing of early mornings, team spirit, funny hats, etc. I taught myself how to play viola so that I could join the high school orchestra and continue to avoid gym class.
    Discarded skill: taking 18.5 inch steps
  • I can fly a plane once it’s in the air but can neither take off nor land.
    Discarded skill: IFR basics
  • My worst summer of teenage employment involved hosing off sidewalks at a seminary in Atlanta by day and directing the efforts of a band of delinquent yogurt servers at Fr?´sh?´ns by night.
    Discarded skills: hose repair, reliably extruding exactly 4 ounces of yogurt product at a time
  • After many late nights in the Bryn Mawr Fossil Lab I could visually discern at least 15 brachiopod species.
    Discarded skill: paleobiology
  • I read the reproductive health service guidelines for every country in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze adherence to WHO standards. Many thousands of pages later, we didn’t end up publising the paper.
    Discarded skill: public health policy research
  • I once organized a conference in the same county where Deliverance was filmed. It was tough to find a good caterer.
    Discarded skill: temping

And per the rules, I’m yelling “Tag, you’re it!” to these fine folks.

Carla Borsoi
April Buchert
Kevin Cheng
Coley Wopperer
Ann Larie Valentine
Tantek ?áelik
Corey Denis

design, empathy

Rebuilding luggage for the real experience of air travel

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The unpleasant set of experiences that commonly comprise air travel these days include: being charged an additional fee to check a bag; sitting on the floor near wherever you can find a power outlet; and having to separate out liquids into a separate bag. These are commonplace annoyances that for various reasons weren’t part of air travel just a few years ago.

Yet, even though the experience of flying has changed in fundamental ways, luggage, an essential part of this experience, hasn’t evolved much.

That’s why I’m psyched about Z?úCA luggage, which I just found out about. “With a built-in seat (seriously) and removable packing pouches that stack like drawers, this patented new concept in travel is like nothing else.”

I like the luggage but what I like even more is the spirit of it—the thoughtful understanding of the realities of travel and the creative rebuilding of a commoditized product.

empathy, user experience

On bikes and needs

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From Look at it Another Way by Indi Young

The people who designed the bike talk about what the bike can do, but the rider wants to find out what she can do. In the former vocabulary: “We give you 20 gears.” In the latter vocabulary: “I’ve decided to bike to work twice a week, but I fear the pain of getting up that steep hill on the way there.” If the bike company were smart, they’d be talking about making it easier to get up hills while commuting to work, or suggesting alternate routes or techniques so that you’ll arrive at the office without needing a shower and a nap.