I don’t love re-posting some other blog’s posts… but its so impossible for me to avoid. I read so many of them in a day.
So there is a good one called “White African” that has lots of interesting perspective on Africa from someone who grew up in Sudan (I think it was Sudan at least). It’s actually been a helpful blog to me as I have been immersing myself into parts of the continent.
Today White African has a post about UNOSAT’s mapping of East Africa’s Somali Pirate problems.
The former GIS operator in me loves the map and display of information but to do so I have to disregard the awfulness of the problem. Its worth downloading the huge pdf of the map to see for yourself.
Its not all Johnny Depp, facebook games, and “Arrrrgh” in East Africa.
Update: Oddly this story of another hijacking made the AP wire today.
Update: That’s hijacking has finally come to and end with everyone still alive.
There is no doubt that if I lived anywhere near this bookstore I would spend pretty much all my time in it… well… moreso if all the books were in English.
Since seeing Tufte speak I’ve been thinking about all the simple rules people like to come up with for design, presentation, writing, etc. We like to come up with them, then we like to stick to them to the detriment of the creation. The obvious example is the “no more than 6 bullet points on a powerpoint slide” whereas the real content is most likely spoken between the points. The rules for what makes a good web design are too numerous to count here and I think we all know how bad they can be.. even when they follow those rules. What are both of those examples missing usually? Content.
How about how we approach projects in business. Some folks are stuck in the idea that product plans and project work-ups must always look the same and say exactly the same thing. There are courses, books, and templates to use for each and every project. Use cases? same thing.
I don’t think its a stretch to jump from small ideas like presentations to those loftier business practices. People are looking for simple-to-follow rules so they can keep their effort down. I can’t blame anyone for that. The problem though is the same, when we blindly follow those rules and templates we are usually ignoring the content and concentrating only on the process.
These devices usually take the most important part out of the equation, critical thinking.
