Brian Keng

  • Are we stuck in High School?

    The best part of college is that you could become whatever you wanted to become, but most people just do what they think they must.

    Is this a metaphor? Sure. But it’s a worthwhile one. You have more freedom at work than you think (hey, you’re reading this on company time!) but most people do nothing with that freedom but try to get an A.

    Seth Godin

    I spent most of my life trying to get “A”s.  And I was pretty good at it too.  I think I only recently figured out that it doesn’t matter how many “A”s you get.  Real life is measured in something totally different.  In fact, the really successful people frequently aren’t the straight “A” students.  Ironically, that’s why I decided to go to graduate school.

    There’s more to life than just doing a good job for your direct superior.  How to find out what it is and how to do it?  Well, that’s the tough part.  But it begins with asking yourself a few simple questions.

  • Is the internet making us stupid?

    Sandra Kelly of 3M says that whether “Google makes you stupid” or not is up to you. “I don’t think having access to information can ever make anyone stupider. I don’t think an adult IQ can be influenced much either way by reading anything and I would guess that smart people use the Internet for smart things and stupid people use it for stupid things in the same way that smart people read literature and stupid people read crap fiction.”
    ars technica

    I don’t think I could have said it better myself.

  • KISS Principle

    Keep It Simple Stupid!

    I remember when I first heard this acronym. I was in my grade 11 programming class listening to my teacher at the time, Mr. Kang.  Now if there was one distinct characteristic about him, it was that he was old school.  He carried a metre stick around and you always had this lingering fear that if you spoke out of turn or made a callous remark, that stick would come at you faster than a flash of lightening.  How he wound up as a high school teacher after being in the Korean military is still a mystery to me.

    Even I got kicked out of his class once for being roudy!  And mind you I was a straight “A” student who always paid attention in class (I blame my friend sitting beside me). This was a man who did not play favorites.

    Another time, for my final project, I made a Chinese chess game.  For a grade 11 project in Turing, this was a pretty impressive project (as far as Turing projects go).  Without much show or fanfare, he simply came over, gave me a nod and said “Nice project.”  And that was very characteristic of him.  He kept things simple.  In his discipline, in his praise and in his lessons.

    (Although I even once heard a story about how someone swore he saw in the corner of his eye, Mr. Kang, standing 5 ft tall, do a jump kick and hit the ceiling light 10 ft above the ground.)

    You know, life isn’t simple (as much as I’d like it to be), but you know it’s not as complicated as most people make it out to be.  The KISS principle is a great reminder for us to: Keep It Simple Stupid!

  • A Great Idea

    If you haven’t already, take a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid.  It looks like a regular notebook on the surface but with the added bonus of being able to detach the monitor to become a slate tablet (a la iPad).  I think this is a great idea and here’s why: it solves both the problems with laptops and slates.

    On the laptop side, my biggest problem is the weight.  Even lightest Netbooks are around 3 lbs, which is far too heavy for me.  Now some probably think this is a bit silly but I don’t.  There’s no reason for me to carry around a device when probably the only thing I’m going to use it for is to quickly use the internet.  It’s overkill.

    On the tablet side, my biggest problem is the lack of functionality.  How am I expected to do any real work without a keyboard (don’t get me started on touch screen keyboards)?  I would only use it for light tasks (quick internet browsing, light email or light reading).  And while it would be nice to have, it’s definitely not justified by the price (at least for me).

    The U1 Hybrid gets rid of both my gripes with mobile devices.  It’s slate table is light weight, good for small tasks.  And the notebook part has a full keyboard that you can do actual work on.

    I’m excited.  It feels like companies are finally paying attention to usability now (like Apple has for a while now) and not getting stuck in the same old boring mold.  Computers are great but I’ve been stuck with the same old functional devices for long enough.  Bring on the usability.

  • Contempt

    “You would think that criticism would be the worst because criticism is a global condemnation of a person’s character. Yet contempt is a qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, ‘you never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.’ Well, she’s going to respond defensively to that. That’s not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that’s far more damaging, and contempt is any statement that’s made from a higher level. A lot of the time it’s an insult: ‘you are a bitch you’re scum.’ It’s trying to put that person on a lower plane than you. It’s hierarchical.”
    Blink pp. 33

    Our relationships are probably the most important things we have in our life.  Our family, our friends, our significant others, they all play a vital role in how we think, react and behave as people.  The most deadly threat to any relationships is contempt.  Even in a bond as strong as marriage, if that vile darkness seeps in, there is no hope.

    But we can avoid it by remembering that we are not better than anyone else — just different.  And different is good.  Because life would be just too boring if we were all the same.

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