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Play Arrington off, Keyboard Cat

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Leo Laporte blew up at Michael Arrington and cut him (and the rest of the gang) off the set of the Gillmor Gang – Leo Laporte and “Friends” no longer. Leo Laporte called out Mike Arrington of TechCrunch after he implied that his opinion of the Pre was effected by the fact he had a free review unit. Of course if you call someone a “troll”… expect a Keyboard Cat to be close behind.

As an update to the story,  Michael Arrington responded to the incident on the TechCrunch blog and gave a bit of background to his reasons for asking about the access to the Palm Pre. Also offering an apology for his remarks:

I ask Leo whether he bought the Pre or got it free and in advance of the launch, which I think is relevant because Palm is being very picky about who they give them out to. We were promised one but it wasn’t delivered. We suspect our critical coverage may be the reason (…)

(…) I’m sad that my professional relationship with Leo is apparently over. I apologize to you, Leo. I didn’t mean to imply that you were being unethical. I just think that, given the story that’s brewing about favoritism at Palm, it was important to disclose whether you paid for that Pre, and/or got it in advance.

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Tags: Arrington | Troll | undefined | Leo Laporte | Tech & Biz | keyboard cat | Mike Arrington | NowPublicLabs | Leo Laporte throws Michael Arrington of the set

Videos

Leo Laporte Blows up at Mike Arrington on the Gillmor Gang June 6, 2009

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  Created by mbaumgartner | add comment

Leo Laporte blew at Michael Arrington off the Gillmore Gang – Leo Laporte and “Friends” indeed. Leo Laporte calls out Mike Arrington of TechCrunch after Leo got mad at him for implying that his opinion of the Pre was effected by the fact he had a free review unit. Of course if you call someone a troll… expect a Keyboard Cat to be close behind.

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Tags: Arrington | Troll | undefined | Leo Laporte | Tech & Biz | keyboard cat | Mike Arrington | NowPublicLabs | Leo Laporte throws Michael Arrington of the set

Videos

Lego Fallingwater July 2007

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When I was very young I knew I wanted to be an architect, based mainly on the fact that I could build nearly anything out of Lego. It seems, though, I was working at a severe technological deficit. In the later days, sure, I had “space” lego and “train” lego… I’ve even been to Legoland in Billund, Denmark… where most of the Western European Cities have been built in Lego. Now, it seems, most of Oak Park (Chicago) can also be built. Lego has introduced Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Sets. Oh what one could accomplish with the plastic Prairie Style morsels (complete with Gaelic detail, I’m sure). Now all we need to do is wait for the austere grey blocks of the Tadao Ando set, or the shiny silver bits of the Gehry Guggenheim set (for Gehry’s early work just consult the bucket of what you already have).

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Tags: Culture | toys | Lego | Frank Lloyd Wright | Fallingwater

As a design professor there are certain cyclical occurrences that you can count on feeling eerily similar every year. Submitting course packs, setting your class schedule, trying to put names to faces, the staff BBQ etc…

One that seems to happen yearly, for me anyway, is that pre-grad project angst, where students with the best intentions of getting ready during the summer realize they have two weeks (or less) to submit their abstracts and project outlines.

So here is a bit of advice I’ve given to the students I have:

1. The tendency of many students I’ve worked with is to feel like they need to make grand explorations of large (universal) themes, which is tough on a one or even two semester project. Avoid that initial impulse.
2. Grad projects are the beginning of a lifetime of exploration – you don’t need to answer all of the questions you have about design in one project. (But if you manage it – send it to me, I’m curious)
3. The flip side of that is that simple questions can end up being really rich and complex because the field of exploration inevitably changes path and gets larger as you go anyway. If you start vague you run the risk of ending up even more vague and in a short project you run the risk of not being able to pull it back together again.
4. The kid gloves solution isn’t rocket science (unless your thesis happens to be about rocket science, I guess). It’s best to get the pain of vagueness over as early as possible. The best projects come from a very clear single idea/question developed early on, even if it’s not exactly right – set a deadline for the question, stick to it. With the hard work front-loaded you’ll be better off. Get help early on.
5. Even if it feels reductive at the start (or not exactly the right path) starting small is good – for me it’s actually depth rather than breadth that seem to make successful projects, those large themes inevitably emerge from good questions anyway (um… because they’re universal).
6. By early in the semester you should be refining research – not finding questions, they just happen. This will save you panicking with a pile of books or links wit no ability to decide what’s relevant. you If you do that you can re-frame your question as you go (note: that doesn’t mean it’s allowed to be vague, make sure you track the evolution of the question in a formal way).
7. Finally… remember a thesis or grad project is a personal exploration (done by you) therefore rigor will always take you where you wanted to go anyway – remember there are no bad questions, but there are tons underdeveloped projects.
8. Enjoy.