

Milton Glaser: Ten Things I Have Learned - ivankirigin
http://www.miltonglaser.com/pages/milton/essays/es3.html

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ivankirigin
Don't let the title fool you. This isn't a shitty top 10 list.

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sketerpot
It's a good article, but _man_ the design of that site is lousy. The home page
(miltonglaser.com) actually resizes my browser window to be a little rectangle
(!), with complete lack of consideration for the ten other tabs I have open.
All the content is scrunched up in a little ribbon on the left with absolutely
no left margin. The text is too small, and the contrast is just barely enough.
It's pretty, I guess, if you ignore all the whitespace on the right, but the
usability is lacking.

This guy is a graphic designer. So what the hell is up with his site's graphic
design?

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jcromartie
He's not a web designer, at all. He does things like "I <3 NY" and Time
magazine covers. His work is way older than the web... so I can't blame him.

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yan
I also highly doubt he designed his own site. More than likely, he told
someone he knows in the publishing world that he wants a web site, they made
one and showed it to him in their browser, and he put the stamp of approval on
it. I doubt I see Glaser sitting next to a computer designing web sites...

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jf
As somebody who spends most of his day reading articles written on very
specific technical topics, it is a delight to run across articles like this:
written for a different audience almost ~7 years ago, and it still has useful
advice for us! Funny how that works.

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edw519
From #3:

"If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy
you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you
use it for the rest of your life."

I will. This explains so much. Not just with other people, but with
everything. May even shed some insight to a little "procrastination" problem a
few of us here share.

And as a hacker, I really appreciate a binary rule to evaluate something so
complex. Thank you!

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ivankirigin
I think you need to have a running average or debouncing of this kind of
feedback. No relationship is so consistent that you'll get the same feeling
after a meeting every time.

I agree it's a solid rule - that could be applied to activities not just
people. Good videogames, for example, might be judged by this rubric.

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jmtame
Time to drop out.

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ivankirigin
Some kinds of schooling are beneficial in the long term. I know plenty of
folks that thought getting their PhD was painful, and were glad they did it.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Me, for one. My PhD was a lot of work, and the material itself is of very
little value, but the things I learned on the way are absolutely invaluable.

I've learned how tell if I'm too tired to work, and techniques for getting me
through that. I've learned how to find the most useful things to work on, and
how to leverage them into getting the other stuff done as well. I've learning
how to organise my time, estimate work to do and how to fit it in. I've
learned how to communicate complex technical issues clearly, precisely and for
multiple audiences.

The PhD was definitely painful, but equally definitely worth it.

Other exercises teach you similar things. Running a small company, saving a
dying company, coaching sports for 10 year olds, and so on. If you use it
right, though, school is a great place to learn from your mistakes without it
mattering too much.

Possibly even more important, learn from other peoples' mistakes.

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DTrejo
>>Possibly even more important, learn from other peoples' mistakes.

A very difficult skill to master.

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Oxryly
#8 is a variant of the Buddhist notion of keeping a "beginner mind". Perhaps
another approach is savoring your humility.

Oddly, its the only idea where the more seriously you take it the less you
believe it. Or something...

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pstinnett
While a lot of these lists seem rehashed and boring, this list contains some
great outlook on life that I really agree with. Favorites are definitely #8,
#1, and #10.

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zackattack
Yeah, it's damn near impossible to work for (or with!) people you don't like.
I have limited life experience, but what I've learned definitely fits with #1.

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UncleOxidant
Indeed. I've had managers that I liked and I pulled all-nighters for them
(when I was younger) because they seemed to take a genuine interest in their
employees. And I've had managers that seemed to have little interest in their
employees other than as means to an end - those managers are tough to like and
usually don't get nearly as much good work out of their people.

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zackattack
Yeah. At my first summer job, I would routinely stay at the office after my
boss left just to work on the product, because I believed in it, and because
he supported me, and because I admired and respected him. When I returned to
work for the guy the next summer, his company had evolved/expanded and I got a
lot less "face time". I was pretty much working under a COO, who believed in
telling me "keep plugging away" as his version of moral support (I couldn't do
more important work because I was simply "too young and inexperienced").
Anyway, I hated that second job, and I came into work late/left early whenever
possible... I'll never work in a situation like that ever again.

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alex_c
This is why I love HN: even if something has a boring (or linkbait) title, if
it has 100 votes, chances are it's worth reading.

#3 alone is worth the read, I've never quite thought of relationships that
way.

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byrneseyeview
_Everyone interested in licensing our field might note that the reason
licensing has been invented is to protect the public not designers or
clients._

That might be the original goal. But the long-term effect is that they'll use
licenses to keep new designers out, and to make the licensed designers rich.
And the best way to do that is to make sure the 'right' way is the old way
(and the expensive way).

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vorador
I found #9 liberating. Perfectionism could really be a problem.

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sid
Numbers 1,3,4,7 and 8 are some of the things over time I have also learnt.
Sometimes you wonder whether your just over thinking things and that is why
its good to once in a while validate it against other peoples who have
actually written about their own thoughts that may in some cases be in line
with yours.

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duncanj
I'm not sure what he was going for in the discussion of #10. Why do people
want to license designers?

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sven
I like: 6. style is not to be trusted

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aita
A real eye opener?

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erlanger
_It doesn't matter...if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or
girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed._

I thought that was a funny bit.

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anthropocentric
Is there a web app that makes it easy to comment on single lines of text (or,
say, a paragraph) on a web page. When you visit a page you can see all of the
little in-line notes and comments that others left behind?

Kind of like leaving a Comment in a Word doc?

~~~
mildweed
<http://annotify.com/> Born of a start-up weekend a week ago. Going live soon.

