themorgue.org

While my spam filters do a pretty good job of ridding my inbox of this unwelcome intruder, I still have to clean up a little by hand. The most common class of spam that the filters seem to miss have titles that look like randomly generated series of words. This may sound a bit weird, but I kind of like getting a few messages like this because the titles can lead to some very poetic creations. The following is a series of spam message titles combined to form a very poetic composition (if read in a very over-dramatic manner with lots of jarring pauses, that is).

before the
philistine anarchy
harmonization shun
crosstown
Page of Walt
finished soul-searching
darling sullen
earth install
teakettle record-breaking
of domination,
scrutiny
porch stenographer

Spam looks like it’s here to stay, so if you can’t beat ‘em you might as well enjoy ‘em.

When people or companies create a product they always aspire (or shoud aspire) to create a “high quality” product. But what does that mean? When I hear “high quality,” I think of good build quality for hardware items and stability for software, or simply conformance to a specification in either case. While this kind of quality is expected of a successful product, it isn’t the only thing I look for. Truly great products are made with exceptional attention to detail.

Build quality and stability are really just one aspect of attention to detail. It’s very possible to create something that fits the definition of “high quality,” but still isn’t enjoyable to use. In the computer world, there is one company that towers over the others in attention to detail: Apple. While not infallible, Apple products have a simple elegance about them that other companies haven’t consistently been able to reproduce. Apple products generally abide by the immortal words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

This is evident in products from the iPod with its click wheel, down to mundane accessories such as a laptop power adapter with its magnetic connection and flip-up tabs to wrap the power cable around.

While most computer and consumer electronics companies have a long way to go in the “attention to detail” department, they certainly have a lot of company. Car companies (particularly American car companies) are just as big of offenders. While Dodge is obviously spending a lot of time and money on their vehicle exteriors and engines, the interiors are worse than most budget imports. I rented a Mustang recently based on the very cool “new” body design and was very unimpressed with the interior and its cheap, annoyingly reflective, and oddly out of place chrome rings around the gauges. While I like a nice body design, I spend more time looking at the interior of my car than the exterior, so I expect at least as much attention to go into the design of the interior.

I won’t say that there aren’t companies that get the attention to detail concept (Apple, BMW, ORKA, SEBO, and Linn to name a few), but it saddens me that the percentage is as small as it is. I would like to be hopeful about the future, but the fact that so many people simply accept products with no attention to detail as the norm leads me to believe that mediocre product manufacturers have the consumer-at-large right where they want them.