Okay, I'm back to my normal machine. The post-by-email thing presumes that your regular box is up and running with radio going. Since I'm running XP, it goes into a sleep state (or a security state, if you will) so that the computer is effectively off. Oh well.

One highlight of my trip was a visit to the Cooper-Hewett museum http://ndm.si.edu/ . We only went there because it was next door to the Guggenheim, which has a no-stroller policy, no thanks. CH has the most awesome set of design exhibits I have ever seen. Straight out of Envisioning Information. The take-home is a sense of optimism, of folks taking time out for design, treating it royally, hosting it (in the "what would you like to drink" sense) in their very process. This can only be done with a sense of optimism in the process, of confidence that everything will turn out all right. Program Managers and Developers are trained to bring in healthy pessimism in order to disaster proof their work. It was a realization for me that this was antithesis to the philosophy of good design.

comment []8:14:58 AM