bread

I've been playing with bread recipes lately. Here's the latest outcome... not bad

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inspiration

Sometimes you find random sentences or images, in random places, that light up your day, even just a little bit

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Chapeau

makes me regret buying a bread machine...

Mahalo

Good Saturday

The waves were good this morning, perfect shape. Too bad for the fierce crowd, I caught way fewer than I wanted, but still managed to get a handful of really good ones, plus some fillers.
Thanks Dave for kicking me out of bed.
Now the time has come to partake in the activity that in my mom's hometown is called "polleggio"...pretty heavy stuff ...see if you can find it on the web.
That's why I need to replenish now.
Same homemade bread, same homegrown chicken...can't speak for the pig, but I trust the source.
Mahalo

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Innovation Process?

At work a lot of people keep talking about "innovation process".
Of course I can be wrong (I usually am), but the way I look at things "innovation process" is an oxymoron. 
Process, in the business world, is what you put in place to have predictable results. You have manufacturing processes, development processes, testing processes...
It seems obvious to me that if you're after innovation, predictability somehow shouldn't be part of the picture. You can use processes to help structure the exploration, I'll give you that, but I personally see that as a dangerous thing, and here's why: a lot of people (far too many in here) confuse the meanings of two words, "process" and "results".
It's not a direct translation, but there's a firm believe that a process is all you need to get results, and if you follow the process well you'll get your results.
Now, while this can be true in, say, manufacturing, I don't think it helps innovation one bit.
What happens instead is that anybody, even people that aren't naturally cut for it, feels entitled to drive an innovation effort, just because they have a process to follow. Furthermore, the idea that the process guarantees results prevents people from trying to break the rules (of the process itself), and where I come from breaking the rules, or at least bending them, is one of the key ingredients of innovation.
Luckily, to quote Corinne Maier, in the corporate world "..you will not be judged by how well you perform, you will be judged by how well you conform", therefore as long as you follow process and check all the boxes, you'll get your performance bonus.
Even if you're driving the company into the ground.


Mahalo

French toasting my bread

OK, this might sound very earthy and "organic", which isn't necessarily the image I 'm trying to project; luckily it's a cholesterol bomb therefore I suppose the overly serious image of the health freak takes an ironic spin :)
Truth is by 1 pm I was really hungry, and almost as if the universe was talking to me, I realized I had these 4 ingredients available to me:
-some very good and fairly natural (whatever that means) bacon I bought at TJ
-a bottle of organic maple/agave syrup blend
-Fresh eggs brought by a colleague who has hens and is kind enough to provide
-Fresh bread that I made just last night
Now mind you, this is a very rare occurrence....I hadn't made french toast in at least a year, and I bet it was probably 6 months ago that I bought bacon last.
I was probably inspired by the uncommon quality of the ingredients.
It was delicious, I'm sure my body will forgive me.

Mahalo

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Lost in the Clouds

Everybody talks about "The Cloud", or "Cloud Computing" these days, and it seems that the world is divided between those who can't understand it, and those who can't explain it (but know what it is). Often times the word "cloud" is used inaccurately and it really just means "web", turning into the new buzz word.

A relatively small group of people bridge that gap, but in most cases they have no interest in sharing their "secret", because it leaves them in a position of power.

I wonder if these are some of the reasons why such a "nebulous" word is used to name that concept...

Mahalo

CCC (Christmas Cous Cous)

A while back I promised pictures of my Christmas Cous Cous, and then forgot. Every Christmas we have a big lunch with all our Italian friends here in San Diego, they're like our surrogate family here. We always meet at a friend's place, and he's an executive chef, therefore there's no shortage of good food there, but we all try to chip in. It has become almost a tradition that my role is to prepare a cous cous for everybody, and since I don't really use recipes, every year it's different, and I always try to push it a bit further: last Christmas it was pretty darn good. The cooked veggies include a little bit of everything, and spices like Chili, Cumin and Cinnamon (look! another "CCC" combo!) and some more, with dried fruit (raisins, apricots and dates). The raw veggies include Tomatoes, Radishes, Olives and Onions.

...I think I'm getting hungry

Mahalo

R.I.P.

A friend of mine died last night.

He had cancer.

He had one of the less deadly ones: prostate cancer. That is if you catch it in time. Unfortunately he was on a wheelchair, he had been for more than 20 years because of an accident while he was serving in the Italian army. For that reason he couldn't feel anything from the waist down, and when he realized something was wrong it was too late.

He was such an inspiration: life has thrown him a number of curve balls, and he always somehow managed to come out of it with a smile. He was always positive, had manage to build a good life around him despite the handicap, adopted 2 kids because he couldn't have his own, and was an incredible parent.

Even with the cancer eating at him, he kept the good attitude that made him so special.

Mahalo

Mirrors

What would we do without mirrors?

Do you ever think about it?

We're so used to the fact that we can look at ourselves as if we're watching someone else, that we take it for granted. What we don't always realize though is that we use other kinds of mirrors too, let's call them "non visual" mirrors.

What I mean with this is that sometimes we use our friends, or people we know (or sometimes even people we don't know) as a mirror to better understand things in our life that we have trouble understanding or handling. This can take different forms, the most normal being that you just talk to your friends about a problem, and hear their point of view on it: they can provide an outside perspective on something that is harder to see for you, just like a mirror helps you see parts of yourself that others can see but you cannot. Then, moving things one step beyond, sometimes there are people that we're particularly close to, or that know us very well, and "mirroring" ourselves in their eyes becomes a regular habit.

These behaviors are natural, even healthy in a way, so much so that there's a whole industry built around it.

There are a few caveats though, that we can sum up with this sentence: mirrors can fool you!

How many times have you been taken by surprise, by seeing someone in your field of vision, to later realize that it was yourself reflected in a mirror (or a window or whatnot)? This can happen with non-visual mirrors too, and it can be a lot sneakier because what's really going on is not as obvious, and we can be fooled for longer (or forever).

Sometimes we're so used to opening up with certain people, that the familiarity thus generated can lead us to see this relationship in a new light, dressing it up with meaning that can be just in our own head (I believe Shrinks call this "transfer", but please don't quote me on this because I'm not sure).

Another thing that can happen, sometimes we project our own behaviors onto someone else, basically pinning one or more of our own traits (flaws, virtues, angers, anything) onto the person that we're interacting with: exactly like the unexpected visual mirror, we see ourselves and think it's someone else.

The problem is that, while with the visual mirror we understand the issue in very little time, and we can adjust our perception and move past it, with a non-visual mirror the problem might not be obvious, or visible at all, for the interested parties.

Dangerous path, that can lead us to build up resentment, or some other feeling, towards someone while what's really going on is that we're carrying on a inner fight. The other person knows nothing of what's going on, and somehow we make him/her responsible. If they feel this resentment they might respond, and not knowing what's going on things can take a bad spin quite easily. Unless the communication is strong and open, it's a slippery slope.

Mirrors are great, but like any great thing, they should be used wisely.

Mahalo

Food for thought

Or should I say "thoughts on food"?. This video definitely makes you think about the things you eat

I'm definitely not the kind of person that is obsessed with nutritional values, calories intake and so on. I like to eat, and my rule of thumb is just to make sure my diet is as varied and diversified as possible. I also believe that your state of mind while you eat plays a major role in how you assimilate the food, but that's a whole different story altogether, maybe some other time...

What this video points out though is how messed up the food that is available to most of us is: most food in the developed world is processed, or impoverished by some highly efficient farming/growing/breeding technology that makes sure we get more, prettier and faster, for less money... the actual quality of what we eat is somewhat irrelevant in this picture.

Kind of sad, isn't it?

Mahalo

Asparagus Again?

I don't know what it is, I guess asparagus inspire me for composition? Almost every time I feel like taking a picture of a dish I just prepared, asparagus somehow fit.
This time with quinoa, tomatoes and kalamatas, with little squares of an omelette that my daughter refused to eat and I salvaged.
Oh, a sprinkle of chili powder too...

Ok, I guess next week I'll have to post pics of my Christmas cous cous.
Mahalo

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Environmentally conscious iPod cover

It's a known fact that a lot of great ideas come between the walls of a bathroom, after all we spend some quality time with ourselves in there. When these big ideas are made public though, their birthplace is somehow seldom celebrated (I wonder why?)
Well, this one here is pretty far from a great idea, but you can see it's birthplace "written" all over it :)

Mahalo

Less is More

"Less is More" is a designer's mantra. Mies Van Der Rohe, one of the founding fathers of the Modern Movement in architecture, made the sentence (and concept) famous with his simple, radically clean approach to architecture, as a reaction to the previously prevailing (and heavily decorated) eclectic movements and Art Noveau.

Without going so high brow though, this idea can be found in many other contexts, I even found a quote from Bruce Lee that says "Simplicity is the key to brilliance"

As a designer myself, I've gone through alternate phases of love and hate for the concept, and I'm sure a lot of people do the same.

Lately though, I'm starting to look at it with new eyes: I'm coming to the realization that our lives need that more than our designs. We live in a state of constant chatter, with too many (useless) things to do or say, too many goals, requirements, external pressures, internal pressures, responsibilities, stress generators, mail, bills ... you name it. does our life really need to be so confused? it seems that "less is more" is becoming a more and more powerful thought to apply to so many aspects of our lives.

I'm not sure yet whether it has to stay "less" forever, I believe in change, cycles, things that morph and grow into something else.

One thing I'm sure about though: whenever anything makes you feel overwhelmed (in a bad way, of course), "less is more" is probably a good way to look at things, and to get through.

Mahalo

ps: the image in this post isn't from a building that Mies Van Der Rohe designed, it's the "church of Light" by Japanese architect Tadao Ando (one of my favorites), I used this image because I believe it so beautyfully represents the concept: subtraction can be more powerful at times.

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A different kind of web

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect."

Chief Seattle

Design for the dump?

My inner conflict began even before finishing school, 20 years go.
That's when I realized that almost everybody around me was to some extent an idealist.
By the way: that is a requirement in design schools, at least in Italy, to endure the years of underpaid slavery we have to go through when we enter the job market ("but at least we're saving the world" ... yeah right).

Drinven by my idealism, in 1993 I decided to take a course on "ECO- Design" to understand things better, and I learned about the complexity of the problem at large, complexity that enables the devious behaviors that today we know as "greenwashing"
As you start understanding the logic behind industrial growth though, you soon realize that designers are often burdened with the task of designing...garbage.
You design for the planned obsolescence of a product out there that already exists and is still perfectly functional, by offering a more "current" and exciting alternative.

Tough to be an industrial designer and have a conscience these days.
Although I'm a believer in "revolution from within", after 20 years of mixed luck on that front I wonder how successful designers can be in correcting that behavior, it seems we need strong powerful partners to really change things around.
This clip that I found could be of help in gathering said partners: the more people know about this stuff, the more companies have to adjust their aim.

please circulate as much as possible.

mahalo