Interesting Links for 21-09-2014

[andrewducker]

• From bauxite and corn starch to cans in the fridge - how Coca Cola is made
  (tags: cocacola metal manufacturing drink )
• Patrick Stewart Recites a Poem In His Native Huddersfield (Yorkshire) Dialect
  (tags: PatrickStewart video accents UK )
• A fantastic piece on the death of design in magazine covers and movie posters
  (tags: design art movies

Comments

[cairmen]

The piece on movie posters makes the usual error made by any designer lamenting the "death of good design" in advertising.

It fails to answer the only important question about any piece of advertising material: does it convert? In other words, does it succeed in gaining attention and interest better than other options?

I'm betting that the reason that beautiful design has been replaced by the things the author complains about is because the latter generate more interest in the thing they're promoting.

(The panel on book covers at WorldCon, whilst otherwise extremely interesting, suffered somewhat from the same problem.)

[andrewducker]

I wonder if movie companies do A/B testing of their posters.

I suspect they're still stuck in the 20th century.

[cartesiandaemon]

I think you're right, but I'm worried there's something else, and can't tell if that's just my brain clinging to old ways of doing things because that's what I'm used to, or if there's more to it

[ggreig]

At midday today, it was up to 9,063 new members of the SNP - about a 35% increase in membership.

Edit: sorry, should have included a link.

[danieldwilliam]

I foresee problems for the Scottish branch of the Labour Party in 2015 and 2016 and 2017 as a result of this.

[ggreig]

The latest update is that it's now a 56% increase.

[danieldwilliam]

Those are some numbers.

And thinking about the potential for a #2ndIndyRef what are the chances of the SNP getting a majority in Holyrood if they are not only the natural party of government but the Labour Party in Scotland ceases to exist as a significant campaigning force?

[quirkytizzy]

Okay, that brain stress article was waaaay too sciency for me to follow, BUT - it's good to have verification that yes, stress isn't just in a person's head.

Or it is, but that the head is going through viable, measurable chemical changes.

[andrewducker]

It's great that we now know the paths that lead from "stress" to "brain not working, don't want to see people".

Because if we can work out how to break that pathway at some point, we can stop stress from driving people into a vicious circle that they can't find their way out from.

[teaotter]

By the time I got to the end of the brain stress article, I was wondering if there was a similar mechanism in epilepsy -- so I'm glad they included the mention at the bottom.

So that feeling I get when I'm having a seizure aura, as if I have less and less brain available for processing new information, that may in fact be literally true. Good to know.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - and now that you _know_ that you can at least recognise it in the future and be able to do whatever you need to do to deal with it.

The real benefit of Agile (It's cheaper to do badly than waterfall)

[cartesiandaemon]

That makes sense. Except that isn't "when your scope increases by several thousand percent, as happens on approximately 150% of projects, you can adapt early" basically the purported benefit of agile, not an new, previously unappreciated effect?

Re: The real benefit of Agile (It's cheaper to do badly than waterfall)

[andrewducker]

"Fail fast" is definitely one of the main achievements of Agile. But it's not necessarily about scope increasing, it can also just be because your project isn't set up right, or your management don't have the right buy-in, or you don't have the right developers/UX people/analysts in the team.

In any case, with Agile you can get to iteration 5 and say "Our velocity is zero, and we aren't delivering, cancel the project!" whereas with waterfall you're usually 18 months down the line before you realise how badly fucked you are.