Bastian’s posterous

Great article over at the New Yorker.

“Buildings, because they have hard edges and are frequently rectilinear, lend themselves to simple drawings. However, many of the things that architects draw – cars, furniture, trees, people – are nonrectilinear. When an object seems to complex to draw, first draw the box you can imagine it came in. Then draw the object within that simplified container.”

The above text is from the great book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Fredrick. The book is mostly about Architecture, but this specific example can be applied to things we want to achieve in general.

When working on an idea, a project or your startup, an imaginary box for what you are trying to achieve, can give you the needed guidance and an important outline. It is also much easier to start with something raw that can be modified than being lost in a huge amount of details that seem impossible to connect.

By Kevin Purdy, 6:00 AM on Wed Oct 7 2009, 2,542 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

Ever wonder how much you're really getting back from credit card and retail reward programs? Personal finance site Mint.com breaks down the fees, catches, and mentality behind some major retailers' cards and shopper programs in a big ol' chart.

Mint and WallStats.com do a pretty great job of making their chart flow sensibly and read well, taking you through what major credit card issuers, grocery chains, and big box stores want you to think when signing up for a reward/points program, then breaking down each program on a cents-back-per-dollar basis. There's also a guide to being a "Reward Points Ninja," and the read through the whole thing should make you reconsider whether retail allegiance is really worth the hassle.

Take a look at the whole infographic below. Click for the full view, or right-click to download:

Reward Points: The Real Deal [Mint.com]

DoSimpleThings in ExtremeProgramming. This enables design via two rules:

First, implement a new capability in the simplest [SimplestOrEasiest?] way you can think of that "could possibly work". Don't build a lot of amazing superstructure, don't do anything fancy, just put it in. Use an if statement, even. Make the code pass the UnitTests for the new feature (and all features, as always).

Second, and this is critical to the rule, refactor the system to be the simplest possible code including all the features it now has. Follow the rule of OnceAndOnlyOnce and the other code quality rules to make the system as clean as it can possibly be.

I hope this will be available in the UK soon. What's everyone's favorite Genesis (Mega Drive) title btw.?

Eric Ries rocks!