Don Norman: The Design of Everyday Things

Another one of those books I had on my kindle for… forever. I started it once, but seemingly got distracted, which had me start from the beginning again.

Great book, well written, lots of fun examples, and good coverage of fundamentals. Recommended.

SketchUp 2017 vs Big Sur

Oh how I hate these days. Let’s start with the good stuff first: I’ve been a SketchUp user for… forever. Like pre-Google-acquisition-forever. I cried when Google sold the assets, and SketchUp was no longer free for hobby-users like me (I use it on the order of once per year…).

Then Trimble (new or newnew owner) said I’d have to have an account with them to get the basic (online) version. So I created one, hated the online version and went back to the (still free, thanks Google I guess) 2017 version. Worked perfectly fine for all I use it for.

Then Big Sur came along, and while everything still works in SketchUp, all the dimensions are flipped. OpenGL they say. Apple’s bug they say. Here’s the thread:

https://forums.sketchup.com/t/sketchup-make-2017-mac-os-big-sur-dimension-tool-text-up-side-down/142431/51

Obviously I was going to try to see how things work online today… however, after logging in, trimble greets me with a message of incompetence:

Not sure where to take it from here. I hate these days.

Ai Weiwei: 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

I really enjoyed read this. It’s broad, at times repetitive, but comes across as authentic. Interesting insight into the nascence of an empire, a culture the west often doesn’t understand, and the journey of an artist. Recommended.

COVID: build out ICUs

Hot take: If ICUs are the bottleneck, build out more ICUs. Pro mode: build out ad-hoc ICUs and train enough people (through rotation) to ensure skilled and experienced staffing in peak times.

You read it here first.