The Blog of Harald

“I linked”:http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/archives/2005/07/25/out-of-context/ to a “Joel on Software”:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ “article”:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html about the difference between average and best in software developers.

I finally tracked down “an article”:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?041206fa_fact I read months ago, on the difference between average and best in healthcare (specifically in Cystic Fibrosis clinics, since they collect enough data to measure the difference).

It’s a fascinating read.

“The Bell Curve”:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?041206fa_fact by “Atul Gawande”:http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/AtulGawande.html appeared in “The New Yorker”:http://www.newyorker.com/ .

What a fabulous idea! Works for airplane tickets and passports and similar items, too…

bq. So, you’re going to a ticketed event, like a concert or a ball game. It’s out of town. You’re carpooling with four other people. How do you ensure that everyone in the car has their ticket with them?

bq. The car doesn’t move until each person takes out their ticket and holds it to their forehead.

(quoted from 43 Folders: The Forehead Ticket Trick)

“blog.org”:http://blog.org/archives/cat_useful_web_resources.html#000716 → “Playing with Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ :

bq. “Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ is an exciting, new project that looks at how the world around you is changing over many different time periods.

bq. Here at the “Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ web site, unseen worlds of change will be revealed. You will see time sped up and slowed down, and behold the beauty of change.

I have always been intrigued by visualisation techniques; manipulating time is another one. Taking ordinary events and speeding them up or slowing them down often reveals existing patterns that we cannot normally perceive.

“Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ has both fast motion and slow motion movie clips revealing a variety of changes. I particularly like the shots of the same location on several different time scales; you can watch the clouds move over a period of minutes, or see the tide roll out, or see the grass grow and die over a year. Fabulous stuff, and worth a visit.