Working Through the Book Log

This is one of the most frightening books I have ever read. Ever.

Biohazard is the memoirs of Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov (Kenneth Alibek), one of the chief scientists and administrators of the Soviet bioweapons program. He was instrumental in the creation of a number of bioweapons including Smallpox, Anthrax and Bubonic Plague. The book mainly covers the political aspects of the programs, who was in charge, who supported what, what the fallout from various accidents like the Anthrax leak at Sverdlosk and how the Soviet Union dealt with inspections from the US. Towards the end of the book, Alibekov talks about some of the issues that caused him to defect to the US in 1992 as well as political issues facing the world, relating to bioweapons, caused by the fall of the Soviet Union.

Labels: bioweapons, kanatjan alibekov, soviet union

One of the truly great books about design. This book mostly focuses on designing things so that they are easy to use by people.

The main thrust of the book is thinking about where information about how to do things "lives". The book claims that this information lives in one of three places - in the mind, in the world, and in constraints in the world. The book goes on to make a very convincing argument that moving as much knowledge as possible out of the mind and into the world, or constraints in the world is a good idea as it saves human cognitive capacity - people don't have to learn how to do things, they just do them naturally.

There are a number of suggestions as to how to accomplish this:

• Appearances should reflect reality


• People can become superstitious easily - combat this by giving them good mental models


• Make feedback immediate and unambiguous


• Make it easy to analogize new activities to ones that people are already familiar with


• Precision is only needed to distinguish between choices - make them look different from each other


• Design Multi-functionality carefully, it is difficult to predict users' actions


• Easy decisions are either narrow or shallow. Don't make users play chess

The book goes into these principles in a great deal of detail with some lovely examples that make these principles quite obvious. All in all an excellent book. I can't wait to read the others in the series.

Labels: cognitive psychology, design, information, usability

An amazing introductory book about architecture. Each idea is layed out in a very straightforward manner with a minimum amount of text and a well done picture. The design of this book is fabulous. You should be able to work your way through this book in an hour or so, but the lessons will last you a lifetime.

The main lessons of the book were on two general subjects: the management of space and ways to give people an experience.

When managing space, be aware of the difference between positive and negative space, how asymetry affects buildings and the people in and around them, and strive for "emergent simplicity" over complexity.

When giving people an experience, deviate from norms only with a good reason, what is hidden can be as important as what is shown, particularly when framing views, etc., and contrast accentuates statements.

There is no way that I could accurately summarize the contents of this book - it is about as concise as possible while transmitting a good amount of knowledge. Go out and read it, you won't regret it.

Labels: architecture, design, drawing, society