Lost in Translation

1. Coffee.

We have several ways of making coffee in our house. The one that gets the most use is a Gevalia coffee maker (we had a Cuisinart, but I forgot to take some old grounds out when we went out of town for a week and Bad Things Happened). It’s pretty basic: you put the water and grounds in, press a button, and ten minutes later you have a pot of coffee. If I’m really inclined, I can pre-load the grounds and the water, and program it to turn on at a certain time. (The clock is currently blinking 12:00, largely because I don’t use the programming system.)

The other major way to make coffee is an espresso machine. Where the Gevalia is set-and-forget, the espresso machine requires pretty much constant attention. To make a latte (the variety of espresso coffee that we drink), you need to

1. Make sure the water reservoir is full.
2. Pre-heat the steam chamber.
3. Load espresso grounds into the filter. Pack the grounds gently.
4. When the steam chamber is ready (a light goes from blue to green), fill the measuring cup with milk, place it under the steam nozzle, and turn the steam dial to full.
5. Carefully monitor the steaming milk to make sure that it’s not scalding. Foam it by tilting and moving the cup.
6. When the milk is heated and foamed, place two shot glasses under the filter, turn off the steamer, and turn on the espresso maker proper.
7. One shot glass will fill faster than the other. When the first is full all the way, move the second glass so that it’s being filled by both streams.
8. When the second glass is full, turn off the espresso maker.
9. Pour the espresso in the shot glasses into the desired mug. Follow with the (hopefully not too de-foamed) milk.
10. While the milk and the coffee mix, clean off the steam nozzle with a damp cloth, and dump out and rinse the grounds filter.

On the one hand, there’s a lot to be said for being able to dump some grounds and water in, press a button, and then have coffee available whenever I want it (at least until I drain the pot).

On the other hand, I really like lattes, and they get me going in the morning far better than standard coffee does.

(On the gripping hand, milk is cheaper than coffee grounds, and lattes use more milk and less coffee than the Gevalia does.)

Plus, if I make a latte, I get to be part of the process. Instead of just walking away and coming back when the coffee robot is done its job, I’m actually the one making the coffee. If it’s a great latte, it’s because I made it that way. It’s very satisfying to drink that latte, and that’s probably why it does such a good job of perking me up.

2. Twitter.

I just ran a quick straw poll on Twitter:

Do you prefer to see “classic” or “new” retweets in your timeline? Which do you prefer to use? On both questions, why?

“New” retweets are the inline ones – if you use the new retweet, you can’t edit the tweet, and it shows up in your timeline as from the original user. “Classic” retweets are the kind where you actually say “RT @etherjammer: Do you prefer to see…”; you can edit the tweet, and it shows up in your timeline as from you.

The drawback to new RTs is that you don’t get to add your thoughts, and they don’t show up in the original user’s “Mentions” – in fact, the API doesn’t seem to provide an interface for gathering them at all. The drawback to the old RTs is that if you’re trying to retweet a long tweet, you’re going to have to truncate it to get it all in. (I know a lot of people who actually advocate keeping your tweets to 140 – (5 + the length of your username) characters, to make it easier for people to retweet you.)

There’s something to be said for set-and-forget RTs. You don’t have to worry about whether you should add your thoughts or whether you need to truncate the tweet – you can’t, and you know that the original tweet fit the guidelines so it’ll fit in your timeline without editing. Plus, it’s a single button-click – push the button, and the system does the work. But the original RT system gives you the opportunity to interact and be part of the process, and that shows on the far side.

By the way, the results of my straw poll? 100% in favor of “classic” retweets (except for one friend who doesn’t like retweets at all). Nobody who replied likes the new style (which, incidentally, is the style that I’ve been using for the last few months).

• “It’s easier to tell who retweeted.”
• “I can add a comment if I want.”
• “I get confused by unfamiliar userpics popping up in my feed.”
• “I want to see the retweeter as the source.”
• “If it’s too long to RT, only then will I use the new.”

3. Process and agency.

My latte tastes better than my drip coffee in part because I’m the one who made it. I’m involved in the process and so I’m engaged. Even when it’s just a cup of coffee, it makes a difference.

My classic RTs are better received by my audience because they know I’m involved in the process. My engagement engages them. That makes a difference too.

If something as simple as a cup of coffee or a retweet can be affected directly by your engagement, what else could you improve by being part of the process instead of just letting the machine do the work?

I’m thinking about a new design for this blog. I’ve run a blog called “Lost in Translation” since 2006, and honestly it’s not really fitting anymore. I don’t do a whole lot of translation anymore (when I started LIT, I was in the middle of finishing a degree in Classical Studies, and translating Latin and Greek every day), and I think “Lost in Translation” implies something about me that I’d rather distance myself from at this point. (Also it’s the title of a popular movie.)

I’ve mocked up a new design for the blog, and I’d like your feedback on it. It keeps a few elements of the current blog, but it’s an entirely new theme and feel. Please let me know what you think! Any response is a good response, even if it’s just “I like it” or “I hate it!”. :)

An odd thought I had today in the shower:

1. Imagine yourself as you want to be. (This does not need to be concrete.)
2. Envision the kinds of problems that the person you want to be has to deal with.
3. Deal with a few of those problems.

It’s an odd exercise, and I don’t know if it works, but it seems like it ought to at least get you partway into the mindset of the person you want to be.

Written and drawn over the course of two hours today. Consciously minimal cleaning-up.

I’ve been staring at this blank pagetext-entry box all day – seriously, I opened the tab at 8:45 AM and haven’t closed it since – and I can’t start writing because I’m scared that I’ll write the wrong thing or say it in the wrong way.

The irony of this will become apparent in a moment.

I’ve been struggling with a lack of motivation for years. In the best-case scenarios, I get projects started but I can’t get them finished, except for the most trivial tasks like washing dishes. Most of the time, my ideas don’t even make it off the drawing board, and it’s not for lack of quality of the ideas – it’s that I just can’t get going on them. For a long time, I thought it was related to fear of failure – but I don’t so much fear failure as expect it. A while back, one friend suggested that it was fear of success, that I was sabotaging myself because I was scared of what would happen if I followed through. But I don’t think that’s it either – I yearn for success. I actively want to be successful.

I think what’s actually happening is that I’m afraid of the process.

I’m afraid that I’ll screw it up – not that the end result will be bad, but that my method for getting to the end result will be bad. I’ll do something wrong and the whole thing will have been for naught and everyone will laugh at me, or I’ll leave a step out, or I’ll go with an outmoded model of how things are to be done and not realize it. It’s not about trying and failing – it’s about trying wrong.

Which is why this post has been so hard to write. What if I’m doing it wrong? What if there’s a Right Way to write posts like this and I don’t know about it? What if…

Hey, nobody said fears have to be rational.

Anyway. At this point I feel like one of those stereotypical City Slickers who shows up for a safari with three suitcases full of everything they could ever possibly need, plus additional stuff strapped on just in case. What I need is to convince myself that moving forward is more important than knowing the map perfectly. That’s not to say that I’m going to strike out completely unprepared – but I need to figure out that I don’t need to be prepared for every eventuality either. Most of the time, there aren’t actually any tigers anyway.

If you aren’t familiar with it, the Pareto Principle is simple: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In the context of productivity, that can be read to mean that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. The thrust of the idea – which has been a productivity darling for a while now – is that you should pare down to the 20% of the effort that’s generating 80% of the results. Sure, you lose 20% of your results, but you gain back 80% of your day.

Here’s the problem with the Pareto Principle: it’s missing a key statement, one it shares (or ought to) with Hofstadter’s Law. “80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, even when you account for the Pareto Principle.”

In other words, let’s say that it’s true that 20% of your work produces 80% of your results. So you cut out the 80% of the work that’s only producing 20% of the results. Now the earlier 20% is now 100%, and the earlier 80% is also 100%. But doesn’t the Pareto Principle still apply? 20% of that 100% effort produces 80% of those 100% results.

As a wise woman once said, “it’s turtles all the way down.”