Misc. Ramblings

Geek Alert! For you non-geeks out there, you may want to skip on down to the next item. For everyone else, here's the story of what may be the longest flight of a civilian radio controlled model airplane so far (see it here and here. Note both sites, but especially the second will probably expire the announcements so get'um while their hot).

The TAM 5 took off from Cape Spear, New Foundland, Canada and landed 38 hours and 1,888 miles (~3,040km) later in Mannin Beach, County Galway, Ireland. Of course, the craft was controlled by humans only at launch and landing as it would have been very difficult to have someone follow the slow moving model plane (cruising at about 45mph). Otherwise, the plane was controlled by an onboard micro-processor autopilot that took its position from GPS satellites and followed a pre-programmed route.

While this is not the first unmanned Atlantic crossing, it is reportedly the first that meets the definition of a "genuine model airplane." Model airplane being defined as, among other things, weighing less than 11 pounds (~4.9kg) and an engine cylinder displacement of less than 10cc.

In either case, this is an amazing accomplishment and all should be proud of their work.

I've always said less, is more. That is, I tend to write short posts, when I write something at all, because I don't believe filling a screen full of words necessarily helps to convey a point. Doing so may not hurt, but it rarely helps.

Some long-winded people can write essays pages long that say the same thing I say in a couple of paragraphs. Does that make them "smarter" or their post "better" because they can write so much? I don't think so, although many do, perhaps impressed by the length of the posts.

But now comes usability guru Jakob Nielsen's recent posting on the subject (see it here). Now, I'm the first to say I don't always agree with Mr. Nielsen, but in this case I do. In summary, he's saying:

Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message.

I think as the amount of data we encounter each second increases, we either have to become more selective in what we read or become overwhelmed and tune everything out.

That's not to say long-form essays should always be avoided. But if you want to convey an idea, keep is simple. If you can't do that, then perhaps you don't know the subject as well as you should.

Aloha!