VOICES FROM THE INTERNET Being irrational Are you rational? Before you make any more decisions you need to answer that question. A rational decision is based on testing data and an understanding of the mechanics underneath the system you're working on. The more you know, the better you decide. An irrational decision is based on gut instincts, conviction and faith. No one is rational all the time. In fact, somewhere along the way we made ‘irrational' into a bad word, but it shouldn't be. If you're running Adwords on Google, I hope you're making rational decisions based on clickthrough and conversion. On the other hand, were you rational when you fell in love? Did you do the math? Medical analysis? Same with fine art. If your taste in paintings is based on some sort of rational analysis or Zagats-type survey, I feel quite badly for you. Deeper and more detailed information is not better information when you're making irrational decisions. When Chris Blackwell introduced reggae to the rest of the world (Bob Marley!), it was irrational. That moment in time was the best time to be working with Bonnie Raitt or Jackson Browne. No amount of rational analysis would have led an investor to back Chris. Irrational passion is the key change agent of our economy. Faith and beauty and a desire to change things can't be easily quantified, and we can't live without them. Steve Jobs is irrational about product design. As a result, focus groups make no sense. Who cares what other people think? He has faith in his gut. Your website: is it rationally designed? Should it be? What about the process you use to create new products or ads? Or the way you pick the focus of your startup? There's room for both rational and irrational decision-making, and I think we do best when we choose our path in advance instead of pretending to do one when we're actually doing the other. The worst thing we can do is force one when we actually need the other. – sethgodin.typepad.com Saudi woman Like many countries around the world, depending where an individual is from in Saudi Arabia impacts upon the dishes which are made, and what kind of spices are used. Main meals such as Kabsa, Jeerish and Gursan are popular dishes throughout the Kingdom. However, these dishes may be prepared Najdi style if from Riyadh or Hijazi style if from Jeddah or Makkah. Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, by comparison, is well-known for its seafood dishes. Yet each individual dish is set apart by the secret spices chosen by the Saudi woman when she prepares the dish which makes it uniquely her own. Saudi women, regardless of which Province in the Kingdom they represent, take great pride in preparing the tastiest dishes for their families and any visiting guests. Each and every city, town, and village in each of Saudi Provinces will have a spice market. These spice markets have large barrels each filled to the brim offering tantalizing colorful spices. The Saudi woman has mastered the art of how to combine individual spices in order to create her own distinct blend of flavor and special ingredient which sets apart her dishes from others. Many times when I have asked a Saudi woman for her recipe, to recreate her appetizing dish in my own home, she will kindly suggest I let her know when I'd like her to prepare the dish for me instead, rather than share her secret mix of spices! – saudilife.net Multitasking iPhone Rumors are flying hot and heavy about a new update coming to the iPhone this summer. AppleInsider has another big rumored feature: Multitasking. According to their sources, Apple will finally introduce third-party multitasking on the new iPhone. Of course, they're doing it the way that they want to and utilizing an Expose-like interface. Two presses on the Home button will supposedly bring up a list of icons, or names of the apps currently running, and then the user will be able to choose from those. Notifications won't go away; AI says that Apple is still concerned about battery life and network performance, so whenever it's possible to keep an app alive simply with notifications, they'll advocate that solution rather than running it in the background all of the time. However, it's also noted that jailbreaking is currently the only way for a third-party to multitask on an iPhone, and the company hopes to end a lot of piracy and jailbreak concerns by providing an official solution. – tuaw.com War on Iran? IN recent weeks there has been a series of press reports as well as statements by military experts that strongly indicate that either the Obama administration or the Israeli government, or both, may be moving toward an attack on Iran. Some of the press reports have been so detailed and provocative that it is difficult to determine whether they are describing actual plans for military action or whether they are “merely” intended to ratchet up pressure on the clerical regime in Tehran. Even if the United States and Israel are primarily engaged at this point in a war of nerves, the political and military logic of their actions leads inexorably to war.
