swimlanes

I wonder if a flowchart ever really simplified a human decision-making process, or whether such diagrams always instigated a little aversion and defeat at first glance, regardless of content. Such a tool may be fit for representing, in terms of a more natural language, the input/output of computer programming but I think the collection of conditions and operators presented is just another layer shrouding instinct or bias in many cases. Flow diagrams provide a framework for solving algorithms, which computers can become very good at, but are not exhaustive or predictive of every contingency and are probably best at making snarls, choke-points more apparent.

Humans, I believe, are more apt to respond to a proof or a concrete and universal rule, rather than a passably effective way to work something out. While we are not always afforded the luxury of hard and fast laws for guidance and improvisation is called upon, but I do not think that the absence of established rules calls for the creation of provisional systems that either beggar our worse judgment or second-guess real leadership and such a method is not a substitute for an authentic imperative or thorough reasoning.

Once a system or method gets complicated enough, and I believe such code sketched out in long hand would quickly become too complex for human navigators, it becomes fairly convincing.

The people who design such charts are also fairly keen on the credibility of their work-product, and it can become problematic when inventors get too proud over their schemes and throughput. It’s scary to think that such guidelines (the branching off of process charts is called a swimlane), which is the deft guesswork and approximation of machines and field manuals, might be held not to the same rigour and standards as something inviolate and accepted without question.

grammar of ornament

The online consortium of partner museums, Europeana, citing the original artefacts, gives one the means to curate his own special exhibits—like this astounding collection from Black County History in the English Midlands of the conscientious renderings of regional and historic patterns distilled by an astute Victorian observer named Owen Jones in a sampler called The Grammar of Ornament.

There are several colour plates of patchwork patterns typifying Turkish, Egyptian, Far Eastern and Mediterranean designs, as well as European work from different periods, all collected and projected through the lens of that era. Both the European site and its contributing resources are definitely worth a visit, and are sure to leave one inspired and searching for more.

halltree and hutch

We were passing through the town of Kelkheim, in the midst of the conurbations of Wiesbaden and Frankfurt/Main yet still buffered by farmland and with a detectable difference in character that is not always preserved in suburbia. I thought that this modernist water element in the market square was intriguing—water erupting out of and cascading down a verdigris chest of drawers.

It was not until later did I realize that this public fountain was a connect to the town’s living traditions of carpentry and furniture-making. For unbroken generations, I understand, the community’s talent was a nexus for the furniture business, bringing together quality materials, craftsmanship and shrewd entrepreneurship, having the foresight to equip a population on the transition from rural to city living with affordable furnishings, together. The characteristic pieces of the town’s workshops reflect the equally sensible and canny coming together that mark the era of industrialization, Gründerzeit, the Founding Epoch, that created the need for such a profusion in homes and homewares for workers and their families that flocked to the factories seeking work. The furniture is massive and monumental but with an elegance like the architecture of the time, functional and adorned with elements and embellishments of historic movements. The styles prefixed with “neo-,” like Neo-Gothic, Neo-Classic, Neo-Baroque were developed then. It is interesting to appreciate how trends and traditions contribute to one another.

station house rock oder kalendarblatt

Though I’ve passed by this information board in front of our local police station dozens of time, in all seasons and through all sorts of reminders, like this one admonishing drivers to practice extra caution with the resumption of the school year, I never had my camera with me before to capturing these charming, vintage bulletins. I am sure the force has been faithfully cycling through the same almanac of annual events, warnings and advice campaigns for decades. It reminds me of how they used to decorate elementary school classrooms for the seasons and the holidays, tacking up to the walls a succession of presidential busts, leprechauns, tall ships, skeletons, turkeys, etc. Schools and office lobbies are still decorated but I guess dealing out such calendar pages does not happen so much any longer—at least at some places.

gianni cakes or crespelle alla fiorentina

We have made this delicious meal, which is by turns, either like crepes or quesadillas, a few times but did not bother to document it before. It is more labour intensive but very tasty and worth the effort and concentration. This is the only dish of detail I know that conspicuously calls for a hard and a soft cheese.

To make approximately 5 generous-sized crespelle, one will need:

• 300+ grams (11 ounces) of frozen spinach 
• 200+ (7 ounces) grams of Ricotta cheese 
• 6+ tablespoons of freshly grated Parmesan cheese 
• 4 large eggs 
• Salt, pepper, fresh Muscat (grated) 
• 500 ml (2 cups) of milk
• 150 grams (1¼ cup) of flour
• Cooking oil and extra butter to fry the crespelle and line the casserole dish 
• 250 ml (to make about one cup) of vegetable stock or bouillon for the Béchamel sauce

Begin making the spinach and ricotta filling by ensuring the spinach is thawed and malleable. Combine this with the ricotta, 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons of the Parmesan and seasonings to taste. Mix until thoroughly blended and no longer lumpy.

Next, prepare the batter and one’s work space for the crespelle. Melt about 50 grams (2 ounces) of the butter in a pan. Meanwhile, combine the other two eggs, about half of the milk, some cooking oil, a pinch of salt and about 100 grams (2/3 cup) of flour into a large mixing bowl and beat with a whisk. Adding a ladle’s worth of batter to the pan on medium heat, make the crepes, frying them about two minutes on each side, and allow the stack to sit for a few minutes to cool.

In the meantime, one can prepared the Béchamel sauce, first melting the remaining butter in a small pot and adding the rest (about 50 grams, about half a cup) of flour to it. Once melted, pour the mixture of flour and butter into the frying pan used for the crespelle. Slowly introduce the remaining milk and stock to the pan and stir gently on low heat, seasoning with the muscat, salt and pepper to taste.
Watch it to make sure the milk is not scalded. Scoop about four table spoons of the spinach filling onto each crepe and roll loosely and place in a greased casserole dish. Pour the Béchamel sauce over the crespelle and top with the remaining three tablespoons of Parmesan. Bake the casserole in an oven preheated to 175°C (350°F) for approximately 30 minutes. Then serve and enjoy with a light Riesling.

cassandra or opt-in

During a recent training workshop, which turned out to be a lot more encompassing and thought-provoking than I had expected, we were issued a gift bag of resource books—mostly, unfortunately for the nonce and end up on bulked up office bookshelves and was only referenced in the class one time regarding a battery of self-assessments, which included a review of positive psychology. It was a bit peripatetic, all over the place at turns but certainly not Therapy and Things or something too naïve and Pollyanna-ish. After the training, I did more than the required reading. I was a little bit skeptical since I think I tend to glom on to an argument perhaps too readily, given a reasoned set-up—like when Pollyanna, responding to one of the domestic’s laments that she hates Sundays because it’s the busiest day of the week and church services take up a large block of time, etc., etc., rationalizes in her signature way that the maid could take some solace in that when today was Sunday, then she was as far as possible from the next Sunday. A brilliant and irrefutable stance, I have thought since, although that is more designed to make a bad thing tolerable than a good thing better.
The aims of positive psychology as a discipline and a school of thought strive for recovery and personal-improvement by helping others to uncover innate strengths that have been buried by trauma, and the book was not so doctrine and difficult to summarize in a few words, but espoused that all the hardship and terror in the world is measured out by whether one’s world-view is global or local in a good way or a bad way—optimistic or pessimistic. The tricky bit for me, reluctant to give up the idea of realism and objectivity—although I suspect that aversion to arbitrariness and one’s own judgment is something greatly inflated and if put to the test, would pass away unnoticed—is that on balance, optimistic characters tend to view positive events as universal truths whereas pessimists attribute good outcomes to specific and local factors (I am blessed, lucky, charming instead of I got lucky, my challenger was really off his game, that was a fluke) . On the other hand, an optimist sees negative events as challenges for the nonce and not indicative of future success or failure, the opposite of a pessimist. That’s a little hard to reconcile, for me at least, and I do realize that I am an optimistic person, because there’s necessarily not a category that attributes causes (good and bad) to universal influences or to particulars and I have a tough time believing that even the most cock-eyed idealist would be ignorant of the fact that his challengers have a very different assessment of his fortunes. Like I said, however, it’s probably a much higher level concern if our personal outlook is detached from an analytical reality that is far removed from coping and quality of life. I wonder if there’s an analogue in mythology for the optimist and the pessimist, not just in fable, because that’s something I would buy wholesale—like meta-analysis of Prometheus and Epimetheus (Fore- and After-thought), Scylla and Charybdis or Orpheus. I don’t think it is there to be found—though the heroes and gods are jealous, insecure, arbitraty and fearful, there are always self-same and probably would not admit to a causal violation in their personalities. Of course I am over-simplifying matters, but suffice it to say that the attitudes of men hinge on that Weltanschauung and the framework of hope or gloom that it builds, whether for fabulists or myth-makers, and it is important to be cognizant of that mood proffered and all that goes with it. A little bit of reflection, I think, makes the argument and examples that one can stir up quite apparent and convincing.