Stuff Brent Palmer Likes

It’s official. I'm white. Boy, I’m really white. Stuff White People Like is incriminating. In fact, the very day I read post #96 I was wearing the very same pair of New Balance sneakers. This is disconcerting because I’ve spent the last eight years trying to de “different” and “unique” only to find that there are many others exactly like me. Being Brent Palmer means defying genres and not “fitting into a box.” I regard this as a personal attack. This aggression cannot stand. Just how many posts apply? Below is a comprehensive list. Now I’m off to get a completely new and unique tattoo on a place where no one else has thought of.

* taken with an Apple product at a corporation I hate

#101 Being Offended
#100 Bumper Stickers
#99 Grammar
#96 New Balance Shoes
#94 Free Healthcare
#93 Music Piracy
#91 San Francisco
#90 Dinner Parties
#88 Having Gay Friends
#87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
#86 Shorts
#84 T-Shirts
#83 Bad Memories of High School
#82 Hating Corporations
#81 Graduate School
#78 Multilingual Children
#74 Oscar Parties
#73 Gentrification
#70 Difficult Breakups
#68 Michel Gondry
#67 Standing Still at Concerts
#65 Co-Ed Sports
#64 Recycling
#63 Expensive Sandwiches
#62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
#61 Bicycles
#60 Toyota Prius (reality: we own a Camary)
#59 Natural Medicine
#57 Juno
#55 Apologies
#53 Dogs
#52 Sarah Silverman
#50 Irony
#49 Vintage
#48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
#47 Arts Degrees
#46 The Sunday New York Times
#44 Public Radio
#42 Sushi
#41 Indie Music
#40 Apple Products
#39 Netflix
#37 Renovations
#36 Breakfast Places
#35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
#34 Architecture
#27 Marathons
#24 Wine
#23 Microbreweries
#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
#18 Awareness
#17 Hating their Parents
#16 Gifted Children
#14 Having Black Friends
#13 Tea
#12 Non-Profit Organizations
#10 Wes Anderson Movies
#8 Barack Obama
#7 Diversity
#6 Organic Food
#5 Farmer’s Markets
#3 Film Festivals

Designers take back user experience

For those in the User Experience field, be warned. Designers are taking back usability. You’ve had it for a while. It’s cute, trendy but not egalitarian. Designers have sat by, picking out colors and fonts, but no more. We’re discovering that usability was already in our repertoire and we’re reclaiming it.

Designers are finding out that a User Experience job is actually a hodge-podge of other jobs. It borrows from several backgrounds but mainly from design, industrial engineering and anthropology. You can’t argue that a User Experience job isn’t a great gig. It’s perfect recompense for developers who slaved and made little money during Web 1.0. How did designers let this happen? Research, I imagine. Any job that involves words and numbers scares us. We like to play with colors and shapes. In hindsight, we didn’t know how to apply the whole design process to the Web. But that’s changing. Years of awful sites taught us profound lessons in the medium. And what vocations emerged through bad practices will quickly be gobbled up by other designers who get it.

Credibility, desirability, and usefulness are integral to the design process regardless of application. Those ideas are “baked in” to what we do. If applied correctly, design solutions are framed with usability practices from the start. With a movement towards sustainability in design, we’re seeing a growing emphasis even on specification. As more artists bend towards sustainable design, they’ll push safety, performance and environmental considerations to the forefront. This emerging trend will require Web designers to incorporate more usability practices early and often. The result: I anticipate UE positions will be enveloped by designers in the next 3-4 years. So, designers can stop creating custom brushes and gradients and get involved in the application side of the solution. If for the sole reason we’re jealous of your UE salaries.

Response to Karl Rove's 2/21/08 Op-Ed in Wall Street Journal

I watched Obama's Houston speech Tuesday night and arrived at a different conclusion than Mr. Rove. I didn't see Obama doing an about face towards leftist policies. On the contrary, he was beating the drum of political change, a campaign mantra that continues to work and sway moderates and (gasp!) on-the-fence Republicans.

The fact is Barack Obama has nothing to hide. The best Rove can do is paint Obama as "left-leaning behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric" and attack his sound bytes. To me, that doesn't signal vulnerability. It only exposes Rove's limp and faint tactics and attempts to embolden WSJ readers. Barack has a clear vision for his presidency and the lack of real smearing from both the Clinton campaign and Rove's op-eds is the reason why Obama continues to win votes. He doesn't have any juicy dirt. And Obama is more of a threat to Rove as a centrist than a liberal, hence the petty article.

I find Mr. Rove's comments on integrity and credibility quite ironic, actually. Given his political demise—TIME magazine source leaks, White House e-mail scandal, the list goes on—he still manages to get published in the WSJ. Joseph C. Wilson, retired diplomat, once said, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." If anyone is a divider, it is Karl Rove, who continues to use members of the Christian right for partisan purposes.

So why is Obama grabbing so many converts? And why is Obama being attacked by Bush-ies, and at the tip of Rove's editorial spear? Obama's record gives us insight on the growing fears of the Far Right.

• Obama passed legislation with Senator Jim Talent (R-MO) to give gas stations a tax credit for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. A legislation that will gradually increase fuel economy standards and offer what the New York Times editorial page called "real as opposed to hypothetical results."

• Barack Obama and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passed a law to create a Google-like search engine to allow regular people to approximately track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans online. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "It would enable the public to see where federal money goes and how it is spent. It's a brilliant idea."

• There's also his championing of voter rights, Healthcare Insurance reform and the extension of child tax credits.

To me, Obama's strong start signals strength, capability and promise of cross-party productivity. That sounds like a President for all Americans. Conservatives and Liberals.

Get me off this plane!

I have a fear of flying. There. I said it. Air travel wraps me in a cocoon of horror. Everything from the ticket kiosk to my in-flight meal scares me. The worst part—the part where my armpits sweat and a lump builds in my throat like I swallowed a Nerf football—is take-off. My body is thrust backwards into the blue vinyl seat, the airplane gains altitude and only one thing crosses my mind: Am I going to die? I act out the usual near-death rites; square up with God, tell my wife and kids I love them one last time (in my head); lament that the Astros never one a title. All while repeating the mantra, “Just reach a cruising altitude and everything will be fine.”



Airlines do their best to keep me docile. The attendants are courteous. The snacks are delicious and salty. Even the windows are designed to keep me unaware of the pending dangers. How else can I achieve peace of mind climbing 500+ miles an hour, than to view hurling clouds through an 8”x12” oval? It’s a good thing the sun stays in one spot. If the window was any larger I’d realize the nylon seatbelts won’t save me from anything—gravity or aeronautical principles seemingly at work. Which leads me to believe that airplanes will never feature large windows. No one wants to visualize a steel cylinder speeding through the sky like a winged rollercoaster with beverage service. I’m paralyzed with fear, clutching my immovable arm rest.



In the car, turbulence happens when I actually run over something. That kind of turbulence is tangible. I can see it. And if you’re a defensive and conscientious driver, you try to avoid “some things” in the road. You see, air turbulence is unpredictable and invisible (even more terrifying!) With every jostle, I’m reminded of the chasm below me and my mortality. I wish there was a way to avoid rough patches in the sky, or at least mark them with some conspicuous red vapor that signals, "Danger!" I'm not an expert in aviation, but don’t pilots know there’s like at least 8000 feet of air below where they could simply just go around? They seem to gleefully plow straight through these pockets of terror!

So, is there a way to make my take-off more peaceful? I want the sky above Austin to be as still as a millpond. But what can be done? Encourage everyone to suspend breathing? Ground all flying birds? Reduce CO2 emissions? I’m on board whatever the initiative. And while I wait for airline technology and medication to rid me of spatial anxieties, I’ll be thankful I’m alive until the next fasten seat belt chime.