blog

Vernon Thommeret is a user experience designer and web application developer studying at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Quotes

Also, I would gladly have designed the Breakout game for Atari for free, just to do it. I had a job at Hewlett Packard. I considered $350 a nice bonus, something that I'd earned myself. I probably had a pizza to celebrate. I was hurt in later years when I heard that Steve was paid more than he'd told me, and I don't think that I hurt easily. But it was a long time ago and I prefer to get away from it. Steve has always been a good friend to me in many ways more than just palling around. It's so ancient that maybe it didn't happen, and maybe the Atari people that said it and wrote it were wrong in their own memories. I do believe that this is possible. Also, if my own self, or my own children, or my own friends did such a thing in their life, it's easy to excuse it if the circumstances were as I described. It's not 'necessarily' akin to stealing. If there was some dishonesty, I'm over that. Who hasn't done some things that would be considered bad, anyway? I doubt that I'd find such a person interesting.

Steve Wozniak on being paid $350 instead of $2500 by Steve Jobs after redesigning Breakout for Atari. Found at woz.org.

My Exciting Life — 06/02/08

On failure

I made 5127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5126 failures. But I learned from each one. That's how I came up with a solution. So I don't mind failure. I've always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they've had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative...

We're taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven't, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that's very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It's exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You're on it, and you can't get off.

James Dyson on designing and bringing his first vacuum cleaner to market. Found at Coding Horror.

06/29/08 — 11:08 pm

Tonight, the blind lead the blind.

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Vernon in California

Up front

I like to innapropriately sit up front in the Apple rows at WWDC and listen to the employees talk about their products.

Tough love

Disclaimer: You probably don't want to read this.

I've long held this belief that there is a strong difference between what is right and what is nice. A weak statement would be that I've believed that we should always do what is right, but that being nice is, well, nice but unnecessary. A stronger statement would be that I've felt that being nice often implies doing things that are easier or more socially comfortable, at the expense of doing what's right.

I've also held the belief that we never have to be unhappy (note that being content and being happy is different). That is, there is never a time where we have to do something that makes us our or our peers feel bad. That includes things like our assignments, our jobs, or even our academics. If something is making us unhappy, yet we feel we can benefit from it, we should change it. But if that value is unclear, or the pain unending then we should leave. I tend to believe that we should strive to effect positive change, rather than leave, but that's up for debate.

Late this evening, as I was feeling bad, I realized that my beliefs were at odds with each other. While I continued to believe that we should never be unhappy, my actions spoke otherwise. I hurt someone today and made them feel bad, in the quest for something that was "just" or "right," or something silly like that. It didn't feel good then, and it doesn't feel good now.

What I've begun to realize is this: At the core of everything we do, we should strive to do what we feel is right. Not because we are right—we're not—but because until we respect ourselves and trust our instincts, then we should neither be respected nor trusted. But herein lies the caveat: We should never do this at the expense of another human being. We must realize that in the end, everything we do and experience relates to our feelings and the people we care about.

I can't count the number of times I've said or done things that made people feel bad, or made them feel negatively because I felt like I was doing the right thing, or helping them. And honestly that scares me. Making people unhappy is never the right thing. And it's certainly not helping them. People are inspired by hope, not guilt. Tell people what they did well and how they made you happy, and they will be willing to hear your suggestions for improvement. But never forget the first part. People have feelings too.

To the person I'm really writing this to— I am sorry. I shouldn't have acted like I did either tonight or continually in the past. I still think—perhaps foolishly—that what I said, and what I felt had some value but I said them in ways that were hurtful and disrespectful.

I can do better.

Business cards

I am at WWDC right now and I spent so much time on my portfolios that I didn't have time to print out my resumes, or prepare business cards. So I am designing some impromptu business cards right now and will try to find a Kinkos willing to help me print them out in the next 2 hours.

A few pictures I've taken coming up soon.