February 26, 2010
LaserLyte KA-BAR Pistol Bayonet
Sportsmans' Guide has put the LaserLyte KA-BAR Pistol Bayonet on sale:
There is just something wrong with this picture.
Just try to get this atrocity into your inside-the-pants holster.
But seriously, just how useful is a pistol bayonet? Wouldn't you rather have a regular Ka-Bar, or better yet, a sharpened-up E-tool or 'Nam tomahawk for some up close and personal melee action?
I guess this could make your opponent bust up laughing so hard that he can't deliver a proper rifle butt strike upside your head. Especially if you whip out the international orange G17.
February 24, 2010
Rapid Problem Solving with Post-It Notes
I'm getting involved with another Website redesign project, which led me to recommend the book Rapid Problem Solving with Post-It Notes
The task we're going to tackle is to categorize the existing and future content, and in my dot.com consulting past I've used this book's Post Up and Swap Sort methods to solve that very problem.
Back in the ye olde pre-dot.com days (circa 1995) when I first wrote the Usability Methods Toolbox, we called these Affinity Diagrams and never really thought of the exercise as two distinct methods. You kind of just went at it and moved things around as you put them up.
But I now think the break between putting things up ("Post Up") and then stepping back to categorize ("Swap Sort") makes a difference. Things kind of gel in your subconscious. The categories naturally form themselves.
With the old everything-happens-at-once method you'd get some interesting conflicts when two people kept moving the same Post It from one grouping to another. I'd call out "Parking Lot!"--but I didn't mean that we'd shelve the issue to a list off to the side for future discussion.
I meant that if they didn't quit messing up my exercise, they were going to have to take it outside to the parking lot to duke it out. Of course many times the group in question were part of my martial arts crew, so this was totally understood.
Not sure if we would've been able to file for workers' comp if they did go through with my suggestion though.