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Time For Ben

Today I was perusing quotes from Ben Franklin here and there

Do not squander time for
that is the stuff life is made of.

because I have a few deadlines right now that make me feel a bit time-less, and not in the good sense of the word. And then Ben hits me with

He that is good for making excuses
is seldom good for anything else.

which makes me think that he didn’t want me to waste any time reading his stuff. Especially if I use good Ben as a poor excuse for procrastinating today. Because as Ben says

Lost time is never found again.

I hate it when Ben’s right.

Lucky Fate
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The less time you have when constructing a piece of art, the more likely you are to make a mistake. But the less time you have, the more time you have saved doing other things with your life.

In the remaining time left counting down to my exhibition, I took a little gamble in making a tiny new piece at the last minute and the effort seems to have paid off. One’s good fate is the result of luck, or sheer skill? In my case it’s always luck. Bad and good.

Prompt Delivery
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While I was traveling in Taiwan about a month ago, I saw that the mailboxes have two slots. One is labeled in English as “Prompt Delivery.” I thought it amusing that the assumption would be that the other slot would by nature be “Not Prompt.” If the faster slot were labeled “Express,” for some reason I would find the experience more forgiving. The subtlety of how we label time-based experience is amusing.

More Deskpats versus Less

I had promised to add more desktop pattern images over winter break but my break never came. Since I was taking so long, reader/designer Bert Mahoney sent me a few desktop patterns to help me finish this task. My fonts were different so I went and did a few more thanks to Bert’s encouragement.

 
Desktop pattern for a normal 4:3 aspect ratio screen (~50kb).

 
Desktop pattern for a 16:9 widescreen (~50kb).

The Third Law time expresses the importance of watching (or at least enjoying) one’s springs.

 
Desktop pattern for a normal 4:3 aspect ratio screen (~50kb).

 
Desktop pattern for a 16:9 widescreen (~50kb).

As I am a fan of all forms of education, my favorite Law remains the Fourth Law learn.

 
Desktop pattern for a normal 4:3 aspect ratio screen (~50kb). [hc]

 
Desktop pattern for a 16:9 widescreen (~50kb). [hc]

In the Fifth Law differences I mean to express that if there’s a yin, there’s a yang.

 
Desktop pattern for a normal 4:3 aspect ratio screen (~50kb). [hc]

 
Desktop pattern for a 16:9 widescreen (~50kb). [hc]

Keep your eye off the road to become aware of the Sixth Law context, but try not to forget where you’re going.

PS Bert selected the colors for Law 3 and Law 4 for me in the examples he had sent. That certainly made it easy for me. Not having to think–that’s real simplicity. Thank you Bert!

Toyota Production System

A dry, but to-the-point, treatise on optimizing production from the Toyota Master Ohno Taiichi.