Interesting Principles

Robustness principle

2010-10-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept.

Also called Postel's law

more here

Engelbrat's law of maturity

2010-09-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

"The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate." Doug Engelbrat

Hubbert peak theory

2010-09-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Hubbert peak theory posits that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve.

Sod's Law of Going Wrong

2010-01-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

X = ((U+C+I) * (10-S))/20
Y = (1-sin(F/1 0))

Sod's Law Rating = X*A/Y

urgency (U): 1 <= U <= 9,
complexity (C): 1 <= C <= 9,
importance (I): 1 <= I <= 9,
skill (S): 1 <= S <= 9,
frequency (F): 1 <= F <= 9 ,
Aggravation factor (A): 0.7

More here - http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science/spoof/articles/sods_law_mathematical_proof_humour

Law of Instrument, Maslow's hammer or gloden hammer

2010-01-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

When the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hammer

Golden Rule (Ethics)

2010-01-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule_%28ethics%29

principle of locality

2010-01-17T04:13:00.000-08:00

locality of reference, also known as the principle of locality, is the phenomenon of the same value or related storage locations being frequently accessed. There are two basic types of reference locality. Temporal locality refers to the reuse of specific data and/or resources within relatively small time durations. Spatial locality refers to the use of data elements within relatively close storage locations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locality_of_reference

4S's of dating

2010-01-14T02:10:00.000-08:00

For Women: Single, Sane, Sexy, Smart – Pick any three.

For men: Sarcasm, Stability, Sports and Sex

Dreyfus: Stages from novice to Expert

2010-01-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

novice: information is acquired through instruction; domain-specific facts, features, and actions are learnt. Rules are “context-free,” in the sense that their application ignores what else is happening in the environment.
advanced beginner: ater substantial concrete experience with the domain. Situational elements—that is, elements that depend on the context—become meaningful and are used.
competence: decision-making procedures are organised hierarchically. While this stage is characterized by an increased level of efficiency, planning is still to a considerable extent conscious and deliberate.
proficiency: certain features will be perceived as salient while others will be ignored. Proficient individuals, while able to “intuitively organize and understand” the problem situations, still use analytical thinking to decide what to do next.
expertise: both understanding of the task and deciding what to do is intuitive and fluid. In routine situations, “experts don’t solve problems and don’t make decisions; they do what normally works”

Siddharth’s law of Software Inertia

2009-12-18T21:30:00.000-08:00

Software hacks, no matter how terrible, live forever. Once a hack is in place, an organization will talk about the ‘right solution’ but will immediately deprioritize working on the right solution.

http://nayna.org/blog/?p=16

Power Law

2009-12-13T00:16:00.000-08:00

If one quantity is the frequency of an event, and the other is the size of the event, then the relationship has a power-law distribution when the frequency of the event decreases at a greater rate than the size increases.
An earthquake twice as large is four times as rare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

Moore's Law

2009-12-13T00:15:00.001-08:00

An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooers%27_law

Lotka's law

2009-12-13T00:12:00.000-08:00

It states that the number of authors making n contributions is about

1 / n a

of those making one contribution, where a nearly always equals two.
There are 1/4 as many authors publishing two articles within a specified time period as there are single-publication authors, 1/9 as many publishing three articles, 1/16 as many publishing four articles, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law

Benford's Law or First Digit Law

2009-12-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

In lists of numbers from many (but not all) real-life sources of data, the leading digit is distributed in a specific, non-uniform way. According to this law, the first digit is 1 almost one third of the time, and larger digits occur as the leading digit with lower and lower frequency, to the point where 9 as a first digit occurs less than one time in twenty.

Think of electricity bills, street addresses, stock prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers, physical and mathematical constants, and processes described by power laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law

Zipf's law

2009-12-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

Given some corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. Thus the most frequent word will occur approximately twice as often as the second most frequent word, which occurs twice as often as the fourth most frequent word, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law

DRY/DIE principle

2009-11-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) or Duplication is Evil (DIE)

The DRY principle is stated as "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system."

DRY is broader than Once and Only Once (OAOO).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

Broken Windows Theory

2009-10-02T05:44:00.000-07:00

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows

Liskov substitution principle

2009-08-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

Let $q (x)$ be a property provable about objects $x$ of type $T$ . Then $q (y)$ should be true for objects $y$ of type $S$ where $S$ is a subtype of $T$ .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle

5-S : Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke

2009-08-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

Sort, Set (in place), Shine, Standardize, and Sustain

Table 1. 5S Definitions

Japanese Term	English Equivalent	Meaning in Japanese Context
Seiri	Tidiness	Throw away all rubbish and unrelated materials in the workplace
Seiton	Orderliness	Set everything in proper place for quick retrieval and storage
Seiso	Cleanliness	Clean the workplace; everyone should be a janitor
Seiketsu	Standardization	Standardize the way of maintaining cleanliness
Shitsuke	Discipline	Practice 'Five S' daily - make it a way of life; this also means 'commitment'

http://www.siliconfareast.com/5S.htm

Three word processes

2009-08-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

Rollout - Fix it - Scale it up
Brainstorm - Build - Behold
Red - Green - Refactor : A process for Test Driven Development

Moore, Gilder, Proebsting and Nordig's law

2009-03-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

Moore: CPU power will double every 18 months.
Gilder: Bandwidth will double every 6 months.
Proebsting: compiler research has led to a doubling in computing power every 18 years.
Nordig: Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again (in any number of months). http://norvig.com/norvigs-law.html

Law of conservation of attractive profits

2009-03-03T03:52:00.000-08:00

Clayton M. Christensen: When attractive profits disappear at one stage in the value chain because a product becomes commoditized, the opportunity to earn attractive profits with proprietary products usually emerges at an adjacent stage.

Law of conservation of modularity

2009-03-03T03:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.windley.com/archives/2004/03/osbc2004_clayto.shtml

The idea is that either the integrated system or the subsystems need to be modular and comfortable in order to optimize performance for the other. He uses Microsoft OS and Linux as examples. Applications in Microsoft are suboptimized in order for the OS to be optimized (this is a result of closed source) whereas in Linux, the OS is suboptimized via an open and modular architecture in order to optimize the application (i.e. being able to change code in the OS to optimize application performance).

In Clayton’s world, “modular” implies “suboptimal” or “inefficient.” You can’t make money on the modular layers in the value-added chain (they’re the integators). You make money at the borders to the modular layers. Another way of looking at this is that no one is going to make money on SOAP, you’re going to make money on the parts that talk SOAP, the services.

Theory of convergence

2008-11-28T06:40:00.000-08:00

The catch-up effect, also called the theory of convergence, states that poorer economies tend to grow at faster rates than richer economies. Therefore, all economies should in the long run converge in terms of per capita income and productivity. Developing countries have the potential to grow at a faster rate than developed countries as they can replicate production methods, technologies and institutions currently used in developed countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-up_effect

Greenspun's Tenth Rule

2008-11-18T19:55:00.001-08:00

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_Tenth_Rule

Vernon Sanders Law

2008-08-31T22:19:00.001-07:00

Experience is a hard teacher becuase she gives the tests first, the lessons afterwards.

Vernon law of some people are busy

2008-08-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

Some people are so busy learning the tricks of the trade that they never learn the trade.

Holt's Law of easy jobs

2008-08-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

All jobs are easy to the person who doesn't have to do them.

more laws at : http://www.quotatio.com/l/law-holt-s-all-jobs-are-easy-to-the-person-120314.html

Law of Reversed Effort

2008-08-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

From : http://tow.charityfocus.org/?tid=100

There is a Law of Reversed Effort. The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.

Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent Unknown Quantity may take hold.

We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to foster a state of mind, in which understanding may come to us.

Principles of selecting a 20-20 cricket team

2008-05-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2008/may/20pvi.htm

The idea of an 'icon' player didn't work.
It was unwise to pay too much for single cricketing skills.
Indian players cost more than foreign players for comparable skills.
Wicket-keepers are not so valuable in T20.
Bowling all-rounders might be more valuable than batting all-rounders.
Likely match-winners were paid more.
Young and fit all-rounders offer the greatest value.
Gamble on youth, and on Australians.

Lipstick Theory

2008-05-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

Proposed by Leonard Lauder, the chairman of Estée Lauder Companies.

After the terrorist attacks of 2001 deflated the economy, Mr. Lauder noticed that his company was selling more lipstick than usual. He hypothesized that lipstick purchases are a way to gauge the economy. When it’s shaky, he said, sales increase as women boost their mood with inexpensive lipstick purchases instead of $500 slingbacks.

Beauty brands remain true believers in the theory, even though in the last few years the lipstick market has fallen on hard times as its glistening cousin, lip gloss, has had robust sales.

Three sorts of products sell robustly during tough times, said Lou Crandall, the chief economist at Wrightson ICAP, an independent research firm.

The first is what economists call traditional inferior goods, what people have to buy when they can no longer afford their favorites. If you’re a salmon lover eating tuna casserole, you’re chewing on inferior goods.

Lipsticks aren’t inferior goods, economists say, but they could be small indulgences, an inexpensive treat meant to substitute for a bigger-ticket item. Or lipsticks could also be morale boosters, like Charlie Chaplin films were during the Depression. A warm shade that perfectly matches your skin tone might make you forget how far your 401(k) has tanked.

So why don't we use lipstick sales to measure economy? “ABC News samples consumer confidence every week,” Mr. Crandall said. “We don’t have lipstick sales on a weekly basis. This is because they are more granular. The smaller the economic data becomes, the more volatile it tends to be, and the harder it is to extract the underlying signal.”

Bathtub theorem

2008-04-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Bathtub theorem is an analogy that explains the effects of exports and imports on national income.

According to the analogy used in the bathtub theorem, national income level is the water in the bathtub. Exports, government spending, or investments inject extra water in the tub, and thus raise the level, while imports, savings, or taxes cause leakages.

70 percent rule in MLM

2008-04-15T09:33:00.001-07:00

70 percent rule in MLM (Multi-level marketing):

The rule requires that distributors procure orders for inventory only when they have disgorged themselves of at least 70 percent of previously purchased inventory.

http://www.mlmconsultantadvice.com/babener_11.html

Not Just For Profit

2008-04-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.notjustforprofit.org/

Five branches of a Not-just-for-profit company,

1. Profit-Making (or Self-Sustainability)
2. Community
3. Ethics
4. Individuals
5. Environment

Evidence Based Management

2008-04-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

"What gets measured gets managed" - Drucker

Evidence-based management entails managerial decisions and organizational practices informed by the best available scientific evidence. (EBM)

Five Principles of EBM

Face the hard facts, and build a culture in which people are encouraged to tell the truth, even if it is unpleasant
Be committed to "fact based" decision making -- which means being committed to getting the best evidence and using it to guide actions
Treat your organization as an unfinished prototype -- encourage experimentation and learning by doing
Look for the risks and drawbacks in what people recommend -- even the best medicine has side effects
Avoid basing decisions on untested but strongly held beliefs, what you have done in the past, or on uncritical "benchmarking" of what winners do

http://www.evidence-basedmanagement.com/

Basic principles of Taxation

2008-03-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Ability to Pay Principle: taxation should be levied according to an individual's ability to pay; that is, individuals with higher incomes should be charged higher taxes.

Benefit approach principle: the amount of taxes a person should pay by the benefits received in public services.

Equal sacrifice theory: the surrender of equal measures of utility by taxpayers. Equal sacrifice theory has three sub-groups:

1. Equal absolute sacrifice (where each taxpayer surrenders the same absolute degree of utility that he obtains from his income).

2. Equal proportional sacrifice (where each sacrifices the same proportion of utility he receives from his income).

3. Equal marginal sacrifice (where each gives up the same utility from the last unit of income)

http://www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/ability-to-pay-principle.php
http://www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/equal-sacrifice-theory.php

Six degrees of separation

2008-03-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person he or she knows and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

Gibrat's law

2008-03-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

Gibrat's rule of proportionate growth is a rule defined by Robert Gibrat (1904-1980) stating that the size of a firm and its growth rate are independent. This is also applied to cities.

In other words, proportional change in the size of a company in an industry is the same for all such companies irrespective of their original size. If a company with sales of $10m doubles in size over a period of time, it is likely the same will happen for a company beginning with sales of only $1m.

more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibrat's_law

This law is seen to hold for only some industries. Manufacturing has lot of examples where this is violated.

The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way

2008-03-05T09:59:00.002-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way

Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.
Create a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.
Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction.
Level out the workload (heijunka). (Work like the tortoise, not the hare).
Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.
Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
Use visual control so no problems are hidden.
Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others.
Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophy.
Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve.
Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (Genchi Genbutsu).
Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi).
Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).

Elliott wave principle

2008-02-05T20:56:00.000-08:00

Briefly, Elliott theorized that all major market moves could be described by a five-wave series. The classic Elliott Wave series would consist of an initial wave up, a second wave down (often retracing 61.8% of the initial move up), then the third wave (usually the largest) up again, then another retracement, and finally the fifth wave, the last gasp, which would exhaust the movement. He described all sorts of Fibonacci relationships which could occur among these waves.

http://www.luckymojo.com/fibonaccimkt.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_wave_principle

Conway's Law

2008-02-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it.

If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Law

Principles of Lean Software Development

2008-01-31T21:30:00.000-08:00

Add nothing but Value

1. Eliminate waste

2. Minimize inventory

3. Do it right the first time

Focus on those who add value

4. Empower those who add value

5. Practice continuous improvement

Pull value from Customers

6. Meet customer requirements

7. Pull from demand

8. Maximize flow

Optimize the value tributary

9. Ban local optimization

10. Partner with suppliers

http://www.projectperfect.com.au/info_lean_development.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_software_development

Tell, Don't Ask

2008-01-31T21:15:00.000-08:00

Procedural code gets information then makes decisions. Object-oriented code tells objects to do things.
— Alec Sharp

http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/articles/tell-dont-ask

Programmers should avoid writing code that looks like:

dog.getBody().getTail().wag();

colloquially known as a “Train Wreck”. This is bad because this
one line depends on the interfaces and implied structure of three
different objects

The solution is described by the heuristic "Tell, Don't Ask" , so we rewrite our
example as:

dog.expressHappiness();

and let the implementation of the dog decide what this means.

Don't ask, don't tell

2008-01-31T21:12:00.000-08:00

"Don't ask, don't tell" is the common term for the U.S. military policy which implements Pub.L. 103-160 (10 U.S.C. § 654).

The act prohibits any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation, or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell

Mood management theory

2008-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Mood management theory posits that the consumption of messages, particularly entertaining messages, is capable of altering prevailing mood states, and that the selection of specific messages for consumption often serves the regulation of mood states

Social Judgement Theory

2008-01-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

There are five principles of Social Judgment Theory.

Principle 1. We have categories of judgment by which we evaluate persuasive positions.

the latitude of acceptance (zone of positions we accept);
the latitude of non-commitment (zone of positions we neither accept nor reject); and
the latitude of rejection (zone of positions we reject).

Principle 2. When we receive persuasive information, we locate it on our categories of judgment.
Principle 3. Our level of "ego-involvement" affects the size of our latitudes.
Principle 4. We tend to distort incoming information to fit our categories of judgment.
Principle 5. Small to moderate discrepancies between our anchor positions and the one advocated will cause us to change; large discrepancies will not.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/judge.htm

Few principles of persuasion

2008-01-14T22:21:00.001-08:00

Sleeper Effect : "hidden" effect of a propaganda message even when it comes from a discredible source. After enough time people forget the source and only remember the message.

Exposure Effect: people express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Protectection Motivation Theory : How fear appeals?

Law of Primacy: side of an issue presented first will have greater effectiveness than the side presented subsequently

Cognitive dissonance theory: there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.
Consider someone who buys an expensive car but discovers that it is not comfortable on long drives. Dissonance exists between their beliefs that they have bought a good car and that a good car should be comfortable. Dissonance could be eliminated by deciding that it does not matter since the car is mainly used for short trips (reducing the importance of the dissonant belief) or focusing on the cars strengths such as safety, appearance, handling (thereby adding more consonant beliefs). The dissonance could also be eliminated by getting rid of the car, but this behavior is a lot harder to achieve than changing beliefs.

Law of Recency
Inoculation Theory

Inoculation Theory

2008-01-14T21:55:00.000-08:00

Inoculation theory states that inoculation is used to describe the attribution of greater resistance to individuals. Or, the process of supplying information to receivers before the communication process takes place in hopes that the information would make the receiver more resistant.

Here are the steps of effective inoculation:

Warn the receiver of the impending attack.
Make a weak attack.
Get the receiver to actively defend the attitude.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/inocul.htm

http://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/persuasion/ino.htm

Inoculation theory applied to prevent alcoholism

And most importantly this has been applied to marketing
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2437%28197311%2910%3A4%3C396%3ARTPITI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage

Command-Query Separation Principle

2008-01-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

The principle states that every method should either be:

a command method that performs an action (updating, coordinting, ...) and is void (no return value); or
a query that returns data to the caller and has no side effects - it should not permanently change the state of any objects

But - and this is the key point - a method should not be both

Applying UML and Patterns by Craig Larman

Second System Effect

2008-01-09T17:32:00.001-08:00

second-system effect

 (Sometimes, more euphoniously, "second-system syndrome") When
 one is designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant,
 and successful system, there is a tendency to become grandiose
 in one's success and design an elephantine feature-laden
 monstrosity.

Creeping Featuritis & Creeping Elegance

2008-01-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

Creeping Featuritis

A variant of creeping featurism, with its own spoonerism: "feeping creaturitis".

It is a disease that lets features creep in software due to designer's tendency.
The end result is that your software looks like a "Christmas Tree",
with irrelevant features hanging.

Creeping Elegance

 Describes a tendency for parts of a design to become elegant
 past the point of diminishing return, something which often
 happens at the expense of the less interesting parts of the
 design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the
 Real World.

Layering Principles

2008-01-08T20:45:00.000-08:00

From http://martinfowler.com/bliki/LayeringPrinciples.html, (numbers are +ve vote/-ve vote)
* Low coupling between layers, high cohesion within them. 10/0
* Separation of concerns. 11/0
* Layers should be agnostic of consumers (a layer shouldn't know who's on top of it.) 4/4
* Adaptability: be able to change. 2/0
* User interface modules should contain no business logic. 10/0
* Business logic layers contain no user interface and don't refer to user interface modules. 8/0
* No circular references between layers. 8/0
* There are at least three main layer types: presentation, domain, and data source. 3/9
* Business layer only uses abstractions of technological services. 14/0
* Separate development teams by layer. 1/22
* Layers should be testable individual. 12/0
* Prefer layers to interact only with adjacent layers. 4/4
* A layer should be wary of exposing lower layers to upper layers. 1/0
* Layers should hide lower layers from upper layers.
* Layers should only interact with adjacent layers. 2/3
* Changing a lower level layer interface should not change upper layer interfaces. 2/5
* Distribute at layer boundaries 0/18
* Layers are a logical artifact that does not imply distribution between layers. 11/0
* Lower layers should not depend on upper layers. 6/0
* Every layer should have a secret. 3/2
* Layers should be shy about their internals. 8/0
* Layers should be substitutable. 2/0
* Layers can have multiple adjacent upper layers. 2/1
* Always wrap domain logic with a service layer. 4/5
* Rethrow exceptions at layer boundaries. 0/15
* Layers should be independently maintainable and versioned. 2/0
* Layers should have separate deployment units (eg separate jars or assemblies for each layer). 0/7
* Layers may share infrastructural aspects (eg security) 7/0
* The domain layer should not talk to external systems - the service layer should do that. 2/3
* Inbound external interface modules (eg web service handlers) should not contain business logic. 10/0

End-to-end principle of Network System Design

2008-01-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

The principle, called the end-to-end argument,
suggests that functions placed at low levels of a system may be redundant or of little
value when compared with the cost of providing them at that low level.

http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/endtoend/endtoend.pdf
or same paper at http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/did/83743

"(Certain functions) can completely and correctly be implemented only with the knowledge and help of the application standing at the end points of the communication system. Therefore, providing the questioned function as a feature of the communication system itself is not possible."

http://www.acm.org/crossroads/columns/connector/may2001.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle

Principles of Art

2008-01-06T08:05:00.001-08:00

The principles are balance, contrast, proportion, pattern, rhythm, emphasis, unity, and variety.

http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/study/g_art_principles.html

The elements are color, value, line, shape, form, texture and space.

http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/study/g_art_elements.html

10 principles of Servant Leadership

2008-01-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Chanakya or Kautilya, the famous strategic thinker from ancient India, wrote about servant leadership in his 4th century B.C. book Arthashastra:

"the king [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects [followers]"

"the king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people".

Or leading like Jesus

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42-45)

Ken Blanchard's book "Lead like Jesus" is a nice book on practical aspects of it.

The ten principles are:

Listening
Empathy
Healing
Awareness
Persuasion
Conceptualization
Foresight
Stewardship
Commitment
Community

http://www.butler.edu/studentlife/hampton/principles.htm

Seven levels of existence

2008-01-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

As Sri Sri Ravishankar says, there are seven levels of existence,

body,
mind,
intellect,
memory,
ego and
being.

Meditation works by bringing an effort from the level of being to the mind. With the breath we bring this effect to the physical level as well.

Hereis a nice and very informative page on the seven levels, http://www.meaningoflife.i12.com/7levels.htm

And if Maslow's Hierarchy of Need comes to your mind looking at lower levels of these seven levels, then it should be also clear that human moves to higher levels. Probably the goal of human life to attain the top most level.

Read some more Sutras of Sri Sri, http://www.angelfire.com/me2/sutras/ssrs.html

Swami Vivekananda on beyond intellect

2008-01-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

Vivekananda: I am the disciple of a man who could not write his own name, and I am not worthy to undo his shoes. How often have I wished I could take my intellect and thrown it into the Ganges!

But, Swami, that is the part of you I like best.

Vivekananda: That is because you are a fool, Madam--like I am.

Swami Vivekananda on duty of soul

2008-01-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

Hinduism indicates one duty, only one, of the human soul. It is to seek to realize the permanent amidst the evanescent. No one presumes to point out any one way in which this may be done. Marriage or non-marriage, good or evil, learning or ignorance, any of these is justified, if it leads to the goal. In this respect lies the great contrast between it and Buddhism, for the latter's outstanding direction is to realize the impermanence of the external, which, broadly speaking, can only be done in one way.

Charles' Six Rules of Unit Testing

2007-12-02T04:17:00.000-08:00

Write the test first
Never write a test that succeeds the first time
Start with the null case, or something that doesn't work
Don't be afraid of doing something trivial to make the test work
Loose coupling and testability go hand in hand
Use mock objects

from http://radio.weblogs.com/0100190/stories/2002/07/25/sixRulesOfUnitTesting.html

Perrussel's Law

2007-11-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong.

Three laws of Theromodyanimcs for winning

2007-11-21T19:19:00.002-08:00

1. You can't win.
2. You can break even only on a very cold day.
3. It never gets that cold.

Stewart's Law of Retroaction

2007-11-21T19:19:00.001-08:00

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy

2007-11-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage.

Pinchot's 10 commandments for Intrapreneurs

2007-11-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

Do any job needed to make your project work regardless of your job description.
Share credit wisely.
Remember, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Come to work each day willing to be fired.
Ask for advice before asking for resources.
Follow your intuition about people; build a team of the best.
Build a quiet coalition for your idea; early publicity triggers the corporate immune system.
Never bet on a race unless you are running in it.
Be true to your goals, but realistic about ways to achieve them.
Honor your sponsors.

Seersucker Theory of Investing

2007-11-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

For every seer, there's a sucker

David Leinweber, an expert in quantitive investment, satirised the 'science' of prediction by sifting through numbers to see how he could have forecast the performance of the US stock market from 1981 through 1993. He combined the total volume of butter produced each year in Bangladesh with the number of sheep in the US and a few other variables, to produce a formula that forecast the past with 99 per cent accuracy.

Different explanation here,
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/iw/2006/01/08/stories/2006010800871300.htm

Minimize rework principle

2007-11-10T06:46:00.000-08:00

Accuracy is speed

The 8 Golden RulesOf Interface Design

2007-11-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

http://interarchdesign.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/schneiderman-plaisant-designing-the-user-interface-chapt-2/

1. Consistency (strive for consistency)
2. Provide informative Feedback for actions
3. Strive for universal usability
4. Dialog boxes to yield Closure
5. Prevent Errors
6. Allow for Reversability of actions
7. Support Internal Locus of Control
8. Reduce short term Memory Load

Hollywood Principle a,k.a Inversion of Control

2007-10-30T01:16:00.000-07:00

Don't call us, we'll call you

Related:
Inversion of Control
Event Driven programming
Dependency Inversion

Silence Is Golden

2007-10-28T00:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.leadershipturn.com/silence-is-golden/

“Personally, I think a major problem with our entire society is that it doesn’t allow for reflection. … We’ve grown the mentality that it’s better to listen to someone else than it is to think for ourselves.”

Silence Is Golden

2007-10-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

XOM Design Principles

2007-10-25T10:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.cafeconleche.org/XOM/designprinciples.xhtml

Design Goals

Absolutely correct
Easy to use
Easy to learn
Fast enough
Small enough
No gotchas

Design Principles

As simple as it can be and no simpler!
Use Java idioms where they fit
There’s exactly one way to do it
Start small and grow as necessary

Principles of API Design

APIs are written by experts for non-experts
It is the class’s responsibility to enforce its invariants
Verify preconditions
Do not allow clients to do bad things.
Hide as much of the implementation as possible.
Design for subclassing or prohibit it
Prefer classes to interfaces

XML Principles

All objects can be written as well-formed XML text
It is impossible to create malformed documents
Validity can be enforced by subclasses
Syntax sugar is not represented

Java Principles

Not thread safe
Classes do not implement Serializable; use XML.
Classes do not implement Cloneable; use copy constructors.
Lack of generics really hurts in the Collections API. Hence, don’t use it.
Problems detectable in testing throw runtime exceptions
Assertions that can be turned off are pointless
Setter and mutator methods return void

Development Style

This is a cathedral, not a bazaar
Unit testing
Static testing
Massive samples

Agile Modeling Principles

2007-10-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.agilemodeling.com/principles.htm

Suplementary

Principles of Object Oriented Design

2007-10-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/Principles_and_Patterns.pdf

Do u know about Viscosity? Higher viscosity means that it is easy for someone to implement hacks in the software than to do things that are right as per design.

The Open Closed Principle (OCP)
A module should be open for extension but closed for modification.

The Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP)
Subclasses should be substitutable for their base classes.

The Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)
Depend upon Abstractions. Do not depend upon concretions.

The Interface Segregation Principle (ISP)
Many client specific interfaces are better than one general purpose interface

Principles of Package Architecture

The Release Reuse Equivalency Principle (REP)
The granule of reuse is the granule of release.

The Common Closure Principle (CCP)
Classes that change together, belong together.

The Common Reuse Principle (CRP)
Classes that aren’t reused together should not be grouped together.

The Package Coupling Principles.

The Acyclic Dependencies Principle (ADP)
The dependencies betwen packages must not form cycles.

The Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP)
Depend in the direction of stability.

The Stable Abstractions Principle (SAP)
Stable packages should be abstract packages.

Attribution Theory

2007-10-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

If anything good happens people think it is because of them, but if bad happens people blame it on system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_theory

Principles of War

2007-10-22T04:25:00.001-07:00

from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/warfare/principles/principles.htm

Confusion: Make it so they do not know which way to turn.
Demoralization: Make it so they do not want to fight.
Disabling: Removing enemy capability.
Discipline: Train your troops.
Division: Divide and conquer.
Distraction: Make them look the other way.
Fear: Make it so they do not want to fight you.
Generosity: Be kind to them so they are kind in return.
Intelligence: The side that knows most wins.
Overwhelm: Show and use far greater force.
Provocation: Make them angry so they act impetuously.
Sacrifice: Pay any price for success.
Seamlessness: Present no chink in your armor.
Speed: Be quicker than them. Be able to react fast.

Persuasion principles

2007-10-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

from http://changingminds.org/principles/principles.htm

Alignment: When everything lines up, there are no contradictions to cause disagreement.
Amplification: Make the important bits bigger and other bits smaller.
Appeal: If asked nicely, we will follow the rules we have made for ourselves.
Arousal: When I am aroused I am full engaged and hence more likely to pay attention.
Association: Our thoughts are connected. Think one thing and the next is automatic.
Assumption: Acting as if something is true often makes it true.
Attention: Make sure they are listening before you try to sell them something.
Authority: Use your authority and others will obey.
Bonding: I will usually do what my friends ask of me, without negotiation.
Closure: Close the door of thinking and the deal is done.
Completion: We need to complete that which is started.
Confidence: If I am confident, then you can be confident.
Confusion: A drowning person will clutch at a straw. So will a confused one.
Consistency: We like to maintain consistency between what we think, say and do.
Contrast: We notice and decide by difference between two things, not absolute measures.
Daring: If you dare me to do something, I daren't not do it.
Deception: Convincing by trickery.
Dependence: If you are dependent on me, I can use this as a lever to persuade you.
Distraction: If I distract your attention, I can then slip around your guard.
Evidence: I cannot deny what I see with my own eyes.
Exchange: if I do something for you, then you are obliged to do something for me.
Experience: I cannot deny what I experience for myself.
Fragmentation: Break up the problem into agreeable parts.
Framing: Meaning depends on context. So control the context.
Harmony: Go with the flow to build trust and create subtle shifts.
Hurt and Rescue: Make them uncomfortable then throw them a rope.
Interest: If I am interested then I will pay attention.
Investment: If I have invested in something, I do not want to waste that investment.
Logic: What makes sense must be true.
Objectivity: Standing back decreases emotion and increases logic.
Passion: Enthusiasm is catching.
Perception: Perception is reality. So manage it.
Pull: Create attraction that pulls people in.
Push: I give you no option but to obey.
Repetition: If something happens often enough, I will eventually be persuaded.
Scarcity: I want now what I may not be able to get in the future.
Similarity: We trust people who are like us or who are similar to people we like.
Specificity: People fill in the gaps in vague statements.
Substitution: Put them into the story.
Surprise: When what happens is not what I expect, I must rethink my understanding.
Tension: I will act to reduce the tension gaps I feel.
Threat: If my deep needs are threatened, I will act to protect them.
Trust: If I trust you, I will accept your truth and expose my vulnerabilities.
Understanding: If I understand you, then I can interact more accurately with you.

General Principles of Player Valuation

2007-10-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

Management has learnt quite a bit about performance and team dynamics from Games.

http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/10/player-value-part-1-general-principles.html

Wins vs. Runs

"I'm ok with using runs instead of wins, at least for the time being, because of the gains in precision that we get from using the available runs-based statistics."

Offense vs. Defensive Contributions

"...preventing a run from scoring on defense is worth just as much as scoring a run on offense."

Laws Of Action

2007-10-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/topics/LawsOfAction.htm

“Laws of Action” is a research attempt to carry the spirit of Fitts' law forward. Beyond "Law of Pointing", it explores "Law of Steering" and "Law of crossing".

Power Law of Practice

2007-10-15T21:02:00.001-07:00

The Power Law of Practice states that the logarithm of the reaction time for a particular task decreases linearly with the logarithm of the number of practice trials taken. It is an example of the learning curve effect on performance.

Steering Law

2007-10-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

The steering law is a predictive model of how quickly one may navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel.

where T is the average time to navigate through the path, C is the path parameterized by s, W(s) is the width of the path at s, and a and b are experimentally fitted constants. In general, the path may have a complicated curvilinear shape (such as a spiral) with variable thickness W(s).

from

Fitt's Law

2007-10-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

In ergonomics, Fitts's law (often cited as Fitts' law) is a model of human movement which predicts the time required to rapidly move to a target area, as a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target.

Shanon formulation for movement along a single dimension:

where

T is the average time taken to complete the movement. (Traditionally, researchers have used the symbol MT for this, to mean movement time.)
a and b are empirical constants, and can be determined by fitting a straight line to measured data.
D is the distance from the starting point to the center of the target. (Traditionally, researchers have used the symbol A for this, to mean the amplitude of the movement.)
W is the width of the target measured along the axis of motion. W can also be thought of as the allowed error tolerance in the final position, since the final point of the motion must fall within ± W/2 of the target's centre.

from

Hick's law

2007-10-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hick-Hyman law, is a human-computer interaction model that describes the time it takes for a user to make a decision as a function of the possible choices he or she has. Given n equally probable choices, the average reaction time T required to choose among them is approximately

T = b log 2 (n + 1)

where b is a constant that can be determined empirically by fitting a line to measured data.

from

Rule of Seven - Seven is a crowd

2007-10-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" (wikipedia)

Some of the consequences of this appear in several unrelated domains ...

In presentations you are asked to have no more than 7 points in a slide.

A researcher concluded that assemble more than 7 people in a team and research effectiveness goes down.

In any advertising program, professionals will tell you it takes a least five to seven exposures before someone may act on your ad. (from here)

Here are some other rules of seven,

the value of an item growing at 7% a year will double over 10 years because of the compounding effect. (Dow will hit 16000)

Seven is an acronym for how to build your business and life,

•S – Strategic Service
•E – Energy
•V – visibility
•E – Experience
•N - Negotiation

Principles of Security and Protection

2007-10-13T01:19:00.000-07:00

From here

Identify and Anticipate

Assess x 3: Threats, Risks, and Vulnerabilities
Threat: This generally refers to your adversary and the methods they use.
Risk: This generally refers to what is at stake.
Vulnerability: This generally refers to how open you are to the threat.

Deter, Detect, Delay, Deny

Respond: Defend, Disrupt, Defeat, or Destroy

Four principles of being Lucky

2007-10-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

maximize chance opportunities,

listen to "gut feelings,"

expect good fortune

see the bright side of bad luck.

Dr Wiseman's book

Five Principles to Design By - Joshua Porter

2007-10-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

From here

Also watch Jonathan Ive, iPod Designer's interview at youtube

Technology Serves Humans.

Design is not Art.
(Art is about personal expression. Design, on the other hand, is about use. Unlike Art, Design is always contextual.)

The Experience Belongs to the User.

Great Design is Invisible.
(Bad design is obvious because it hurts to use. It is awkward, difficult, and complex. In a great irony of the world, bad design is much easier to see than good design. It raps us on the head like a bully. Because of its success, great design is often invisible.)

Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.

Abraham Lincoln's Letter To Headmaster

2007-10-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

A letter written by Abraham Lincoln to the Headmaster of a school in which his son was studying. It contains an advice, which is still relevant today for executives, workers, teachers, parents and students.

A WORD TO TEACHERS

"He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just and are not true. But teach him if you can, the wonder of books.. but also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside.

In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fall than to cheat.....

Teach to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him he is wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentlepeople and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone getting on the bandwagon...

Teach him to listen to all men; but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad... Teach him there is no shame in tears.

Teach him to scoff at cynics and to be beware of too much sweetness.. Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to highest bidders, but never to put a price on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob.. and stand and fight if thinks he is right.

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient.. Let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have faith in humankind.

This is a big order, but see what you can do. . He is such a fine little fellow my son!

- Abraham Lincoln"

Cockroach Theory

2007-10-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

A market theory that states bad news tends to be released in bunches.

Notes:
Why the name cockroach? It's because cockroaches tend to travel in large groups and aren't looked upon kindly.

A similar bug theory holds in software. If you find a bug in a component/module, there are more still left to be discovered.

A bunch of them

2007-10-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

* You would achieve more, if you don't mind who gets the credit.

* When everything else is lost, the future stillremains.

* Don't fight too much. Or the enemy would know your art of war .

* The only job you start at the top is when you dig a grave.

* If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything.

* If you do little things well, you'll do big ones better.

* Only thing that comes to you without effort is old age.

* You won't get a second chance to make the first impression .

* Only those who do nothing do not make mistakes.

* Never take a problem to your boss unless you have a solution.

* If you are not failing you're not taking enough risks.

* Don't try to get rid of bad temper by losing it.

* If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

* Those who don't make mistakes usually don't make anything

* There are two kinds of failures. Those who think and never do; and those who do and never think

* Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

* All progress has resulted from unpopular decisions.

* Change your thoughts and you change your world.

* Understanding proves intelligence, not the speed of the learning.

* There are two kinds of fools in this world. Those who give advise and those who don't take it.

* The best way to kill an idea is to take it to a meeting.

* Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.

* Friendship founded on business is always better than business founded on friendship .

Watts Programming Principles: People

2007-10-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

1: If the programmers do not understand the job they are to do, they will not do it very well.
2: The people who know and use the best methods will do to best work.
3: When programmers know how to select and consistently use the best methods, they can do extraordinary work.
4: Superior software work is done by highly motivated developers.

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/news-at-sei/columns/watts_new/2003/4q03/watts-new-4q03.htm

MTR-i Team Role Theory

2007-10-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/teamroletheory/

The three key principles of Team Role Theory, that have a significant impact on both team and individual performance, are Adaptation, Synchronisation and Stretch.

Adaptation

'Adaptation' is an important principle in team role theory: good adaptation produces high performance. Many examples of poor adaptation can be seen in everyday events.

Synchronisation

Synchronisation is a technique that enables a team to make rapid progress in discussions: it involves all team members using the same team role at the same time.

Stretch

Stretch is the difference between one preferences and behaviour, between Myers Briggs preferences and MTR-i team role.

Little Red Hen Principle: Teamwork

2007-10-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

http://tlt-swg.blogspot.com/2006/10/little-red-hen-principle-teamwork-and.html

If one member of a group does most of the work on a team project, then that person should have the most influence on decisions about the results.

Four principles of Free Software Foundation

2007-10-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

The four principles are,

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/10/the_four_freedoms_applied_to_s.html?CMP=OTC-0O724Z062301&ATT=The+Four+Freedoms+Applied+to+Software+as+a+Service

Career Planning Principles

2007-10-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

From here.

First rule: Do not plan your career. You can't plan your career because you have no idea what's going to happen in the future. Career planning = career limiting.

Second rule: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.

Read more on the actual blog!

Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success - Dr Chopra

2007-10-01T14:50:00.001-07:00

The stated seven spiritual laws of Dr. Chopra are:

Pure potentiality
Giving
Karma or cause-and-effect
Least effort
Intention and desire
Detachment
Dharma or purpose in life

The Law of Pure Potentiality

The first spiritual law is that your essential nature is one of pure potentiality. The source of all creation is pure consciousness, which is realization of our potential for infinite creativity.

You can access your potential through a daily practice of silence, meditation and non-judgment. Spending time in nature will also give you access to more creativity, freedom and bliss.

The Law of Giving

The law of giving states that the universe operates through dynamic exchange. Its flow of energy is based on giving and receiving. Every relationship is of give and take. Even with money, you need to keep it in circulation, in order to gain more prosperity.

Wherever you go, try to give something to others, whether it is a gift or even just a complement. Be grateful for what you have received in life. And try to keep giving and receiving in circulation.

The Law of Karma or Cause-and-Effect

The law of cause-and-effect states that every action you do generates energy that returns to you in like kind. As you sow, you will reap. For example, if you do things that make others happy or successful, you will become happy or successful. This is also called your karma.

You should be conscious of your choices, because of their consequences. Consider choices that will benefit others, and thus yourself.

The Law of Least Effort

Nature functions with ease. When you harness the forces of harmony, you create success with effortless ease. For example, grass doesn't try to grow. It just grows. You do less and accomplish more.

You should practice acceptance of what is at this moment and not as you wish things were. Then take responsibility for your situation and see your problems as opportunities. Relinquish your need to defend your point of view to others.

The Law of Intention and Desire

Within every intention and desire is the mechanism for its fulfillment. They have the potential for organizing your power of achievement. Conscious change is brought about by attention and intention.

You should list your desires and carry them with you. Look at the list before you go into meditation. Release your list to the power of creation. Accept obstacles to you goals, knowing that the right thing will be achieved.

The Law of Detachment

The law of detachment states that in order to acquire anything, you need to relinquish your attachment to it. You don’t give up your intention or desire but the attachment to the result. Attachment is often based on fear and insecurity. Detachment accelerates the process of your evolution.

Allow yourself and those around you the freedom to be as they are. Participate in everything with detached involvement. Accept that uncertainty is part of your experience. You can gain security in accepting uncertainty. Anticipate all the possibilities to make your life more exciting.

The Law of Dharma or Purpose in Life

The ancient law of Dharma states that your spirit has taken a physical form to fulfill a purpose in life. You have been given a special talent to give to others. You need to discover your true self. Then you should express your unique talents. And finally provide service to humanity.

Put the Law of Dharma into effect by paying attention to the spirit within you. List your unique talents. List the things you love to do while expressing your talents. Then ask yourself how you can help or serve others.

Principle of Karma

2007-10-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

At the risk of misrepresntation, here it is in brief ...

All living creatures are responsible for their karma — their actions and the effects of their actions — and for their release from samsara.

more ...

One of the basic principles of karma is that every soul (entity) has free will. There is always freedom of choice.

Law of Causation: Karma is simply cause and effect.

Bhagwad Gita - a jewel of India's spiritual wisdom has this has a great related principle:

"You have a right to perform your prescribed action,but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action.
Never consider yourself the cause of the results your activities,and never be associated to not doing your duty."
(Translated from Sanskrit:-"Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani")

Lucifer principle

2007-09-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.bookworld.com/lucifer/about.html

It contends that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and is woven into our most basic biological fabric.

The Bain Principle of Parking

2007-09-29T23:50:00.000-07:00

The frustration associated with searching for parking grows, for the driver, geometrically as a function of the time spent looking, but for the passenger(s), it grows only arithmetically. As a result, the longer two or more people look for a spot, the less rational a decision they will be able to make as a group.

more ...

Getting Things Done

2007-09-29T23:16:00.000-07:00

GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

-David Allen

http://youthhacks.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/gtd-principal-re-claiming-your-ability-to-focus/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

Summary of Principles for User-Interface Design

2007-09-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

Here is the main post.

1. The principle of user profiling -- Know who your user is.
2. The principle of metaphor -- Borrow behaviors from systems familiar to your users.
3. The principle of feature exposure -- Let the user see clearly what functions are available
4. The principle of coherence -- The behavior of the program should be internally and externally consistent
5. The principle of state visualization -- Changes in behavior should be reflected in the appearance of the program
6. The principle of shortcuts -- Provide both concrete and abstract ways of getting a task done
7. The principle of focus -- Some aspects of the UI attract attention more than others do
8. The principle of grammar -- A user interface is a kind of language -- know what the rules are
9. The principle of help -- Understand the different kinds of help a user needs

* 1. Goal-oriented: "What kinds of things can I do with this program?"
* 2. Descriptive: "What is this? What does this do?"
* 3. Procedural: "How do I do this?"
* 4. Interpretive: "Why did this happen?"
* 5. Navigational: "Where am I?"

10. The principle of safety -- Let the user develop confidence by providing a safety net
11. The principle of context -- Limit user activity to one well-defined context unless there's a good reason not to
12. The principle of aesthetics -- Create a program of beauty
13. The principle of user testing -- Recruit help in spotting the inevitable defects in your design
14. The principle of humility -- Listen to what ordinary people have to say