Lena
About Lena
Posts by Lena Prickett:
DOTS
Play Again.
An even square of perfectly formed dots in harmonious shades of blue, red, yellow, green, purple flits onto the screen. The colors are grouped in two, threes, sevens; a single green dot in a sea of blue and red; a stair-step of yellow. Pair consecutive dots and they blink from existence. Nestling the dots in tiny, perfect squares and rectangles creates the opportunity for explosive connection: linking this group of blue dots evaporates blue from the grid and settles the remaining colors in pleasing bundles of their own. After thirty moves or sixty seconds, your beautiful dots disappear and you’re left with nothing but the cold, hard truth. You didn’t beat your max score. Not even close.
Play Again.
This is why I can’t stop playing DOTS.
This game is beautiful – really, it is. It’s also a devious execution of perfect game mechanics. It’s a lot like other pairing games — Bejeweled, Candy Crush, etc — but with a design-y look-and-feel that sets it apart. I thought I’d write out a few of the characteristics that make it so darned addictive.
Scarcity
The free version of Dots gives you two options for gameplay: timed and number of moves. Both are maddeningly short. Just long enough to get you lulled into the comfortable routine of swiping dots, but short enough that the end feels sudden and crushing. When that final screen pops up, you can’t help but click “Play Again.” You just got in your groove!
Randomness
Every game is different. That means every round you have a chance to get a more favorable first seed of dots than last time, powering a curiosity that fuels “one more round….”
Feedback
When you finish a round, your score is displayed alongside your best score. “Here’s how you did,” it says, “But here’s how much you missed by.” This triggers an “I can beat that” instinct and makes it almost impossible for me not to reflexively press “Play Again.” I know I can beat that high score this time! One more round!
Easter Eggs
The game also builds in cool, sort of useless features if you dig through the Settings. Like the Christmas Theme, or Lights Out Theme.
This makes for a more personalized experience and gives us more mileage out of the same general game idea. This one has a snowman! I’ll just play two more rounds!
Beautiful Design
And as I mentioned above, the game is just beautiful. It’s simple, uses pleasing color combinations and icons, has nice typography, and gives you funny little dot-doodled character trophies.
Who wouldn’t want to hit that achievement? Look at her! She’s so cute! The simplicity isn’t just beautiful, it’s also soothing – we’re not dealing with a lot of outside noise or other stimuli in the game so we can zone out and focus on swiping. Swipe. Swipe.
So there you have it – all the reasons I’m obsessed with this little game. Download it if you dare.
How to drink coffee in September
I made this informative Venn diagram in honor of National Coffee Day. Isn’t Fall weather just like that? Hot one minute, cold the next.
Fall is Better in Flannel
I love this ad. Fall really IS better in flannel. It’s really making me want to snuggle up.
Something about the combination of colors and just the right amount of tousle makes these shirts really appealing. Good job, LL Bean!
How much coffee should I use?
Before I became a barista, this is a question I would ask myself every time I tried to make coffee. Most coffee machines or even manual brew methods give you a rough guideline like “3 TBSPs per cup” — but the definition of “cup” varied by preparation, and how should I know if it should be a level TSBP or heaping? Knowing how much raw coffee material to use to get that perfect cup was a constant challenge.
Then, I went to coffee school. As it turns out, coffee is a little bit more science than art. In our classes, we learned the coffee industry has standards for brewed coffee based on research into the preferences of real people – study participants were served coffee brewed to different specifications and recorded their tastes, ending up with a range of acceptable brews that guide the industry to this day.
Key to this brew range is the ratio of coffee to water. Use too much water, and you could end up with a weak and, ahem, watery cup; too little and you’ll get closer to coffee sludge. While the extremes are fairly obvious, it’s in the nuanced close-to-perfect range that brewing gets a little trickier. In our classes, we learned the range for most peoples’ taste lies in the ratio of 1 oz water to 1.5-1.75 grams of coffee. That means if you use 8 ounces of water in your brew method, you should plan to grind between 12 and 14 grams of coffee. Some people like their coffee a little stronger or weaker and will vary on either side of the range, but this is a helpful starting point.
Using this range as a reference, the next (possibly obvious) piece is weighing and measuring your ingredients. Use a regular kitchen scale to weigh out your coffee before brewing, then break it out again when you add the water to make sure you hit your ratio. Keeping variables like this constant allows you to play around with grind size and brew time to find the cup that suits your tastes. In my recipe for French press, I use 1.75 grams of coffee per ounce of water – for my 18oz press, that’s 31 grams of coffee (freshly ground on a coarse setting). For Aeropress, I go a little lighter, using 13.6 grams of coffee for 8oz water.
And in case this is all sounding like a little too much work for your everyday cup of joe (or you don’t have access to a scale), keep in mind that you could always set your ratio once – measuring how many scoops equals 31 grams – and leave the scale on the shelf next time. For reference, I just weighed out a level tablespoon of my beans at 8 grams – if that helps!
Finding the ratio that works for you, combined with the right grind size and brew time, will ensure you get a great cup every time.
What’s your recipe for a perfect cup?
Habituated environments
I was just reading this great article on Copyblogger about becoming a more productive writer through planning and preparation. One point the author raised was the importance of setting up a consistent writing environment, whether it’s a physical space or a type of music or a preferred beverage.
I’m really into this idea. I love productivity hacks, and psychology hacks are even more fun. If there are ways to trick my brain into working better and getting more done, I’m on board.
As a kid I would go over to my dad’s house on weekends and make nachos. I would’ve eaten nachos – simple chips and mozzarella cheese nachos – for every meal, if they’d let me. To this day, my dad keeps nachos materials stocked in case I decide to drop by. We also had these amazing natural sodas – Blue Sky Root Beer – that I drank alongside my nachos, every time, without fail. Unsurprisingly, I now have a profound sensory association between these two foods, especially if I’m sitting in my dad’s kitchen. When I went away to college, my dad asked me how many times I’d made nachos already, and I had to tell him: “none.” That craving was so specifically tied to his house and that soda that it hadn’t even occurred to me that I could make nachos anywhere else.
So I know my brain is capable of wiring and rewiring based on environment – I just need to harness this power for good. Nachos are great, sure, but they’re not exactly making me a smarter or more productive marketer. As a remote worker, I’ve ended up establishing a “focus-and-produce” space in various coffee shops when I need to get out of the house. Ideally, I could set this up psychologically without having to commandeer an outlet at a café.
Solution: Write every day, in the same place, with the same tools. I’ve started blocking off hours on my work schedule to dedicate to writing projects like blogs and ebooks, and will try to cordon off part of my mornings for personal writing. I’ll turn off the internet, get my cup of coffee, and turn on something good on Spotify. Let’s do this.
Three things I learned at The Hello Project
Going to networking events can be daunting. I love meeting new people and am very talkative and outgoing once I’m in a conversation, but am too often stuck behind the hurdle of introducing myself. That’s why last night’s event, The Hello Project, hosted by Future Boston and Startup Institute, was such a breath of fresh air. The mission of the event was simple: go say hello to someone you’ve never met before. Here are some things I learned.
1. SERIOUSLY, JUST GO SAY HI
It’s really easy to get in your head about introducing yourself to a stranger. “What if we don’t have anything to talk about,” “What if I’m awkward,” “What if they think I’m hitting on them?” are all very common thoughts to have at a time like this. Now listen carefully: Just get over it. The hardest part is 100% walking over and saying hi. And if it doesn’t work out, you can always politely excuse yourself, but you’ll never know until you try.
2. HAVE SOMETHING UP YOUR SLEEVE
If you’re anxious about what happens after the initial “hello,” make sure you come prepared. Know your first question and your own answer. The first person who introduced herself to me last night had a great question: “What’s something you’re excited about for the next 48 hours?” Super open ended, really engaging, and much more interesting than “So what do you do?”.
3. STRANGERS ARE AWESOME
Everyone’s out there in the world doing something cool. Don’t let not being able to say “hi” keep you from finding out what’s new and different.
Such a fun event, and such a great reminder of how important it is to find acommunity. Here’s to Boston!
The most useful chart I’ve ever seen
This chart from webcomic xkcd is perhaps the most useful business tool I’ve ever seen. It dynamically updates based on the current actual time, and includes a “Rude to Call” guide for the hours of 10pm-6am. Never, ever, ever googling “What time is it in…” again.
via xkcd
Box Kite Coffee
Photo via Box Kite NYC
I’m a big believer that no market can ever really be truly saturated. No matter how many businesses are stuffed in the sardine can of your industry, if you can do it better, cheaper, or with greater distinction, the market will make room for you. Whether you’re making iPhone games, baby shoes or craft beer, the market rewards excellence.
New York City seems to me like one of those places we expect to be fully saturated, but new and interesting things keep popping up – and staying popped. This week I stopped into a newcomer on the New York specialty coffee scene, Box Kite in the East Village. A beautiful, minimalist space with white walls and dark wood, Box Kite is immediately comfortable. Guests can choose to sit at the bar or the few seats by the window, and the staff are welcoming and casual. Coffee offerings are scrawled on a butcher paper roll installed in the near wall – one choice each for straight espresso, pourover, or drip. When I visited, a MADCAP Ethiopian could be ordered as espresso or drip, with a third Ethiopian from Heart Roasters on pourover.
Given its size and seating arrangement, the cafe is best-suited for pairs or solo travelers. Sitting in the middle of the bar and sipping espresso served with a cookie and sparkling water, I had a curiosity-satisfying view of the chefs at work and could chat with the barista about the coffees. The cafe is open late, making it one of the few places in the city to get exceptional after-dinner coffee, and it’s truly a great place to do so.
I’m happy to see there’s still room for more of the good stuff even in a city as crowded as New York. I’ll be keeping my eye on Box Kite and thinking good thoughts their way to stay in business.