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Entries for January 2003
Moving target
I just saw a UPS truck with a letter slot on the side of it. Turning a fleet of trucks into thousands of mobile drop-off spots, that’s pretty smart. In theory. In reality, I wonder how many people ever use them, considering no one knows where the truck is going to be and when.
Nothing new here, so why is everyone linking to this?
Nothing new here, so why is everyone linking to this?. is it because the pen has a shadow?
“blog” places third in American Dialect Society’s 2002
“blog” places third in American Dialect Society’s 2002 Words of the Year.
New kottke.org feature
A few weeks ago, I started recording some of the links I visited on a daily basis to a separate weblog, real quick-like. Didn’t know if I was going to like it or keep it up, so I just included that weblog at the top of the page every few days.
Well, I’ve kept it up and I like doing it, so the links weblog found a permanent home in the right sidebar of the front page under the heading of “remaindered links”. If you wish to view the links all by themselves, here’s the main links page and an RSS feed for reading in your favorite RSS reader. Enjoy.
Klingon computer programming language
Var’aq is a programming language for those that speak Klingon. Here’s “Hello world” in var’aq:
~ nuqneH { ~ ‘u’ ~ nuqneH disp disp } name
nuqneH
Roughly translated, it means “What do you want, universe?”
Better books than movies for kids probably a good thing
Some talented authors have been turning their attention lately to writing books for the younger set. Michael Chabon, recent Pulitzer recipient for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, penned Summerland, Neil Gaiman (American Gods) wrote Coraline, and Dave Eggers helped compile The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002, a book aimed at the high school & college aged. Add the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket books to the mix, and there’s a lot of good reading out there for young folks.
Contrast that with movies. Movies for kids are about one thing: marketing. Disney and Nickelodeon movies are vehicles for CD, DVD, toy, and clothing sales. Independent films are little help; most of them are aimed toward adults. I’d love to see some talented directors like P.T. Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, or Spike Jonze do some high-calibre films for young people. Unfortunately, anyone who tried would face problems finding distribution and studio support (Brad Bird’s Iron Giant had some difficulty with that).
Microsoft economics
Microsoft economics. Office costs $407, but you can get Office + *a whole computer* for just $577
Character in PlayboyTV program keeping a weblog
Character in PlayboyTV program keeping a weblog. warning, adult content
NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman answers $100 Google Answers question about himself
NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman answers $100 Google Answers question about himself.
Sherfari revisited
In response to my post on building a better browser, several people argued for the Unix approach to software design: build apps that do one thing well.
Q: What is this one thing that a web browser should do well?
A not-so-good answer: Judging from the comments about my post, most experienced browser users & software developers would probably say that a web browser should download and display HTML documents quickly and accurately. In the same way that cameras are designed to transfer real-life scenes to film, that is technically correct and helpful to remember when it comes to implementation.
A better answer: Let’s apply the Unix approach so that it makes sense from a user-centered design standpoint rather than at the application level**. Web browsers help people find and share information on the web. Sherfari was an attempt at envisioning a browser that does this better than the current crop of browsers by adding the capability to do a few things that people commonly use the web for. Some cried “bloat”, but as long as application features and capabilities are useful and appropriate to an application’s function (the “one thing”), there’s no bloat.
The web offers so much information and so many opportunities that there is much room for the addition of features to improve the browsing experience without creating a bloated application. With their iLife apps, Apple has demonstrated the restraint and ingenuity necessary to build balanced applications that are powerful without being overwhelming. Let’s see them apply that to their web browser.
** Here’s what I mean by that. If you were building tools to help people to send and receive email, ham handedly applying the Unix approach solely from an application point of view might result in one app to receive mail (or perhaps two separate apps: one to get IMAP mail and one to POP it), another app to write mail, and yet another to send it. But from a user-centered perspective, one application to do all those things (and more) makes more sense.
Mitnick to use Internet for first time in 8 years
Mitnick to use Internet for first time in 8 years. yeah, right. first time in 8 years…
You always knew this was common
Prompted by an email from Ian urging me to update my copyright notice, I finally headed over to Creative Commons to choose the proper license for this site. I ended up going with Attribution-ShareAlike license which allows people (that’s you!) to do anything you want with the content on this site as long as you provide proper attribution (Attribution) and release derivative works under an identical license (ShareAlike).
I’m doing this not because people are clamoring to use my content, but because I want to live in a society that has a large pool of material from which writers, artists, filmmakers, designers, and musicians can freely draw from to create their own work. This is my small contribution to that pool. If you’d like to contribute as well, choose the appropriate license at the Creative Commons site.
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