"Too many products, and many start-ups, fail because they don't focus on a simple reality: Humans will need to use and like the product or service. Too often, technologies and products are created because they can be, not because they should be."
How video games influenced the attack on America
is an interesting article on how video games shape certain thought patterns.
Seybold's site is worth visiting if only for the huge number of worst practices they managed to jam in. That said, it's still a very cool conference, and I've done to footwork and found you a comprehendable conference planner and a free pass for one day. Now come by and check out Beyond Bread Crumbs: Best Practices and Tactics In Information Architecture and Putting the 'Eye' in Interface: Effective and Beautiful Interface Design.
Many of us are still struggling to shake off the malaise induced by the WTC attack... many of us haven't been as productive as we've been in the past. Talking with friends this week, I've found many are apologetic and guilty: they haven't been able to get much done and since they didn't lose anyone they knew personally, they feel that their grief is somehow out of place, out of measure.
Our president told us to go back to work. He promised to get those guys (who ever "those guys" are). But he didn't tell us how to deal with our loss-- and we all had a loss. The loss of our precious ordinariness. A plane flying over head that was invisible to me last month fills me with sorrow for lost dreams. A large truck makes me nervous about chemical warfare. A young male friend suddenly seems vulnerable to draft and death. Our assumptions have been shaken, and an unfocused fear has taken its place.
So give yourself permission to mourn your everyday life, interrupted so brutally. Don't feel guilty for the past malaise. Then take stock in your pleasures: your favorite album, your favorite movie, your favorite book. Open the nice bottle of wine you've been saving, buy the hardback version of the novel from your favorite author, the rare import CD from your favorite band. Stop staring listlessly at the monitor and steal away from work to catch some sunshine. Admit we all lost something Tuesday-- not metaphorically, but truly. Only then we can do what we each need to return to our lives. Each in our own way, at our own pace.
As the New Yorker would say, Our correspondent in Japan writes:
"My job is predicated on the implicit assumption that information is stable, knowable, and not least, deployed in the service of a user. In Japan, as we shall see, this isn't always the case. I think the results are instructive, not only for IA's, but for anyone who moves information across cultural boundaries."
Metadata Harvesting and the Open Archives Initiative
'The Metadata Harvesting Protocol—a mechanism that enables data providers to expose their metadata—is seeing very rapid deployment, and enables a fascinating array of new services and system architectures for a diverse set of communities. "
Terrific post by Peter on faceted classification. It's something we all do and take for granted, and peter has managed to write it up in an intelligent and accessible manner. go birthday boy!
if you like infographics, this is a nice simple one used to make a point about the futile nature of revenge.
Sometimes it's good to remember ordinary user questions. Nice and funny column.
One of my favorite sites, flazoom has a great new article
"I am convinced that Flash designers have vision that is far superior to ordinary people. Vision so powerful that 8 pixel tall bitmap typefaces on a low contrast background do not present a problem for reading. "
I still can't help anyone hack. Yet I still get requests. the latest:
"see i think my gfs cheating on me.
pls i need her password desperately.
this is a matter of life and death.
pls i really need ur help.
pls.....i will be grateful if u help me.
pls."
and
"hi dude... i got some Ver of Spooky i dunno what exactly it is but i wanna have the Final version and stuff..if ya please mail me about this message ... tnx "
I need a new domain name.....
The New Yorker notes the passing of Alice Trillin. If you have never read The Tummy Trilogy this would be a great time to pick it up. Calvin Trillin is one of the great food writers of all time, and his books are funny and delightful. If you like Peter Mayle, or MFK Fisher, or if you just love food, read them. We all need as much joy as we can get into our lives right now.
"ME: Anybody who served a milkshake like this in Kansas City would be put in jail.
ALICE: You promised not to indulge in any of that hometown nostalgia while I'm eating. You know it gives me indigestion.
ME: What nostalgia? Facts are facts. The kind of milkshake that I personally consumed six hundred gallons of at the Country Club Daily is an historical fact in three flavors. Your indigestion is not from listening to my fair-minded remarks on the food of a particular American city. It's from drinking that gray skim milk this bandit is trying to pass off as a milkshake. "
Alice was Calvin's muse, his cohort in crime, a funny and amazing lady if the books don't lie, and I think their adventures in cuisine will be a model for my own marriage.
Good bye Alice, and thanks for all the meals.