IMDb :: Boards :: Underworld (2003/I) is the prototypical message board thread, complete with every type of board denizen, including the troll, the flamer, and helpful citizen, the rabid fan and many others. if I ever wanted to show clients the reality of what their message boards will become, i might choose this thread.
Saw Spellbound tonight. Very good film, plus I learned a very useful word for my little problem: logorrhea
innovation is a byproduct of an unfettered pursuit of excellence.
i wish instead of previous and next when mail is sorted chronologically they would use older and newer. bah.
using squirelmail-- i could write an insulting sonnet about squirelmail.
Joel on Software - Getting Your Résumé Read is just right on. Very smart article on how to actually get to the interview. And very true for the hiring I'm working on at Yahoo! You would not believe what a short time we spend on each resume-- there are just too many of them. So it is critical to make the resume look perfect for the job you are applying for.
On the other hand, unlike Joel, I don't mind if you ask if I Yahoo!
Reading On comments and weblogs -
"With the proliferation of commenting-ability in today's weblog tools, it might make sense for people to think a bit before blindly turning on comments, whether for an individual or group blog."
it does occur to me most folks really don't have to think this hard-- you have to get some serious traffic to generate the kind of comments that causes the work she describes-- but it's a thoughtful post nonce.
The best UI critique of Orkut (IMO), but also he's right about the pointlessness, He's right about ownership, he's right about the interaction and this is what it looks like.
YASNS stands for Yet Another Social Networking Service and Orkut is clearly YASNS. With emphasis on the YA.
Three days in I'm wondering why bother?
BTW, I won't invite you if I don't know you/know of you-- I feel like social networks are broken by "false connections."
but you can buy your way in....
I'm supposed to be writing all weekend. and so I'm ducking, returning, ducking. sigh.
A while back, Peter Merholz, Noel Franus and I hosted/organized a User Experience Cocktail hour. It began as an IA cocktail hour, but became inclusive of User Experiences, as inclusiveness made for better discussions, including better discussions about IA.
However, the list was hosted on some quite buggy software, and Noel has just managed to extract the original list. I've requested folks resign up here:
Bayue Info Page. This is stable technology, and Boxes and Arrows is not going anywhere soon, and we're unaffliated wiht any company, so it should be a happy home for anyone to post and receive messages about either Peter Merholz's beginning of an UE Salon, Brad Lauster's reviving of the Cocktail hour, John Zapolski's exciting UX gathering, my UE Manger's gathering or any other related IA/UE event.
So if you are in the bay area (i.e. near San Francisco), go ahead and sign up. Hopefully we'll see each other soon!
i travel a lot, but not that many places, it seems
MORE...Philippe and I have been discussion entrepreneurship lately. I suspect it has a lot to do with not being able to stand having a boss. He sent me this fable. How many start-ups begin because of this? We always think they are chasing money, but I think that they would rather "starve free."
THE DOG AND THE WOLF, FABLES by Aesop
A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to
meet a House-dog who was passing by. "Ah, Cousin," said the Dog.
"I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin
of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food
regularly given to you?"
"I would have no objection," said the Wolf, "if I could only
get a place."
"I will easily arrange that for you," said the Dog; "come with
me to my master and you shall share my work."
So the Wolf and the Dog went towards the town together. On
the way there the Wolf noticed that the hair on a certain part of
the Dog's neck was very much worn away, so he asked him how that
had come about.
"Oh, it is nothing," said the Dog. "That is only the place
where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up; it
chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it."
"Is that all?" said the Wolf. "Then good-bye to you, Master
Dog."
Better starve free than be a fat slave.
MORE...Philippe sent me Spirit Relays Self-Examination Data Back to Earth, commenting that the rover is acting like a bad child.
"Despite repeated "go to bed" orders from controllers here at JPL, the Spirit rover refuses to listen to parental command. "
machines are getting smarter and smarter-- and more willful.
AIFIA | Workshop: IA Summit 2004
"What are the key concepts that underlie a successful content management effort? How can content management environments better serve the needs of their various audiences? What strategies and techniques can information architects use to effectively meet content management objectives?"
ARGH! AIfIA, take me awy! I must know all this and so much more!
I'm hurting with spam. I'm looking for help.
I foudnthis facinating descriptio fo how one tool works: SpamBayes: Bayesian anti-spam classifier written in Python.
"The system then uses these clues to examine new messages.
For instance, the word "Nigeria" appears often in spam, so you could use a spam filter which identifies anything with that word in it as spam. But what if your business involves writing a guidebook on Nigerian Wildlife Conservation? Clearly a more flexible approach is necessary. Additionally spammers will adapt their content over time and will no longer use the word "Nigeria" (or the words "Lose Weight Fast", or any number of other common lines). Ideally the software will be able to adapt as the spam changes.
So, that is what SpamBayes does. It compares the spam and the ham and calculates probabilities. "
past summits were so fun -- oh yeah, and informative -- I am getting very very excited about Austin...
"In the past I've wondered about how taxonomies become navigation and did the taxonomy dance to match the bottom-up to the top-down, and now I wonder if this whole way of thinking about information architecture is flawed. "
Which is why Indi Young's Information Architecture from Mental Models is such a useful technique. It at least helps one see the gap betweenuser design and design.
Though very little is discussed about task based classification vs. topic based classification, and how they might interrelate (though if you've seen something, please post a link.) A navigation system is so much more than the inverted L... related links, shortcuts, contextual linking. And yet the inverted L, or whatever form it might take (stacked X&Y is a common variation) is still the safty net, the freeway for when you want to zoom somewhere, the way to get home when you are lost.
just a thoughtwander, maybe I'll see if I can get somewhere coherent later with this...
but yes, victor, keep pondering.
From an interview with Wim Gilles in Origin of Things, reviewed previously (line breaks mine, to aid reading):
"How did you Design then, at the time?
Do you know the term heuristics? In science you pose a hypothesis, and it is true as long as you cannot prove that it isn't (this is Karl Popper's theory.) Science is therefore a process of verification. That is a bit of traditional scientific thinking, to draw a conclusion on the basis of establishing a few facts, and to deduce from all the facts that there appears to be a general rule. We call that a law.
Heuristics is based on a known piece of information. If you're a carpenter, it is known (by passed down information) that you don't hold a nail by its point, but rather with the point downwards. That has never been proved scientifically. You just do it like that. You'll discover if it doesn't work.
That is heuristics, an ancient Greek way of doing things that has been denied by science for centuries. You just do something. It's a matter of trial and error. These is therefore a heuristics school and I belong to that school."
Can a book be deeply flawed and still be worth having? The Origin of Things delights and disappoints with every page. The book consists of a collection of design objects across the years, along with the sketches and related items used to achieve their final design, and the images are fascinating. The lowly paperclip is photographed as lovingly as the Frank Lloyd Wright vase, giving the paperclip the warhol-icon treatment and revealing its inherent beauty.
The text, however, fails the magnificent objects. It's often incomplete, obtuse, or dry. The result is a tease that either makes you hunger for more, or mystifies, leaving you alone to decifer the drawings and results. Sometimes reading a dry but more complete text, one sense a thrilling story behind the design process-- such as with Wim Gilles scooterette project, in which he fought to do a personal project to build a lightweight folding scooter/moped that got to final prototype then was killed preproduction-- but the story doesn't keep up with the photographs. Not bad, but unsatisfying.
However, I've really enjoyed the book, no matter how disappointed I've been with an incomplete story, because it is so neat to look at beautiful, well crafted objects and their creation artifacts: the prototype kettle made of two pans soldered together, the x-rays that informed a silverware set, the raw and elegant drawings that became Lloyd Wright's vases.
Decide for yourself.
For Photo Friday: a bit of pool playing. Andi is a thing of beauty in motion when taking money from strange men...
from HBS Working Knowledge: Innovation: Sometimes Success Begins at Failure
"If you can't predict, learn how to react "
From Best Practices and Case Studies: Be Very Afraid
"This story reminds me of a warning I received when I was young -- your parents probably said something like this to you, too (after you did something stupid with friends) -- If Johnny jumped off a cliff, does that mean you should too?
That idea is not too different from that of best practices and the case studies of other companies’ successes. In fact, something might have worked well for one of your competitors or another company. But does that mean you should do the same, and will you get the same results? Following in the footsteps of other companies is called mimicry, and while it might be flattering, it is often very dangerous. "
It's a good article, tailor-made for forwarding to those who want to play it safe by copying.
From Google Fans Fill Web With Buzz Over IPO (TechNews.com)
"As a public company, "if they are not developing a particular product and their competitor has it, they may feel pressure to go in that direction to please investors," said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, a site that provides analysis of the search industry. "It's 'I've got to keep up with the Joneses whether or not the Joneses are doing the right thing.' Right now they have the luxury of avoiding that." "
Yup-- it's a lot more than just paying the piper....
Long before Movabletype or Blogger, long before Peterme said the word 'blog" was Yahoo! Picks.. starting back in 1995, it's now an amazing guide ot what is-- and was-- cool on the web for the last 8 years. Yahoo's Picks of the Week for 8-13-95 | Yahoo's picks for Today
What's your favorite book on designing interfaces, either web or software?
I'm strangely delighted to find Art Instruction Schools has made it to the web.
John shares his article tool comparison chart. This is a handy little fellow, and a great companion to the growing collection over at widgetopia.
While there were not a lot of surprises in this interview, if you have followed RSW at all, this sentence still resonated: "I am astonished that my doing what I want to do every day hasn't inspired more people to do the same. "
Why not? All indications are that if we follow our passion, we are more likely to be successful. The leaders are always those who follow their bliss. It's not a guarantee, but it does seem to be a prerequisite. And why not? We only get a handful of years on this earth, why waste them?
A little robot made a perfect landing on mars and my husband went crazy. For ten years of his life, on and off, he's worked on a instrument that now has a good chance at the 2009 mission. If NASA had failed, the next mission-- and my husband's dream-- would have been in danger of never happening. Now he watches Nova like a little kid: I know that guy! I've been there! Look at that animation! Wow! Look, Ames!
I sit on the couch, trying to imagine it: a decade of your life working on a piece of machinery, dreaming of the moment it finds its use, fearful some american idiot who can't convert metrics to imperial may blow it for you-- then the tension is over and nothing is left but a sense of wonder as the pictures begin to arrive...
I'm writing today. mouf mouf mouf. I forgot what a wrestling job it is.
here I am:
I write a paragraph. Gosh I'm cold; I think I'll make tea. Wow look at all those dishes I sure should wash them... wait, I need to write. I write a sentence-- hey, i'll check mail, wow, that looks like it needs my attention and oh, i can't believe i didn't respond to that mail... tea kettle whistles-- oh, i'm supposed to be writing, but first the tea. I write a paragraph, whew, I deserve a cheese stick. Hey, the dryer stopped. I'd better fold laundry and start a new load.. Oh, i should be writing, I'll just go do that and hey, I haven't blogged in a while, maybe a quick entry on...
Hey I should be writing....
or I could go to amazon to find this book
instead of playing with photoshop filters
Triplettes de Belleville, Les (2003)
loved it loved it loved it and can't stop listening to the title song. Don't worry about subtitles-- there are almost no words. And you don't miss them. Strange weird not-for-kids animation; compelling story, bizarre vignettes and ultimately delightful overall.
Of course, with a movie this odd, your mileage may vary.
from ASTD Linking People, Learning & Performance
"Knowledge is messy. Because knowledge is connected to everything else, you can't isolate the knowledge aspect of anything neatly. In the knowledge universe, you can't pay attention to just one factor. "
sweet little article deunking most of the mistakes people make when they try to fix their KM problems...
from Darwinian Processes and Memes in Architecture: A Memetic Theory of Modernism
"Darwinian selection also explains why non-adaptive minimalist forms of the modernist style have been so successful at proliferating. The reason is because they act like simple biological entities such as viruses, which replicate much faster than do more complex life forms. Simple visual memes thus parasitize the ordered complexity of the built environment."
lot of crimes against humanity out there-- makes sense thereis a virus at work
