GirlHacker's Random Log

I'm hoping to attend this Stanford Symposium: Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100? It was arranged by the one and only Douglas Hofstadter.
3/31/2000 9:15:22 AM - name='120121'

In response to my link to the car advertising scheme, someone sent me this link to a (rather sarcastic) report on cow advertising. That's putting ads on cows, not running ads for cows. Yes, I think it's a joke. But you never know when things like this may come true.
3/31/2000 9:00:29 AM - name='120090'

(Housekeeping note, sorry!) If I haven't responded to your email in a timely manner, it's because my schedule (and, well, life) has been chock-full the past two weeks. I try to answer all log-related email. But the pile tends to accumulate. So, I apologize for the delay. And that doesn't mean you should stop writing. Logging as a one-way street is particularly unfulfilling. OK, enough. Back to your regularly scheduled log.
3/31/2000 8:54:48 AM - name='120076'

Fresh Air interview with John Cusack. High Fidelity opens today! The most amusing part of the interview was his reaction when he realized he would have to listen to himself in The Sure Thing when Terry played a clip. I guess that's like, um, reading your code from college (or before even!). Kinda painful or humorous depending on your state of mind. At least he didn't have to watch a clip. And although I left post-it notes reminding myself, I forgot that he was scheduled to be on Letterman last night.
3/31/2000 8:42:15 AM - name='120054'

Thursday, March 30, 2000

It freaked me out a bit that just a couple days after I discussed how I would customize my keyboard (when I pointed out the iOpener pizza button), this AOL-customized keyboard popped into my radar. The price is nice ($7.95 s/h plus your email address) and you can ignore the AOL keys of course. You can customize 18 category keys from a list of partners. AOL is going to do a uber-AOL version where all those keys bind to AOL functions. Why don't long-distance companies and pizza delivery places give away free phones with pre-programmed buttons for their services? Or maybe they do and I've just never seen it. Maybe the gain is not worth the cost of a phone.
3/30/2000 1:12:56 AM - name='117336'

Back in college, many moons before the iMac, I decided that it would be cool to collect see-through electronics. So I obtained a clear phone and a clear Logitech mouse. I chortled to myself when the prim & proper girlfriend of a certain MIT guy (I thought he should be dating a geek girl instead -- like me, for instance) told me that my phone was the ugliest thing she had ever seen (she just didn't get why it was cool). I secretly coveted the clear-cased Newtons that, at the time, only internal developers were able to get. I would look at translucent devices at the store and wonder if I really should go completely overboard and buy what was available: clear answering machine, cordless phone, trackball, joystick. But I never added much to my collection, and when see-through things recently became (oh no!) trendy, that killed off any remaining desire I had of pursuing it seriously. However, the one thing I always wondered about was whether I would be able to find a see-through television. So when BrainLog linked to this television the other day, I had a huge urge to buy it. Now that the iMac has made see-through computers a Big Yawn, a translucent TV is really the ultimate.
3/30/2000 12:58:21 AM - name='117326'

Wednesday, March 29, 2000

A couple of Feed links today. First up, an article on PBS' Antiques Roadshow. I used to watch this pretty often. It's an entertaining and educational (well, it is PBS after all) program where people take their heirlooms, garage sale finds, and Aunt Millie's hand knitted tea cozy in to be appraised by experts. There's always the amusing segments with a person who brings in a "genuine Stradivarius" only to find that the bow is worth more than the violin, or the painting found in the attic which turns out to be worthless but the frame is an antique of some worth. Often there's a truly touching moment when someone finds out their mother's porcelain doll is worth thousands because it has some kind of hairdo that collectors drool over. I've also seen the, I assume original, British version which often has some really neat finds (British folks tend to have older antiques hiding out in the barn than us New Worlders).
3/29/2000 12:38:35 AM - name='114949'

Next, a strange article on how cell phones function as dating services in Asian countries. More airwave bandwidth in Asia and Europe has made the use of wireless data services more viable than in the United States where we can barely get enough airspace to talk to each other. So cell phone carriers in Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan can subscribe to services which match them up with other cell phone users in the same vicinity. Some services show you a video feed of the other person talking about what they are looking for in a mate. An interesting use of wireless technology.
3/29/2000 12:28:22 AM - name='114936'

Tuesday, March 28, 2000

Denise Caruso has published her final Digital Commerce column for the New York Times. The column rang the big bell in my head with statements such as: "Today, the only vision required to make zillions of dollars in the Internet economy is nearsightedness." and "Internet companies that ignore the people behind the computers are going to fail." She says VC John Doerr is encouraging "executives to think about starting companies and building products that they believe will change the world, rather than merely amassing wealth." I worry about the shallowness of some of the companies and products being built in the new Internet economy. What corners are they cutting in their design to be first to market and appease investors with the big IPO? How many will be able to sustain their products and live up to their hype? Does it matter if they are truly satisfying their customers if they can spin the right hype to launch their stock? Will the bubble finally burst when all the dot com shareholders realize that they haven't been using the proper criteria to evaluate the success of a company? (appropriately, Denise is starting a non-profit research organization)
3/28/2000 1:45:20 AM - name='112777'

Heard on the radio today that a company (didn't catch the name) in the Bay Area has installed an onsite gas station (which cost them a quarter of a million dollars). They really understand the concept of employee benefits! The gas isn't free, but it's cheaper than usual, and you can have the cost automatically deducted from your paycheck. Awesome. My dream benefits would be: onsite car wash, oil change, massage, and bookstore or fully stocked library (or a monthly credit at an online bookseller -- heck I'd even use it for work-related books).
3/28/2000 1:29:37 AM - name='112754'

The Matrix won a pile of Oscars and Phantom Menace didn't. Yay! There IS a spoon!
3/27/2000 2:11:29 AM - name='110600'

I enjoyed this Time article about how a design economy is taking over America. I've always paid attention to (what I consider) good design so I didn't really notice it was entering the mainstream until I realized I was actually finding elegantly crafted household items at Target. When I finished reading the article, it dawned on me that the web has brought style to software. I wouldn't say that anyone creating traditional application software and certainly not command line UIs (though that's a "fashion" statement of its own now) was interested in style. Applications eventually settled into that standard OS look and feel (Mac, Windows, Unix) which was boringly similar because it needed to be consistent and therefore useable. But the web has brought style to what is essentially becoming the software you primarily use on your system (though in a browser). Most people, the ones new to computers these days, mainly surf the web; that's what they think the computer is. The software they see and use are the web pages they visit. Many developers and designers are paying attention to usability in this new realm, though they often end up compromising with artists or their marketing department or other people who don't "get" the principles of user interaction. I don't think "web apps" will settle into the same visual consistency that a Mac or Windows app has, though there will be common paradigms for interaction. Is this a good thing? Well, it makes the world a more beautiful place. And my hope is that it is provoking more task-centered user interface design instead of "OK, we need to make this look and work like Microsoft Office." It should be all about understanding form and function, as you would when designing a physical object. (article via xblog, which I think is the bees' knees!)
3/27/2000 1:25:44 AM - name='110562'

Sunday, March 26, 2000

Some people tell me I'm easily amused. Once in a while I see what they mean. I downloaded a bunch of these TV Theme Song ring tones for Nokia phones. Just to listen to 'em. For my own amusement. I don't have a Nokia phone. And I'm not sure whether a service like this one is offered in the United States (anyone know?). Ultimately, I suppose if I had an all-in-one PDA + MP3 player + cell phone device, it would be able to play any multimedia or do anything the device was capable of to signal an incoming call. And I would set it to behave differently depending on who was calling. "Why's your PDA meowing?" :-) (link obtained via Kestrel's Nest's link to Craig Charles)
3/26/2000 10:41:51 AM - name='109345'

Saturday, March 25, 2000

I noticed when I was sleeping in late with my cold (which is almost all gone now, thanks!) that I get a lot of telemarketing calls during the day. I assume this happens while I'm at work too (though I suppose the super-spy agents may have their satellites trained on me to see when I am near my home phone), so now I know why I get so many calls on Saturday mornings. The autodial software, having determined that I'm never home during their business hours on weekdays, puts me in the "let's blast her out of bed on Saturday morning" queue. If there's anything worse than getting woken up too early on a weekend morning, it's getting woken up by someone trying to sell you something over the phone. And I keep getting duplicate calls from people trying to sell me the same thing someone else already yakked at me about. That really bugs me. Someone's either writing buggy autodial software or the humans aren't updating the database with the info that I'm not interested. Readers who remember my previous telemarketer rant will note that I have pretty much given up on my "just hang up if there's a pause" strategy, and, indeed, the autodialers are getting smarter. Not a surprise.
3/25/2000 1:40:18 AM - name='107238'

Friday, March 24, 2000

I knew this would happen sooner or later. You can now sell advertising space on your car with Carvertising. Their web site claims $250/month, but I bet that depends on a lot of factors. Still, though, with my awful commute and the large number of wandering eyeballs on those clogged highways, I could probably pull in a pretty hefty fee. It's a captive audience with a very nice income. (via Bird on a Wire)
3/24/2000 1:33:00 AM - name='105106'

From the "unknowingly throwing all my money into the same bucket" department: Iams was purchased by Procter & Gamble back in August '99. Talk about a conglomerate. Here's the press release. I should have figured something was up when I heard the Albertson's ad proclaiming that Iams premium pet food was now available at the supermarket. Pet owners are worried that Iam's formula will change as P&G cuts costs. Apparently, this isn't true. Yet. I always worry about companies cutting costs and not telling consumers. Every time I drink a Nantucket Nectar I check the label to make sure they haven't switched to high fructose corn syrup.
3/24/2000 1:15:58 AM - name='105059'

Thursday, March 23, 2000

Found on Medley (thanks LIM!): an article (speech?) about Diversity in Engineering. It points out that engineering is a creative activity, but the public doesn't see it as such. "Designing a solution that elegantly solves the problem and satisfies the constraints is one of the most creative activities I know." Yes. Yes. Yes. That is where I find much of the joy in my chosen profession. And I would have loved to hear the talk he mentions about "the difficulty women have with a car that has been designed for the 50th-percentile male." I am forever whining about how there is no place to put my purse in the car when it's full of people (the whine, since it usually takes place when I'm driving folks to lunch and I'm therefore hungry and grumpy, takes the form of "If women designed cars...").
3/23/2000 1:32:12 AM - name='102699'

I'm not an extremely environmentally conscious person, but I do hate to see hypocrisy in environmental issues. I was at Eddie Bauer the other day and noticed a stack of pamphlets next to the register. They were foldout pamphlets describing their GLOBAL RELEAF® TREE PROJECT. I was really miffed at how much paper they used to print out the pamphlets and said to the woman at the register "They could have conveyed the same information on one card and saved more of these trees they're talking about!" She replied, in her own miffed tone of voice "But it's printed on recycled paper!" Which prompted me to go off into my often used rant: "REDUCE! Reduce is the first edict! You reduce, reuse and THEN you recycle!!!" She didn't seem to get it, and I calmed myself down and said "Never mind. I'll send corporate an email. Thank you." Argh. So I'll stay on my soapbox for a minute and remind any of you who like to remember these things that when you are purchasing products, if you can't decide what brand to buy, pick the one that has used the least amount of packaging. Notice that some products include boxes around their bottles and others leave off the box. Choose accordingly. (Yes, I realize "soapbox" has suddenly become a bit punny.)
3/23/2000 1:18:37 AM - name='102689'

Wednesday, March 22, 2000

(sick today with sore throat. ouch. late posting, but got lots of sleep! :-)
You may have seen the Philips ad where a couple with a big flat panel TV try placing it in various spots around the house and end up putting it on the ceiling above their bed. That got me thinking about how flat panel displays are changing home decor and furniture design. With an entertainment center, you're usually setting your television on a shelf or you have a big standalone TV. I suspect flat panel TVs are either hung on the wall or stand up like flat panel monitors. And the entertainment center, if you have one, still needs to have some depth for the A/V equipment. Or perhaps they'll start designing A/V equipment sideways and heavily market flat electrostatic speakers and one day all your audio/video (and probably computer/Internet) stuff will be sitting right up against the wall. More room is always good! I'm wondering how much my cat will hate me if I replace my warm, just-the-right-size-for-sleeping-on computer monitor with a flat panel.
3/22/2000 10:58:14 AM - name='101401'

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

The Journal of Mundane Behavior. Its mission is "to recapture the extraordinary essence of our everyday lives". The inaugural edition includes essays on shaving, elevators in Japan, and "plain talk". (found on Yahoo's Weekly Picks, which is actually in straightforward prose this week instead of their usual constructed nonsense.)
3/21/2000 1:33:03 AM - name='98827'

Landon received his $99 (plus shipping) iOpener today so he can start doing that Linux hack. The keyboard has a PIZZA key, which has an icon of a slice of pizza on it, to the right of the spacebar! You can see it on this page. I thought it was hilarious. All the other special keys are on the top of the keyboard, but pizza warranted special placement! Maybe they worried that you'd get so wrapped up in surfing, you'd forget to eat, but the conveniently placed key would remind you that food is just a click away. After all, I wouldn't want someone to sue them for net-addiction induced malnutrition. If I had a customized keyboard, my special keys would be: dial-out to my ISP, log onto Blogger, and automagically clean the kitty litter box.
3/21/2000 1:27:32 AM - name='98823'

Monday, March 20, 2000

Interesting NY Times article: "Difference in News Cycles Is Testing the New Media". It studies how CNBC broke the story of the eBay/Yahoo merger talks and the differences between the ensuing web, cable news, and newspaper reports.
3/20/2000 2:05:54 AM - name='97051'

I like the Clif Luna bar, which is a sports bar designed by and for women. I enjoy it more than the other sporty bars I've tried: Powerbar (yuk), Balance Bars (only Honey Peanut is edible), Clif bars (yummy but dense and too big), Clif Kicks (great size, but still dense and are they still making them?). With a Luna bar I can imagine I'm eating a dense Rice Krispy treat with a yummy chocolate coating on one side. My favorite flavors are the Chocolate Pecan Pie and Nutz Over Chocolate, and I want to try the new S'mores. I've been wondering if men have taken to eating them too since everyone can enjoy the texture and flavor. Or maybe this is like the time I was feeling not-so-peppy and, while scouting around the office for vitamins, was offered "Mega Man" vitamins, which I refused to take after reading that one of the ingredients was "Prostate Glandular". (Just FYI, there isn't any "Ovarian Glandular" in Luna bars.)
3/20/2000 1:59:14 AM - name='97048'

Sunday, March 19, 2000

I bought a beautiful book at Kepler's yesterday. Mapping the Mind, by Rita Carter, has gorgeous graphics, well-written text. It's wonderfully designed and laid out, easy on the eyes. And the information is cutting edge, though I hope that when my kids are my age, it will be laughingly obsolete.
3/19/2000 11:59:41 AM - name='96184'

John Cusack's new movie looks hilariously awesome. High Fidelity opens March 31. From what I can see in the trailer, it looks like John gets to portray his typical John Cusack character again, though this movie's based on a book of the same name, so it's not one he and his pals cooked up together. And, for any women out there who need a reason to drag your boyfriends along, you can intone the three magic words: "Catherine Zeta-Jones".
3/19/2000 11:50:54 AM - name='96170'

Saturday, March 18, 2000

Thailand bans caffeine in six provinces. Guess I won't be going there with any typical hacker friends soon. I assume they serve Thai iced tea and coffee in Thailand too, not just American Thai restaurants. The point of the ban is to curb methamphetamine manufacturing. Maybe they'll just give caffeine the prestige of an illegal drug instead.
3/18/2000 1:24:02 AM - name='94803'

I was reminiscing about the eighties sci-fi show "V" and suddenly realized that even though it was long gone before the web conquered the world, people have probably put up web sites devoted to it. And indeed, the V Web Ring lists 54 sites. This one is pretty cool. In case you're having trouble remembering, perhaps because you were but a wee babe at the time, V was about alien lizard people, "the Visitors", who put on human masks, came to Earth, and pretended to be friendly while they started storing up humans and water to transport back to their own planet for sustanence. The Visitors had excellent PR, even after they were revealed to be lizard-like. Good PR makes all the difference. Those lizard people could've had an astronomical IPO.
3/18/2000 1:14:03 AM - name='94796'

Friday, March 17, 2000

Ford is buying Land Rover from BMW. They already own Jaguar, so their British car collection is growing.
3/17/2000 1:48:58 AM - name='93511'

This New York Times article describes how some doctors are forgoing HMOs and going back to the old style of service. You pay, they treat you. What a novel concept! OK, so many people can't afford to pay for their own medical care, but if this trend gets the attention of insurance companies then maybe the competition will be good for everyone.
3/17/2000 1:41:02 AM - name='93505'

Signs of the times: I noticed today that gas price signs were not really designed to handle numbers over $1.99. If you look closely, you'll see that the $2 range prices don't have decimal points or don't have them in the correct place. The decimal comes with the 1. So tonight I saw a sign that read "Premium: 21.5". If you don't have the opportunity to verify this yourself since your gas prices are nowhere near what we gas guzzling Californians get to pay, count yourself lucky.
3/17/2000 1:37:40 AM - name='93501'

This InformationWeek article has some nice information on women in IT balancing their work and home lives. With understanding employers and flex time, working mothers have a better chance to get ahead, up to a point. You still need to make tough sacrifices at the executive level. Best quote: "women are often good change agents and project managers because they're typically better than men at juggling many responsibilities at once, are frequently better communicators, and are generally better at motivating people through coaching. Women ... are better at listening to different points of view--and in an IT organization, that results in solutions that better meet users' needs."
3/16/2000 3:48:31 AM - name='91839'

A new gadget called the Xenote iTag is a clever marketing device for radio stations and CD merchants. It looks like a car alarm remote, but cooler. When you hear a song on the radio that you want to identify later (assuming you're listening to the station you got the iTag from), you hit the button and it "bookmarks" the song. Later, you hook it up to your computer, upload the tag and get a listing of what songs you've bookmarked, complete, of course, with handy links to purchase the CDs. Candace Murphy at the Mercury News is enraptured, calling it "the coolest invention on the planet". I was skeptical (consumerism, ack!) as I read through how Xenote wants to enable this technology for "bookmarking" products you see and places you go, until I remembered that I use my PalmPilot mostly as an electronic shopping list. When I see or think of things I want to buy, I jot them down with HandyShopper for my next trip to the mall, bookstore, CD store, supermarket, etc. Maybe an instant bookmarker device, with UPC code scanning, would enhance my shopping list capabilities.
3/16/2000 3:38:09 AM - name='91826'

Wednesday, March 15, 2000

The least dullest person I know sent me this URL to the Dull Men's Club. I especially liked the FAQ's description of the difference between dull men and boring men: "Boring men are dull men who actually believe that they are interesting."
3/15/2000 1:48:53 AM - name='89985'

This New York Times article prompted by the Tribune and Times-Mirror merger discusses the new style of multimedia journalism. Reporters are actually providing content to all the various information outlets of their corporation. One story may end up on the radio, Internet, television, and newspapers. This sharing of content and staff keeps costs down, but does give broader exposure in other media to the reporters involved. Of course people are worried that this new process will thin down the news and add further focus on profit margins. The challenge I see is to make the same thing interesting in the different media that it will be presented in. You can use the same information and research, but you can't use the same writing and presentation style for the different outlets. By the way, the Tribune owns a hefty share of the WB Network and TV Food Network, making it partially responsible for my two favorite TV shows: Buffy and "whatever's on the cooking channel".
3/15/2000 1:46:17 AM - name='89983'

Tuesday, March 14, 2000

Need statistics on engineering degrees awarded in the United States? The National Science Foundation has published their studies online, which include statistics on how many women received degrees and also numbers for race/ethnicity. The study Loss of Confidence as a Cause of Field Switching Among Undergraduate Women in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Majors hit pretty close to home: "A recent study shows that many young women bring to their experience of science, mathematics, and engineering (SME) disciplines a pattern of socialization that is entirely different from that of young men." More women base their self-worth on the judgements of others. They seek approval and depend on teachers for reassurance. Without the external reinforcement, women in the sciences are more likely to feel that they are not performing adequately. I hope the next generation of girls makes progress in the area of self-confidence.
3/14/2000 1:00:25 AM - name='88011'

While I was still half asleep, listening to the morning news on the radio, a story about Dan Marino retiring from football morphed in my head into the scary concept of software engineers getting recruited out of college to work in big league startups, working long hours and making millions on stock options, but burning out a few years later with strained wrists and poor vision, and retiring in the prime of their lives. So what if engineers were treated like football or baseball players? Some would be free agents, shopping themselves around to the most alluring companies. Others would be working their way up in the minors, trying to get noticed each year at training camp where they would show off their command of design patterns and the latest web technologies. Then there would be those chained to their companies via stock vesting plans that read just like contracts. But I guess programming isn't a spectator sport. Surely someone would pay me to endorse their caffeinated beverage or Java debugger. Too bad we don't get an off season and have a pro bowl in Hawaii every year.
3/14/2000 12:31:13 AM - name='87987'

This Zero-Footprint-PC, a complete PC in the space of a keyboard, reminded me of my old Commodore 64. That's 64...as in 64KB. Of RAM. Gosh those were the days. Of not much RAM. (via Bryan)
3/13/2000 1:15:48 AM - name='86114'

While unhappily jostling over a newly dug up and poorly refilled strip of road today, a curse escaped from my usually well-behaved mouth: "someone f%&king better be getting DSL because of this!!"
3/13/2000 12:54:21 AM - name='86101'

AromaJet has created an interesting device that emits smells while you are playing a computer game. I've been trying to think of interesting smello-gaming ideas. The Leather Goddesses of Phobos, an old Infocom classic, came with a Scratch 'n' Sniff card. AromaJet suggests a car race with burning rubber and fresh air in the winner's circle. I think there can be something more compelling than that. How about Iron Chef, the computer game? Or how about something nostalgically simple like smelling the cherries in PacMan?
3/13/2000 12:46:29 AM - name='86095'

Sunday, March 12, 2000

The burning question that has been plaguing me for months has finally been answered. The new IKEA in Emeryville, California is opening on APRIL 12! Soon I can stop threatening to rent a U-Haul to trundle down to southern CA for stylish, affordable furnishings. Now the SF Bay area can be on par with Beijing, Prague, and Barcelona -- not to mention Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Burbank. The Emeryville store covers six acres and the commercials announcing its arrival will start soon. I hope the parking lot is big enough. Read more in the Mercury News article. In 1994 IKEA ran the first TV ad featuring a gay couple. IKEA pays attention to the environment, concentrating first on reducing, not just re-using (some companies forget that there's a step before recycling! And it's a step that can impact their bottom line!). Their business goal is "We shall offer a wide range of home-furnishing items of good design and function, at prices so low that the majority of people can afford to buy them." If you want to know more about the history and business of IKEA, there's the book Leading By Design:The IKEA Story.
3/12/2000 9:09:11 AM - name='85166'

Saturday, March 11, 2000

Something scatological: it was kinda nice to find out that guys are just as squeamish in bathroom stalls as women are. I always wondered if it was any different. Apparently not much. Why can't we all just relax and deal? What's that children's book? Oh yes, Everyone Poops. (potty link via running tally)
3/10/2000 2:30:21 AM - name='82399'

There are some new articles up on the Useless Information site. One is about a guy who had some spectacular successes and failures as a rainmaker. My all time favorite is still the story about how Lake Peigneur flowed down a hole and disappeared one day because a Texaco oil rig drilled into a salt mine underneath it. You can also find out how kitty litter came to be and many more fascinating and not too useless tales. It's great fodder for party conversations.
3/10/2000 2:08:32 AM - name='82388'

A friend of mine was complaining that he had to remember to recharge his cell phone, PDA, wireless modem, and laptop. I jokingly said "so, why can't we just use our bodies for batteries like in The Matrix?" He responded in a serious tone of voice, "well then we'd be hairless, a little bit confused, and say 'whoa' a lot."
3/10/2000 1:56:11 AM - name='82385'

What will those clever marketing people think of next? Now you can buy your very own patch of grass in a tin. Funny, they've already been selling something like this for years but for cats.
3/9/2000 3:55:16 AM - name='80994'

The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite I linked to yesterday reminded me of this amusing CERT advisory from a few years back.
3/9/2000 3:46:13 AM - name='80983'

The overwhelming YES on Proposition 22 had me so upset, I decided that in protest I'll never get married. Why should I have any more right to be legally wed than the other guy or guy, gal or gal? Let's all live in sin instead. That should get the religious right upset. OK, so when someone finally waves the 2 carat sapphire in front of my nose (he will, of course, understand how I feel about DeBeers), I suppose we could have a nice commitment ceremony instead, right?
3/9/2000 3:41:33 AM - name='80977'

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

Just in time for all those Pisces and Aries in your life, the Perfect Present Picker. You can specify interests, personality, occupation, age, etc. and get a list of suggested gifts available online. I found some appropriate items I never would have thought to look for.
3/8/2000 1:15:32 AM - name='79344'

Another sign that designer jeans may be making a comeback. What's the sound of one child of the eighties screaming?
3/8/2000 1:10:35 AM - name='79340'

A must-see (long, but fun to skim): the official Internet-Draft for The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS). Choice quotes: "This draft describes a protocol suite which supports an infinite number of monkeys that sit at an infinite number of typewriters in order to determine when they have either produced the entire works of William Shakespeare or a good television show." "Groups of monkeys are physically located in Zone Operations Organizations (ZOOs)." Reference [5] "Dough Re Mi," The Brady Bunch. Original air date January 14, 1972.
3/8/2000 12:59:15 AM - name='79333'

Tuesday, March 7, 2000

Ever the observant one, Seth pointed out the irony in my pointing to the Tipping Point book on Amazon yesterday when Tim O'Reilly had mentioned that same book in his article describing his discussions with Jeff Bezos about that patent issue. Hey, at least I'm not using the Associates program. Oh wait, that's not good because some people think we should take money away from them using their Associates program because they've patented it. Isn't that a little bit hypocritical?
3/7/2000 12:27:21 AM - name='77838'

This Wired article on persuasive computing research was a little disturbing. Stanford researchers at the Persuasive Technology Laboratory "cook up the darkest technology they can imagine." They design technology which taunts jealous wives, tracks if employees wash their hands in the bathroom, and, more positively, teaches men new vocabulary at the urinal. You know someone's going to take that last one and use it to sell advertising instead of increasing male verbal skills. The study of persuasive technology is called "captology" and there's a class at Stanford on it. It's a marketer's dream, but I hope these CS students use their knowledge for good and not evil. Their collaborative projects look promising: studying what makes websites credible, persuading people to take better care of themselves, and persuading people to take care of the environment.
3/7/2000 12:15:54 AM - name='77831'

Monday, March 6, 2000

I've been pondering the cumulative effects of small things. For example, people always get upset about how the sink in public restrooms becomes surrounded by water so that if you lean over it, you get a big horizontal wet stripe across your shirt. They grumble about how inconsiderate people are to leave all that water splashed outside the sink. Well, if you think about it a bit, you realize that there isn't one person who spatters lots of water around the rim. It's actually the accumulated effect of many small drops from lots of people washing their hands. Granted, if everyone was more careful and/or wiped around the sink after they were done, the problem would go away. However, not one person is responsible and you are probably just as responsible as anyone else. The same type of thing happens with the kitchen at work. Not one person is a big slob, but the small bits and pieces from everyone makes us all look like a pack of slovenly beasts by the end of the day. A similar topic, but from a different angle, is covered in the new book The Tipping Point : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (which I'm trying to get to if I can make a dent in the pile of books already on my nightstand).
3/6/2000 12:22:05 AM - name='76438'

Sunday, March 5, 2000

Spotted in the supermarket yesterday: Yo Baby, Stonyfield Farm's new yogurt for babies. This is a marketing ploy taken a bit too far, I think. Then again, I've never raised a baby. Maybe they do need their own specially formulated yogurt in tiny little disposable cups.
3/5/2000 10:11:29 AM - name='75805'

“She has been programmed as 28-years-old, 5-feet 8-inches tall, with a pleasant, quietly intelligent manner.” Who? Ananova, the virtual news anchor developed in England. She looks like she's into heavy eyeliner, collagen injections (bottom lip only), and blue-green hair (I wonder if she has any tattoos). You can apply to be her lookalike. According to this MSNBC article, she's fluent in XML, which is how they will be triggering her various emotional looks: serious, somber, surprise and fun. Hmmm...I wonder which one they'll use for Presidental election coverage. Because traditional BBC English sounded too bossy, she has a "mid-Atlantic" accent. What the heck is that? I bet my geek friends would program their own virtual anchors for their digital devices. Just like how they gather and distill news headlines into their own web portals right now. And then celebrities are going to be upset because people have taken their images and used them to read the news to them on their cell phones!
3/5/2000 10:06:17 AM - name='75802'

Saturday, March 4, 2000

This paper about Graspable User Interfaces is way cool, super-sized food for thought. Of course taking something like this too far could bring us back full circle to how people did things before computers (but with, I guess, instant electronic entry). We need to remember to still take advantage of the power and convenience of the more virtual UI. (via memepool)
3/4/2000 12:47:05 AM - name='74725'

Today someone said to me "Hey check out the cool design competition posted on Slashdot!". Using my sixth sense I said "It's the 5K isn't it?". Indeed it was, and it got on Slashdot because of a Wired article. I said in, I'll admit, a bit of a snobbish tone, "I read about that WEEKS ago on tons of weblogs!" (OK, "weeks" may be exaggerating a bit, but not in Internet time). And the person said "Oh. So does this mean Slashdot isn't cool anymore?" And I replied "You got it! Reading weblogs is WAY COOLER!!" (I realize some people call Slashdot a weblog of sorts, but it's not what I mean when I say "weblog".)
3/4/2000 12:39:18 AM - name='74724'

Friday, March 3, 2000

When all our electronic devices are networked together and communicating, will all our clocks be perfectly in sync, down to the millisecond? Will that be odd having all of us on exactly the same time, albeit in our own time zones? When it's five seconds after the hour in Peoria on Jill's PDA, it will be five seconds after the hour in Honolulu on Jack's microwave oven. No more "Am I late? My watch must be running slow." And maybe my VCR can start taping when the network thinks it's time to start a show. What about all those chronically late people who set their watches fast in hopes of tricking themselves into arriving on time (does that really work?). And will there be those independent types who refuse to buy networked watches and stubbornly keep their own version of time?
3/3/2000 12:56:12 AM - name='73415'

This New York Times article describes a study where some fourth graders will take the essay portion of a standardized exam using traditional pencil and paper and others will use a computer. It worries me a bit that the superintendent of schools says he would have trouble taking a pencil and paper test himself. Have people really become dependent on interacting with computers for the cognitive task of writing? That can't be good. I'm sure it's more convenient, but, while I disagreed with Günter Grass' opinions about not using computers for writing I think we should still be able to write effectively using a writing utensil and paper. The thought process should be in your head, not with the tool.
3/2/2000 12:56:35 AM - name='71972'

Speaking of ergonomics (which I often am), I have been meaning to buy a bottle of Tony and Tina's nail polish in the neato cool Millenium Key. It's a bottle shaped to fit onto your fingers so you don't need to be around a flat surface when you're doing your nails. That's form following function, and I wish someone had thought of it earlier. If only it came in more colors. Heck, if only it came in colors I wanted.
3/2/2000 12:47:12 AM - name='71963'

Wednesday, March 1, 2000

Thanks to /usr/bin/girl I now have the URL for "The Sound of Music: Singalong Special" that I wrote about on 1/10/00. To quote the Simpsons as they encountered wildlife while driving along a country road: Homer: "DOH!"; Marge: "A deer!"; Lisa: "A female deer!".
3/1/2000 9:23:05 AM - name='71009'

From "Days of our Lives: The Startup Edition", a scene, which seems like so many other scenes that involve marketing and engineering attempting to communicate:
Marketing person: "What do you mean, printing is going to be an issue???"
Engineering type: "It's a web-based application!! EVERYTHING is going to be an issue!!!"
(things digress from there, so fade to www.buy-our-soap.com commercial)
3/1/2000 9:17:53 AM - name='70997'