Category: Uncategorized

I didn’t listen to the whole 48 minutes, but the radio show exploration “On Point : Testosterone” covers interesting ground. (Thanks, Ken.)

In the wake of Floyd Landis’s fall, I was curious about two things. First, why did Floyd pass the other tests given during the Tour? Second, why testoterone, which I had understood to be effective over periods of time, but not an instantaneous boost. The answer, I’m told, is in recovery. The radio show mentions that, but doesn’t get into detail. Ken shared a link I don’t have now where someone in the know described putting a testoterone patch on your scrotum for six hours to get the recovery benefit without triggering the doping tests. If that was the method… oops.

The whole thing is disappointing, and cycling is more fragile than baseball in the United States. I don’t agree with Ken when he writes:

I know the sport will survive just as it has moved beyond previous doping scandals like Festina.

Maybe in Europe, but not here in the United States — not enough people cared to begin with. How is OLN (I mean, Versus) going to recoup their investment in broadcasting the Tour (and other bicycle races) over the next few years?

Yesterday’s sneak peek at Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, included Time Machine. This archive/journaling/backup application has a nifty UI, at least in demo mode. We’ll have to wait to see if it’s actually useful or not, but it sells well.

But what I was struck by was that Time Machine appears to be the first popular evocation of Lifestreams, the Eric Freeman and David Gelertner attempt to replace the desktop metaphor from a decade ago. By popular, I mean something that people will actually see and (maybe) use. Gelertner’s software company MirrorWorlds appears to have slipped away, and the domain leads to a parked page. So does Scopeware, which was the name of the company in 2003, when I last noticed this idea in the wild.

I wonder if the ideas really are close enough that Apple had to license any patents?

Update: I was not the only one to make this comparison.

• Steven Berlin Johnson: Leopard First Impressions: The Time Machine
• Dave5: WWDC – A Very Scrabble Christmas (see the footnote)
• Dave Rogers: Mac: Seeing Spots

I’ve been using del.icio.us for most of my quick links these days, but the various items marinating in my inbox at home seem to deserve a bit more attention, if not full individual posts.

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Magnets keep misbehaving collars in line – I’m still a button collar guy, most of the time, but I’m intrigued.

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The Awesome Power of Data Visualization, from Avinash Kaushik, lets me know about Jesse Bachman’s masterpiece Death and Taxes: A visual look at where your taxes go Kaushik

Indeed the true majesty of Jesse’s visual, and testament to the hard work it took, is that it is really easy to understand it with very little explanation…

Making the hard stuff simple… good job!

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I got a copy of Quinn before the lawyers swooped in. I can understand why the cease-and-desist was sent, but the author of Quinn has a point: why him, and not the dozens (hundreds?) of other Tetris derivatives?

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I knew of the practice, in both magazines and books, but never knew the term: castoff. India Amos explains in Making Castoff:

When I’m designing a book now, the most important thing I have to do is make castoff. This means figuring out a way to fit enough words on a page so that the book comes out to the number of pages that were budgeted for.

The continuing description of the process is fascinating, as so many specific trades are when you hear from an eloquent expert.

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I started reading JP Rangaswami a few weeks ago, and I’ve found various posts interesting. Now I have a new book to seek out: Why You Lose at Bridge by S.J. “Skid” Simon, thanks to Four Pillars: On Skid Simon and information

A bridge game is a small market. With conversations underpinned by open standards and conventions. Balancing a mix of collaboration and conversation. Rich in diversity, scaling across cultures, with low barriers to entry. Allowing a serendipitous view of mathematics and luck. Populated by experts and palookas and kibitzers.

Yes, I play bridge (very occasionally, not well), but no, I’ve never heard of Skid Simon either.

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Slashdot thread on What Brings Users to Blogs? makes me wonder if I’ll learn anything new. I haven’t gone through it, but if I saved it this long…

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Michael Hirsh, in Newsweek, on How Bush Makes Enemies. I share a print subscription to Newsweek, but never read it anymore… and it turns out this was a “web-exclusive” anyway!

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This article is behind a registration wall at MediaPost now. The headline was “To Engage An Audience, Sing From The Chorus,” by Mike May on July 27, 2006. I was glad to read that Mike spoke to Dennis Smith (AVP, membership and loyalty at CNET Networks) on the topic.

I got the sense from talking to him that ‘Engagement Czar’ may be a better title for him, as his job is to increase both the quantity of CNET Network members, and the quality of their experience with the sites. He is paying particular attention to user reviews on the sites, and how they contribute to engagement.

One way to do this might be to ensure that as many members as possible read the columns and reviews of as many of CNET’s editors as possible. After all, these are paid professionals whose job it is to hold and articulate opinions on the topics of greatest interest to the site’s visitors. But Dennis is more interested in metrics such as page-turns per visit–and especially return visits–than he is in determining the popularity of individual editors, or even the pull of editors compared to that of community features.

In fact, when asked if it’s more important that members return principally for editor opinions or peer reviews of products, he replied with conviction, “Not. One. Bit.”

Amen, Dennis.

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Hating America, a long, at times rambling, essay about exactly the opposite, from someone who’s spent a lot of time in Guatamela, among other places.

…the willing assumption of the trappings of poverty doesn’t constitute an understanding of poverty any more than dipping your toe in the pool constitutes swimming. This isn’t to say that the experience lacks merit, but it’s important to eventually figure out that you ain’t even looking to take a swim so much as stare at your reflection in the water.

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Leaving me with four emails, representing three tasks… that’s manageable.

In Design Observer, Michael Bierut shares The Mysterious Power of Context, which muses on logo design and fonts, with a larger eye on brand identity. He cites Paul Rand (new to me) in a few sentences which reminds me that some decisions are just not that important in the long run.

In the world of identity design, very few designs mean anything when they’re brand new. A good logo, according to Paul Rand, provides the “pleasure of recognition and the promise of meaning.” The promise, of course, is only fulfilled over time. “It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning,” Rand wrote in 1991. “It derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes.”

When should you agonize over design, logo, language, and each of the individually small, cumulatively large decisions which go into communicating what you offer and what you stand for? My short answer would be: every day, but not for very long.

Keep moving forward. If you keep delivering a service or product of value, you can improve how you explain yourself and how you represent yourself to potential new customers. If you’re not providing value… the rest is just lipstick on a pig.

The often-useful Hawk Wings delivers a useful tip: A Mail.app rule fix for image spam. Just applied at home (email address constant for nearly 10 years = on every list imaginable), and we’ll see.

I’d read The New Yorker article on Wikipedia (thanks, Laura), and last night I read The Atlantic article on same. Looking at my cluttered home inbox, I found my wikipedia contrail, a meme I’m a few weeks late on.

I typed “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/” into my browser and looked to see what came up as autocomplete options–this is all of them.

My home contrail is measly:

• OpenDNS (work)
• James Cook (reading)

Ever since I read about Clearwire a month ago, when the company raised $900 million (!), I’ve been laughing silently at the name of the company. (Yes, I have a strange sense of humor.) The company bills itself as a “Wireless Broadband Internet Service Provider” which makes one wonder about the, ahem, wire in their name. Their logo, though, at least hints at the irony.

I simply must read more Carl Hiaasen. Just plain damn fun. Skinny Dip (2004) has his usual mix of violence, corruption, sex, and just oddness — all set in South Florida, where something drives people crazy (the heat?).

The plight of the Everglades plays a starring role, without ever slowing the story down. Hiaasen almost has too much fun making Chaz Perrone, the incompetent villain, a poster boy for stupidity. What could be crueler than laughing at a would-be killer? Maybe leaving him naked and bleeding in the Everglades, accompanied only by a Vietnam veteran living off the land and suffering flashbacks?

A tangential note: Hiaasen’s Miami, and the Keys, are an era ahead of the west coast of Florida as depicted by Pete Dexter. Hardly feels like the same state…but maybe that’s part of the reality, where urban Florida is truly different than the rest of the state.

I’ve read a few of Patricia Cornwell’s novels about Dr. Kay Scarpetta, most recently The Last Precinct. From an airport book exchange, I picked up Blow Fly (2003), as a big paperback to fill some time on the plane a couple of weeks ago.

Blow Fly did the job quite well, and I left the novel on a bench in Logan Airport for the next reader. Worst part? The idea that someone could escape from death row in a Texas prison so easily. Talk about artistic license. But I read every page just the same. Blow Fly returns to the characters from the Point of Origin (1998) return to haunt Scarpetta and her usual foils. I’ve read that one, too. The titles never stick in my mind, but the general plots do.

Note: Website is all F#$#%ed-up, where F#$#%ed = Flashed. Instead of having a simple URL for each book Cornwell has written, the website throws the entire oeuvre into a single work.html, where you navigate (with difficulty) through a poor scrollbar (part of the 99% bad, per Jakob Nielsen). I’m sure some of this was done as a DRM measure, because the website lets you read the first several pages of each book by flipping the pages in Flash-powered “book” — but the price is too high.

For a book published in 1966, and with a low profile, there are no neutral places to link. So, I’ll skip that step as I try and catch up with the reading I was able to do over the past fortnight. Alan Moorehead’s The Fatal Impact, An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific 1767-1840 is a history of the impact of Western civilization on three Pacific locales: Tahiti, Australia, and “the Antarctic.” The thread tying these places together for Moorehead is Captain James Cook. Cook is the reason I read this book, as I remain fascinated by the great explorers in the golden age of sail. I can’t imagine the foresight, self-control, bravery, focus, stoicism, and drive which powered these men.

Moorehead’s tale is more of a tragedy, though, as you might guess from his use of the word “invasion” in the title. Cook and many (but not all) of those who followed him were not malicious, but culture clash was inevitable. In Australia, the aborigines fared especially poorly, and even today, the legacy is clear (or it was a decade ago, when I visited).

This isn’t a lively read, but it’s not bad for making a point.