September 2000

Peter makes a similar point I was making to someone today: People HATE work. Peter refers to misguided marketing campaigns, whereas I was referring to the popular Internet strategy that says you should create self-service website to let people do the customer service themselves. What crap, the only reason people like this is because they’d…

generosity: group metalog. One of the most interesting blogs I’ve seen in a long time. different. funny. smart. a little dada, a little e.e. cummings-ish. via sylloge

Gloating over my latest stock pick, Qualcomm, which I recently picked up just as it started climbing from the high 60’s. My investing strategy has worked pretty well: only touch companies whose products you’re familiar with, and then analyze them technically, ignoring all the fundamental information. Clearstation is a great site for technical analysis.

Some raw-like-flesh-after-scraping-against-the-pavement reality from the CHI-WEB list: > They don’t like bad things. And if sites have bad things, people won’t go > there. sorry peter, but people like bad things that are useful or have brittany spears on them, and companies like bad things that are profitable and so bad things are good things.…

I had started this pretty long blog entry when my computer crashed, and it’s too late and I’m too tired to reproduce it. A summary: I found the two guys and their work that led to the Microsoft paper clip. Though most people bash the paper clip, I don’t think it’s really that annoying. I’m…

I finaly added permanent links to each entry in my blog thanks to Blogger’s handy HOW TO. I had tried it back in beta and didn’t realize they had finessed it so well. Instead of some cryptic asterisk or other symbol to denote the link, I choose the high affordance “link to this post”. Of…

Very cool “Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design” called Teddy. via peterme (not someone you want to borrow links from without crediting! ;-)

Every time I walk into my local Fresh Fields I think how they picked a great niche and are positioned so well. They appeal to people’s desire to eat well – in regards to health, taste, and quality – without being too upscale or alienating. Some gourmet foods, some organic, some yummy stuff made on…

I keep thinking, and telling people, that the most important thing I’ve learned at work in the past few months is the importance of feedback. A fundamental aspect of communication theory, feedback can help improve systems, people, processes…everything. In communication theory, feedback helps ensure that a message was transmitted. In the same way, we don’t…

New book that explains the evolution of culture through sexual evolution: The Mating Mind : How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature.

Thomas Locke Hobbs (great name, btw) correctly pointed out that, statistically and probability, if polls now show Gore ahead of Bush in my state I can safely let the electoral college cast its votes while I vote for Nader. My fear below is fueled by my denial that the electoral college really still exists; it…

A was going to vote for Nader in order to support the an alternative party in Amercia (if a party receives at least 5% of the vote they are eligible for significant federal funding). Just now some co-workers walked by and uttered the time-worn dictum, “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Damnit,…

Gorgeous Mac clone. When they actually start shipping I’ll start to believe it reliably runs at 1200 MHz.

More great in-yer-face attitude from Phil Greenspun: ArsDigita: Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers

Wow, a whole series of articles on what people say is the one Meeting I Never Miss. I’m liking Fast Company more and more, and letting my Wired subscription expire for the second time. A recent issue of Fast Company actually praised people who removed themselves from the rat race and the tech industry to…