FSP 1.1

BMW iPod control in steering wheel

The first seamless integration of iPod and automobile. Connect with your music like
never before. With the installation of an integrated adapter developed by BMW and
Apple -- now available for the BMW 3 Series, X3 and Z4 -- you can control your
iPod through the existing audio system and multi-function steering wheel. Which
means no loss of power. No loss of sound quality. And no loss of control.

Links: Motoringfile and MacMinute.

Movable, removable armrest

Continental's Jungle Jets have a good feature: almost all armrests can
be retracted -- armrests beside the aisle, armrests beside the window,
included.

This adjustibility makes an otherwise cramped, uncomfortable space much easier
to move around in, and to find a comfortable seating position in.

Thanks FlyerTalk for this tip.

gmail by google

Google knows nothing of its new almost April Fool's joke of an e-mail service.

All mail in one place, easily searchable. That's very desirable.
I expect lot's of Cc: user@gmail.com for a last
resort backup.

Very odd that the launch is on the front page of the New York Times
but not on google.com.

Gmail will be "soft launched," they said, in a manner that Google has followed with other features that it has added to its Web site, with little fanfare and presented initially as a long-running test. --NYT

Click on thumbnail for pop-up enlargement.

Earlier post about

Update 2004 April 02: google finds Gmail, even affording a sponsored link.


Results 1 - 12 of about 17 from google.com for gmail. (0.25 seconds)


Gmail - New From Google
gmail.google.com Introducing a Free Webmail Service: 1000 MB of Storage & Google Search Sponsored Link

Welcome to Gmail


Link: (NYT story 2)

google redesign vs self cache

This week's google interfacelift removed some tabs.
Forgot what the google looked like before the facelift ?
View the google cache.

(As a pedant I observe google disowns its own cache.)

Click on thumbnail for pop-up enlargement.

Yes, I use tabs.

Previously about Google:
google is sixth brand
google adverts' contextual dissonance
better google rankings
brand yourself with google
google spell checking finds the mode
silly google searches
...
all previous posts on google

Audi A6: hit with the Bangle stick ?

Note the ridge between the glass and the door handles.
Note the outward flare above the rocker panel at the bottom of the doors.
Note the absence of any bodylong, bumper-rub-strip to bumper-rub-strip
door edge moulding.
Note the high horizontal seam between the rear fender and rear
bumpercover which begins at the wheel arch.

First is the BMW 5er (e60) which debuted a year ago, and which defines
the mid-200x decade midsize sedan form.

With all the same style follows the new Audi A6, which debuted last month.

Previously:
If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now?
Audi RS6; and Lotus Elise; signing the stop Chris Bangle petition.

Dynamic Three Layer map of NYC

Dynamap of Manhattan uses three interlaced images to display three different
maps of Manhattan -- a street map, a subway map, and one showing landmarks
and neighborhoods -- all onto the same surface. Tilt it to one side and you see the
street map, tilt it another way and you see the subway map. Easily determine
the exact street intersections of subway stops.

Buy your own for $17 from Dynamap.

Coppertone Samples, presidential skin cancer

How many U. S. presidents get skin cancer ?

Ronald Reagan: yes.
George H. W. Bush: yes.
William J . Clinton: yes. ('nose lesion removed').
George W. Bush: yes (' pre-cancerous sun-induced skin lesions')

Time to find my Tilley Brian Fellows' style hat, or get the new ventilated model.

. .

The Tilley webstore is so more satisfying than the broken Coppertone Samples brochureware.

Tilley has a nice fulti-faceted (by name, by use, by sizes, etc) hat chart:

JFK AirTrain opens (Part 1 of ?) -- dream vs reality

The JFK-Jamaica AirTrain, New York City's first transit link
to a city airport opened in December 2003. Here's a comparison
of some architectural drawings to what passengers actually experience.

JFK AirTrain Jamaica station: the dream from kennedyairport.com.

1. The foyer.

1. The Dream:

1. The Reality:

Analysis: It's spaceous, but not as cavernous or illuminated as hoped for.

2. The atrium:

2. Dream:

2. Reality:

Analysis: Again, not as ambiently illuminated as promised, but succeeds
as a directional beakon. If you can see the glowing globe above, you
should probably be walking towards it.

Continued: Part 2: JFK-AirTrain - LIRR Access Information.

Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY

Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES'
flash videos remind me of Bob Dylan's
Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Examples: 1, 2, showcase fast paced
text over sultry Nina Simone vocals.

Parking lot II

Should entire parking lots be paved, or should strips of vegetation remain ?

Minnesota pollution control Agency shows that vegetation and soil's
natural filtration control water polution.

NRDC's stormwater strategies show more pics illustrating similar ideas.

See also Walkable parking lots.

But this is just silly.

More info from Washington State.

Worm art

Computer worms, introduced by silly pictures:

.

NTK would be amused.

In related news,
Microsoft officials say it is not the holes in its software but the people who write
spyware and viruses that are the problem. The end user, they say, is ultimately
responsible for what gets downloaded onto a hard drive.

A nice wait

Santiago Calatrava's Bilbao Sondika airport terminal design almost makes waiting in line a pleasure:

Credit: June Thomas.

Compare to Penn Station, NYC.

Photo credit: lirrcommuters.org.

The BART train station in Millbrae, CA (15 miles south of SF) is BART's latest, and best station. Spacious, airy, and great lines of sight for wayfinding.

Doors Closing, AirTrain, SFO

SFO's new AirTrain.

Doors are closing.
Stand clear of the mechanism. [PhotoFriday].

Driving, NJ, not in a SUV

DRIVING: An S.U.V.? Oh, That's So Over!

The hills around the Vernon Valley in northern New Jersey have curving stretches
of graded, tree-lined back roads, and almost no traffic. It was here that Mitch
Joseph led a group of other car owners on a Sunday afternoon drive. Mr. Joseph,
38, an electrician from Elizabeth, N.J., likes to explore, looking for hidden roads
with what he calls rhythm, and a couple of times a month he shares his
discoveries.

As their all-wheel-drive Subaru Impreza WRX's hugged the twists of the two-lane roads
against a backdrop of autumn's peak display, the scene looked like a car commercial set
to a turbo-charged beat.

''I like the stealth aspect of my car,'' Mr. Joseph said. ''It doesn't look like a sports car, but
it performs like one.''

By ANNA BAHNEY, NYT, 2002 Nov. 11.

The WRX is great. Review forthcoming.

And the rear differential looks lie a mace. Great fetishizable kit.

Here's Keith Casey of Somerset, MA, in his WRX Hatchback/wagon.

Airtrain SFO: follow the signs

SFO's new AirTrain has a nice sign telling us that one day there
will be a skybridge from the train to the terminal.

Signs for the current train-to-terminal trek via tour of the parking
garage are a little crudely drawn.

Silly CostCo maps

CostCo is a warehouse style big box retailer.

The goal is to find a CostCo near you (assume you are in zip code 63011,
or Clarkson Valley, MO).

Search by town and state, or by zip code.
This finds a reasonable list of CostCos.

The results show the CostCo on a map with detailed context,
and the results list each address. All good so far.

Selecting the South Saint Louis link brings a page exclusively about
that particular location.

Note that
1. The location's street (Rusty Road) in not shown on map

2. An exit route from freewys is not shown.
E.g., From I-270, should I exit from I-270, or change to I-55 then exit ?

3. The street (Rusty Road) is different from street listed on previous search
results page (South Lindberg (Lindbergh?).

Apple is much better:

Also good is the map from Pro-Retail.

Better phone synch

.	Apple announces more iSync for mobile phones. Oh, how I wanted this ten years ago. Why program in (type, sort, edit, merge and purge) names and numbers on your phone when I can do it more easily on a computer ? I hope to read reviews soon on PhoneScoop.

Collective upstart architecture

These days, young architects are forming collaborative firms right out of
architecture school; many don't even consider jobs with traditional firms, where
they worry they will have to spend years designing bathrooms and closets.

"Part of the collaborative spirit among younger architects is that they're seeing
what's required to compete in a profession dominated by fame and by track
record," said David Rockwell, who worked with the Think team. In an effort to
gain notice, he said, young architects ? emboldened because they can first
support themselves with computer-based design work ? are banding
together. Goodbye Fountainhead, Hello Kibbutz [NYT].

Dangerous Trees: Trees responsible for 1 in 10 traffic deaths

Trees lining roads take the rap for fatal French crashes
Many `arbres' slated for removal

Critics say booze, speed real culprits

ERIC LAI, LEGAL BRIEFS

YOU CAN'T MISS IT

Les arbres, trees, in France are increasingly being blamed for the country's high
number of traffic deaths, reports the French news magazine L'Express.

Of the 7,643 motoring fatalities recorded in the year 2000, striking a tree was
implicated in 799 cases (or roughly 1 in every 10 deaths).

As a result, between 10,000 and 20,000 trees standing less than two metres
from the roadway are slated for removal.

Critics of the clear-cutting plan charge that the true cause of the traffic fatalities
isn't the trees, but rather driving while impaired and excessive speed.

They urge the government to focus its efforts in those areas.

Nonetheless, some 400,000 trees that line France's roads could ually be
on the chopping block if the initial effort proves successful in reducing roadway
deaths.

2003 Apr. 12, 01:00 AM, The Toronto Star.

s2000 egress

The Honda s2000 is a great car, but easy to get in-and-out-of it's not.

Picture from s2000 owner's association s2ca trip to Suzuka, Japan.

Pulitzer Prizes for Information Graphics

There is no Pulitzer Prizes for Information Graphics, although the
competition recognizes various forms of writing, reporting,
editorial cartooning and photography.

My goal is to compile information from journalists nationwide
to assess how informational graphics are presently used, and how
they were used to help deliver the information in 10 years of
award-winning work.

[From Hili Banjo and Susan Mango Curtis, by way of Edward Tufte]

What's smart about this campaign is that it seeks to involve
leading, Pulitzer-calibre, journalists. A lesser undtertaking
would have just said,

Let there be a prize, donate here.

By involving Puliterian journalists, we avoid launching some marginal
unrecognized award.

Update 2003 April 27: The Webby awards are really marginal --
the gala event is cancelled.

Good: fastmail, technorati, strip door

In praise of clean cut fast web sites with useful content and services.

Today's praise goes to technorati.com's web-watch services, url watching,
link watching, blogdex-like and more.

fastmail.fm is a web based e-mail service with more features and no
obtrusive adverts. Once again, Yahoo! is toast.

And in meatspace, Source Equipment's strip door is praised for being
safe: can see oncoming traffic; and
efficient: keeps heated air or chilled air inside.

Coach pax not walking thru first class

A recent observation on flyertalk:

Boarding a plane is a joke! Everyone piles in, walking through classes of
service they don't belong in -- SHADO

There are worse problems, but I observe that NWA's Boeing 757 service
from SFO to DTW boards at the second door by row 14; from here,
coach is aft and first class is ahead.

NorthWest Airlines: New Livery

I think these new planes look fine, but the logo suggests
a doomsday clock at 10pm.

More like this: Frequent flyer blog, design blog.

[Picture credit: justplanes.com ]

Parking with sidewalk

Parking lots should be surrounded by a perimeter sidewalk striped area
to make end of row spaces usable.

On the top level of the garage on Bay Street, Emeryville, CA.
See Marin County on the right and the Golden Gate Bridge behind the cherry picker.

Compare to parking lots without sidewalks.

Parking lots without sidewalks

Parking lots should be surrounded by a perimeter sidewalk.
Or at least the end spaces should have a paved path beside them.

After these trees grow it will not be possible to exit a car.
And if there weren't trees, there would be mud to walk through.

Near Bay Street, Emeryville, CA.

The clear space beyond the parking stall should be at least half the
width of the space. (With both side doors open, the MINI is wider
than it is long.)

Kanji-riffic

I like situational Kanji. Pictographs created for a specific purpose.
A typical view is that Japanese or Chinese characters are centuries old,
and static.

But in English, new words, phrases and idioms are coined all the time.
Think of a jazz hipster (or a Will Smith song). My view is that new
Kanji can be and are coined all the time. They're just not recognized as
Kanji. Don't you agree, you jiggy bootknocker ?

As logos:

Dogs sniffing

I see a need for cheese- and chocolate-sniffing dogs.

Travelers are being warned not to lock bags they plan to check,
because screeners may be forced to break open locked bags to search
for any suspicious items inside.

In addition, travelers should not place food items inside checked
bags because certain edibles, such as chocolate and cheese, can be
mistaken for explosives by electronic baggage-scanning devices.

[...]

Bomb-sniffing dogs and manual searches will be employed as well,
said Oakland airport spokeswoman Cyndy Johnson.

2002 Dec. 31 Contra Costa Times: New airport bag screening law may cause

Fish Eye View

Good Uses of Macromedia Flash:
Bureau of Reclamation in the Department of the Interior put up a fish eye view
animation of what happens when a fish goes through the proposed fish screen at
Klamath.

Dasher

Silly caption editing 'r' us dept.: (from NTK's flare spotting page.)

Passats look different in Europe:

2002 US model Passat shown below.

I shop at squigglepush

My secondary school maths teacher had a special symbol,
squigglepush, which was used as a wildcard. Whereas x
typically stood for an unknown number, squigglepush stood
for any unknown: could be a number, could be an
operation, could be anything.

The designers branding one of May's department stores
reminded me.

web golf

web golf, noun.

The aspiration to minimize the number of links (clicks) to
get from here to there.

See perl golf, programming contests to find the shortest
program capable of executing a specified task.

top: busy Mac

Is my mac busy ? Here's what top shows:

Processes: 60 total, 6 running, 54 sleeping... 201 threads 00:42:06
Load Avg: 5.47, 4.92, 4.68 CPU usage: 82.0% user, 18.0% sys, 0.0% idle
SharedLibs: num = 109, resident = 11.4M code, 300K data, 444K LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 13359, resident = 347M + 3.39M private, 85.9M shared
PhysMem: 52.4M wired, 302M active, 150M inactive, 505M used, 7.08M free
VM: 4.37G + 47.6M 260002(19) pageins, 378381(0) pageouts

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE

 1752 top          3.8%  0:03.19   1    14    16   352K   268K   608K  1.70M

 1751 ftp          0.0%  0:00.04   1    13    18   116K   280K   344K  1.64M

 1743 ssh          0.0%  0:00.35   1    16    15     0K   320K   156K  1.49M

 1742 sh           0.0%  0:00.02   1    13    13     0K   224K    68K  1.69M

 1741 ssh          0.0%  0:02.76   1    13    18   228K   320K   400K  1.69M

  736 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.31   1    24    15   452K   476K   640K  5.72M

  732 iTunes      21.4% 27:33:57   9   138   208  3.91M  5.66M  7.42M  79.1M

  719 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.35   1    24    15   448K   476K   592K  5.72M

  673 Sherlock     0.0%  1:12.61   2    67   113   224K  1.99M  1024K  67.1M

  652 Navigator   11.6% 26:49:02  24   349  1301   160M  18.5M   175M   501M

  651 Opera 5.0    3.0%  7:45:46   6   120   739  15.4M  9.69M  20.5M   155M 

  585 Help Viewe   0.0%  0:07.28   2    57   114     0K  1.88M   512K  68.6M

  584 Image Capt   0.0%  0:16.91   1    47    37    64K   352K   212K  34.2M

  583 iPhoto       0.0%  1:21.89   2    94   178     0K  2.09M   632K  88.7M

  572 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.65   1    24    15     0K   476K   244K  5.72M

  570 ssh          0.0%  0:55.12   1    13    18   108K   320K   252K  1.69M

  564 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.15   1    24    15     0K   476K    48K  5.72M

  558 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.17   1    24    15     0K   476K   240K  5.72M

  557 setiathome   2.8% 33:37:12   1    13    82  13.6M+  320K  13.7M+ 17.5M+

  552 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.13   1    24    15     0K   476K    48K  5.72M

  551 Terminal     8.9% 63:29.52  10   122   968  3.81M  12.9M  15.5M  84.0M

  418 TruBlueEnv   0.0% 50:03.78  17   209   264   200K   572K   476K  1.06G

  371 Preview      0.0%  0:41.87   3    90   151    24K  2.83M+  832K  82.6M

  369 QuickTime    0.0%  9:00.66   6   111   220    12K  2.15M+  324K  89.4M

  368 Snapz Pro    0.5% 35:54.10   4   109   141   152K  2.42M   868K  73.7M

  326 Internet E  20.7% 11:10:05  10   128   712  36.8M  23.3M+ 47.0M   186M

  325 Fire        15.1% 28:29:32   5   136   457  7.44M  7.13M  13.1M   118M

  323 Mozilla      7.9% 20:40:15   8   125  4545  93.5M  17.6M   108M   462M

  290 hdid         0.0%  0:03.45   1    11    50    28K   240K   108K  2.12M

  284 Transport    0.0%  0:01.46   2    96    86     4K   944K   112K  56.1M

  283 Palm Deskt   0.5% 39:36.69   1    50    64   112K  1.09M   364K  55.7M

  282 iTunesHelp   0.0%  0:01.20   1    46    43     4K   764K    92K  38.2M

  281 SystemUISe   0.1% 37:55.25   3   117   139   784K  2.13M  1.50M  64.2M

  280 Dock         0.0%  1:52.94   3   125   117   624K  2.84M  1.86M  61.2M

  278 Finder       0.0%  3:19.97   2    97   530  3.89M  5.64M  6.22M  99.8M

  272 pbs          0.0%  0:03.46   1    31    27     0K   272K   112K  18.7M

  263 loginwindo   0.0%  0:35.87   7   144   244   588K  1.95M  1.13M  61.1M

  259 cron         0.0%  0:04.03   1     9    15    20K   244K   104K  1.52M

logos go home

Is a logo on a web page a link to 'home' ?

1) Do users expect logos to be linked to the home page rather than just
being a graphical logo?

2) Can a linked logo replace another link labeled "home"?

3) Does placement of the logo matter (e.g. is top-left better)?

4) If a logo is a link, where would users expect it to go?

Here are my assumptions when designing or reviewing sites:

a) A purely graphical logo is great, but a linked logo provides some
additional functionality at little cost.

b) *I think* most users, *when seeing that a logo is a link*, will
expect it to go to the site's home page - there are few other logical
places for it to go. (related to question 4)

c) I've seen some users click on logos, but most will choose a "home"
link first when looking to go "home." (related to questions 1 & 2)

Therefore...

d) You need to have an explicit "home" link - a logo isn't explicit
enough. (related to question 2)

e) Placement always matters - but if you think of the logo-link as a
supplementary link to the "home" link, then it's not that critical from
a navigation point of view - it's likely more important from a branding
and context point of view. (related to question 3)

Research into this would be great, but frankly I don't *need* research
on this issue. In my opinion, there's almost no risk in making a logo
a link - risk enters the equation when people try to eliminate a "home"
link (in main navigation) which I think is patently a Bad Idea. Logos
don't look like main/global navigation -- they look like branding. Use
them for navigation too as a "bonus" -- Good Idea.

Some related research:

Wichita (If you agree that most site's put their logo top-left, then you can
draw the conclusion that most users expect logos to be links home.)

More discussion at ASIA's sigia-l.

Logical book

Sun-Joo Shin, _The Iconic Logic of Peirce's Graphs_
(MIT Press, 2002).

From the publisher's catalog blurb:
"At the dawn of modern logic, Charles S. Peirce invented
two types of logical systems, one symbolic and the other
graphical. In this book Sun-Joo Shin explores the
philosophical roots of the birth of Peirce's Existential
Graphs in his theory of representation and logical
notation. Shin demonstrates that Peirce is the first
philosopher to lay a solid philosophical foundation for
multimodal representation systems.

"Shin analyzes Peirce's well-known, but much-criticized
nonsymbolic representation system. She presents a new
approach to his graphical system based on her discovery
of its unique nature and on a reconstruction of Peirce's
theory of representation. By seeking to understand
graphical systems on their own terms, she uncovers the
reasons why graphical systems, and Existential Graphs in
particular, have been underappreciated among logicians.

Drawing on perspectives from the philosophy of mind,
cognitive science, logic, and computer science, Shin
provides evidence for a genuinely interdisciplinary
project on multimodal reasoning."

Joy to the Mac

One of the bonuses of using Mac OS X is that

M$-Windows-centric adverts posing as error
messages look so out of place that they're
never tempting.

contingency design

Robust software design means designing for when things
go wrong. Testing and validating inputs, conditional
operations depending on how things got messed up all
make software more reliable and enjoyable.

In usability analysis and interaction design, contingency design
means planning for when the user could make a mistake:
catching the mistake, and providing contextual information
to avoid or repair the mistake.

37signals have a good exposition on contingency design.

For instance, isn't the second screen below better than the first:

Breakdown in the Emergency Lane

With disasterous results, Boston has the crazy policy
of allowing traffic to drive on the shoulders of the freeway,
the area normally reserved for emergencies and breakdowns.

See also.

(Note: Massachusetts State "Route 128" is no longer actually that; it is the
local parlance for the Federal Interstate and Defense Highway 95. Be very
aware of this when you drive in a certain State, which has received Billions
in Federal Highway Dollars, called Massachusetts or you may end up like Mr.
Salcedo. These lanes are not marked with any special paint such as Diamonds,
and the signs which list the "open hours" are small and often damaged or
missing. So much for "National Standards"; Highway Engineers: Please don't
"add capacity" to your highways like this.)

FasTrak to privacy

The SF Bay area MTC is planning on using toll-taking transponders to
track drivers on non-toll roads.

[NYT], [BATN], Adam Clymer, New York Times, 2002 August 26.

Phil Agre who was quoted in the Times story responds.

This alternate use of toll-transponders is harly a novel idea:
The local toll authorities are going to install an AVI system at
existing toll points, namely the bridges that link up New Jersey and Brooklyn
to Staten Island. These readers will identify vehicles that are participating
in the AVI system and bill them for using the bridge.

TRANSCOM wants to install more AVI readers every few along the
highways feeding the bridges. Then they want to take the vehicle ID's from the
bridges and notice when they encounter the same vehicle ID's at various points
along the highways. Their computer will then be able to calculate the average
speed of the tagged vehicles and set off an alarm if the average speed is below
some threshold, indicating that there is a traffic incident of some kind
slowing things down. [comp.risks]

And the Times needs a fact checker:
The Golden Gate Bridge toll is a $3, not $2.
The tolls are charged in only one direction (typically towards San Francisco),
so recording direction for toll-taking reasons is moot:

from FasTrak itself, which sends customers monthly statements saying
which bridges they have crossed, with the date, time and direction of
travel.

Back on the topic of privacy, obviously assurances that

We're not going to comply with the California Highway Patrol if for
some reason they ask us to change the policies.
could me more convincing if there were significant penalties for
requesting the info, (and there were assurances that lawful orders to
reveal such info would also be denied).

More info in the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune: 1, 2,
and AP Wire.

You will

This Joel Garreau story [WashingtonPost.com], based on Howard Rheingold's paper
reminds me of an old Suck column on AT+T's You Will.

Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada, accused of massive corruption,
was driven out of power two years ago by smart mobs who swarmed to demonstrations,
alerted by their cell phones, gathering in no time. "It's like pizza delivery,"

Alex Magno, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines,
told The Post at the time. "You can get a rally in 30 minutes -- delivered to you."

"It's a great way to get people who are in offices involved," Christina Bautisto,
who works in Manila's financial district, said of her fellow professionals.

"They don't have to spend all day protesting. They just get a message telling
them when it's starting, and then they take the elevator down to the street.
They can be seen, scream a little and then go back to work."

Time softening
"If you didn't have the cell phone, you'd make more of an effort to be on time,"
says Kaine Kornegay, 21, an intern in the Senate. "It's more socially acceptable
to be late," he says, "because you've given notice that you would be."

"With that, the problem is resolved because the information was transmitted,
although not his physical body," chimes in Ky Nguyen, 30, a Laurel freelance writer.
"There's a level of service agreement," he says.

Just-in-time Partying
Theresa Ward of McLean admits that she now waits until the last minute to make
social commitments, responding to the best offer. "One example, embarrassing
but true -- I was supposed to go to my friend's graduation party and when I
found out about a dollar draft special, at the last minute I ditched my plans
and met other people."

The MTV lifestyle
"If I've shown up and not found the love of my life, not had a love-at-first-sight
experience," at one location, "then I have the opportunity to find out if there are
other s going on where that might happen," says Bernardo Issel, a writer.
"It distracts you from real life that you're engaged in," says Issel. "You're
flitting from one place to another. You're more likely to pursue superficial
engagements rather than deep pursuits. "It contributes to this certain
MTV approach to life where you engage in something for a few minutes
and then there's a commercial.".

In the real world the mobile phone experience is marred by lousy user interfaces,
tiny keyboards, short battery lives, miniscule screens, low resolution, limited
range, underprovisioned networks and spotty coverage, and incompatibilities.

Update 2004 June 13: That's mLife [/.]

MINI logo

Compare Steak and Shake's logo to MINI's logo.

electric chair

Computer desk-chair by Snowcrash.

sorting rules

We had our hands full just making the whole mess usable. It was like getting
blood from a stone trying to make this clunky enterprise software just
communicate workflow appropriately, much less handle a basic thesaurus, or
even a manually created index of some kind. We finally had to give up on the
fancier IA tactics. (ually we considered it a great victory that the
client put its main catalog items in alphabetical order, rather than
ordering them by profit margin!!!) -- Andrew Hinton.

X10

One of the few benefits of using Mac OS X is that with ie 5.1,
the annoying ubiquitous X-10 ads are broken.

screenshot

Colours

Does colour matter ?[NYT].

Coffee, Sir ?

For instance, when you ask for coffee at Zipangu,
a new Japanese restaurant in Greenwich Village,
reality is twisted a bit. The waiter comes to the
table bearing what appears to be a chemistry set.

There is a steel stand supporting a stack of glass
flasks. The round bottom flask is filled with water;
in the top are coffee grounds. A busboy comes
by to place a large wick underneath and lights it.

I felt we should be wearing safety goggles.

Soon, the water starts boiling, the busboy hurries
by to blow out the flame, and then — whoosh! —
the water is sucked up into the coffee grounds.

A few seconds later, it all begins shooting back
down into the round flask. For a second you
pause to wonder why a Japanese restaurant
is serving coffee at all, but the show is so
great, who cares?

AMANDA HESSER.

Compare to Starbuck Utopia

.

New phone

A handset can dial your extension automatically when it detects
sudden room sounds — the world's coolest baby monitor. And,
you can program the ringer to ring more or less loudly after hours.

Siemens Gigaset 4215.

tops

Top posting makes its bid for respectability.

If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure
readers understand when they start to read your response. Since
NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings
from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a
message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone.

But do not include the entire original! -- rfc1855.

Who's that girl ?

When publishing a review of work, always make clear who is

• the reviewer
  
• the author or producer of the reviewed work
  
• the topic of the reviewed work

Of who is this a picture ? a) Michiko Kakutani b) Miranda Carter c) Anhony Blunt

These rules apply to posters and pictures, too.
Matching the pictures of movie stars to the billed names on posters
is often a quite a puzzle.

ANTHONY BLUNT -- The Gay Savant and Traitor With Hardly Enough Closets, by Miranda Carter.

Review by MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NYT, 2002 January 04.

Dance this mess around

Hyperreal has a music classification system.

web logs (server side)

Web log analyzers need to partition logs into

developer's own testing

robots

general public's actual use.

Where it's at

BMW make some very sophisticated cars, some with more than 60 computer systems, and cram 700 functions onto a single rotary push knob ; and among these nifty features is a navigation system. BMW also provides trained technicians and equipment to read the diagnostics for all this equipment.
However, when your BMW is ready to be picked up, the dealer will try to pick you up with a minivan with no navigation system, the minivan driver gets lost for two hours and has an unlisted cell phone number while the service advisors are too busy to return calls within four hours, so it takes longer to retrieve the car than to service it.

Kay mart

Some fantastic systems (like Butler Lampson's and Peter Deutsch's
GENIE OS) were programmed completely on Model 33 Teletypes (at 10
characters a second = 300 baud).

But isn't the real point far from what highly motivated hackers and
scientists can do when they are burning to do? What we are really
interested in is: what is required for those who are not "burning to
do" to get interested and invested in the new literacy? -- Alan Kay

dotted line

Story 1

Published Wednesday, October 24, 2001, in the Contra Costa Times

Botts' dots may go the way of the Edsel

Ubiquitous ceramic highway bumps can't stand up to pounding by heavy
truck traffic

By Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times

...

But the future of the ubiquitous Botts' dot is in question,
particularly in Southern California, where heavy truck traffic is
increasingly turning the ceramic road markers into roadway rubble.

"We have a durability problem," said Larry Ornay, the regional
manager for special crews at the Los Angeles office of the California
Department of Transportation.

It seems the little dot is cracking and crumbling under the weight of
big fast-moving trucks. The same is true of the plastic yellow and
white reflective markers, which are considered the higher-tech
descendants of the Botts' dot.

The life expectancy of the dots and plastic markers has been dropping
steadily, from nearly 10 years to about two. And the future does not
look rosy: Truck traffic is expected to double by 2020 because of
increased cargo coming from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

...

At the Caltrans testing laboratory, the most promising alternative to
the dots seems to be a thick highly reflective paint that contains
bits of recycled glass, said Terry Germany, information officer for
the research lab.

The paint, which resembles toothpaste, can be applied on the pavement
by machine, eliminating the need to put work crews in the path of
fast-moving traffic during installation.

To replicate the dots' rumble-strip effect, Germany said an extra-
thick glob of the paint can be dropped every few feet, creating a
mound of the substance.

But Germany said it could be years before the durability tests on the
goopy reflective paint are completed. If the tests are positive, the
Botts' dot could ually be useful as a paperweight.

[++] the web is no longer an art

design defense ministry

propaganda without purpose

Underemployed webheads make
purposeless propaganda.
But is sure looks nice.

UnPlanned Obsolescence

Search for info, find lot's of Q&A on work arounds for problems since solved.

the end is near

When bands, after being gloriously successful, become cover bands
eg Oasis covering the Beatles, or Guns and Roses covering punk.

TV adverts

If you watch TV, are all the adverts are for painkillers, laxatives, denture adhesives,

cholesterol medications, weedkiller and Chevrolets ? If marketers really understood

my demographic segment, they would push STOLICHNAYAÆ, Bang & Olufson,

and BMW ///M.