Steve Martin has hosted SNL what, twenty times now or something. As they say, with experience comes comedy. Don’t question it.
SNL with Steve Martin via Hulu.com (again).
Southwest Ding! Revisited
A while back I installed the “Ding!” application from Southwest Airlines. Today, I am uninstalling that application.
While the application does have some upsides, they are not the upsides you want. The app is unobtrusive. This is good for most applications from a simplicity standpoint, but it’s not great to have your users think “at least I don’t have to look at this all the time.” After opening the application from the system tray, where it resides full time, you are greeted to a window with a questionable color palette and one link.
The buttons on the right are not buttons at all, but rather links to Southwest’s airlines. While this program is not malware of any kind, its dishonest design generates worlds of mistrust.
Lastly, the app is not useful for me at all. Every “Ding!” price that I’ve seen so far in the past few weeks has been for a one-way trip. I have no use for one-way tickets. I’m sure there are people out there who do buy one-way tickets on a whim, but they don’t have any immediate family, job, or other commitment to speak of.
If you install this app, it won’t cause any harm beyond taking up space on your machine, but that’s all it did for me.
Mental Noise
Chris Noessel has written an article entitled One Free Interaction which neatly chronicles a new pattern for designers. As users become bored, the mental noise in their head can sometimes translate into a interactive noise. As Chris describes it:
“One free interaction” is a prospective design pattern that gives software and hardware a more humane feel. It exists outside of task flows and the concept of users as task-doers. Instead it sits in the “in between” spaces, suiting users as fidgeters, communicators, and people who play with things.
I am so glad someone has taken the time to document my nervous ticks and give them a name. It makes me feel slightly normal. I regularly do both the page snapback and de-re-selecting interactions. It’s fun.
One small challenge I have is from a purely linguistic standpoint. I believe the term “neutral interaction” to better fit the idea of a completely consequence-free interaction. Apart from a developer’s standpoint I can see the idea of a “free interaction” being more provocative, however it struck me at first of being “free” to implement, which is not the case.
These interactions, “free” or “neutral,” are so satisfying, I want to start building them into all my future projects. They absolutely create a bond between user and software, as Chris notes. The more an action is repeated, the more the software becomes an extension of the user. While I can’t recall any program I’ve made that has reached that level of connection to the user, it is a good goal.
Kindle 2
Amazon has announced the successor to their eBook industry-starting Kindle, the aptly named Kindle 2. As far as crafting an update to a wildly popular product goes, Amazon has done very well here. They have kept the obvious successful features (wireless book downloads, slim form factor, decent screen), and added just a few new features (new button layout, text-to-speech, thinner form factor) for some pizzazz.
eBook readers have been a part of the technology world for over a decade, under many different names. Despite what should be an obvious appeal of taking your entire library with you anywhere you are, they have never taken off until the original Kindle. In my mind the reason for this is the same reason that digital music never really took off until the appearance of the iTunes store: consumers want their name-brand content, not generic content.
The Kindle, and now the Kindle 2, can deliver all the content that is available through bookstores to you quickly and at a much lower price point. And, you don’t need to worry about losing your content if you lose your Kindle; anytime you want to redownload from Amazon it’s right there.
Like Apple updating a wildly popular iPod with a new version to buy, the Kindle 2 will draw in new customers while tempting existing customers to upgrade.
The PowerBook G4 is Officially Obsolete
Technology moves quick, and Apple is not one to let their customers hang on to old products for too long. There are far too many cool, shiny toys to buy, so letting you sit on old and boring, but functional, laptops would be negligent.
To that end Apple has announced that, along with a number of other products, the PowerBook G4 is obsolete. This means that Apple will stop producing replacement parts for this machine.
I’m sorry, sweetheart, but this means that your laptop is official old.
Your Computer Is My Property Too
Cory Doctorow, who is currently not an evil villain, gave a speech a few years back at Microsoft about the effects of DRM (DRM being the technology that prevents you from copying things you own on your computer). His presentation is one side of the argument around copyright protection, given in a very well spoken, convincing manner.
The speech is available online at a site which, in a collosal bit of irony, requires you to use Internet Explorer to view it.
Stella
Stella is an absolutely out-there, gut bustingly funny show based on an established night club routine thought up by three guys. It is the height of random or abstract humor. Every critic I know of spoke very highly of this group of guys. They only made one season.
You can watch it on Hulu here. If you really want I’ve posted what’s probably my favorite episode, or one that I remember being really good, after the break for you to check out. These guys were really ahead of their time, in my opinion.
Google Earth
Google Earth version 5.0 was released today for across all end-user operating systems. What is most striking to me is the fact that in just a few short years, this app has gone from being the most remarkable program running on my machine to an interesting note in the history of maps applications.
Today I have Google Earth on my iPhone, minus some features. After having the whole world in your pocket on the train, having to sit at a desk to zoom in on the crowds at the Eiffel Tower seems impossible. If the functionality that Google Earth provides is not with you when you need it, it is useless. It’s neat to view the oceans, but I live on the land.
Even More Songsmith
After a brief courtship phase with the promo video and David Lee Songsmith, Songsmith is finally being used to destroy the memories of your childhood and replace them with Picasso inspired chimera. You can blame the internet, again, for mixing the vocal tracks with very weird musical backing instruments on all sorts of songs from years past. Everything from the Beatles, to the Police, to Oasis has been broken.
I’ve added some YouTube videos in the rest of the post as exhibits A-D. More examples are available at TechCrunch and Gizmodo.
The Disbarment of Jack Thompson
Jack Thompson was permanently disbarred a while ago, but I wanted to have a reference to some of the court transcripts from the hearings for my own reference. Jack is a very interesting case to me. He has the right motive, but executes in way the wrong way. For those who don’t know, Jack has been an outspoken critic of video games, especially violent video games, prosecuting cases where many people thought the link to video games was tenuous at best.
His tactics, however, were far from Christian (or even humane). He inserted pornography as evidence into cases that it had nothing to do with, would harass by letters and emails his “enemies,” and knowingly lie. But, still, the idea of keeping violent video games out of children’s hands is something that absolutely everyone believes in, especially those who play video games often. Even with a white knight agenda, hate and rhetoric are his legacy. Behold the case of the proud, violent man.
Good Coffee Guide
Lifehacker is a great resource for interesting and clever ways to do normal things. Their recent article on brewing the best coffee struck a chord with me.
I reall love all their advice; it matches up completely with everything I’ve learned so far about brewing coffee. The next step on my coffee journey is to get on of those $200 coffee grinders. Spare change, anyone?
Taken Short Take
This. This is the movie. While I understand that a movie this – awesome – may offend some sensibilities, I must point out how truly great it is. This is a movie that sets up the villains as people you want, no, need to see taken down. Then brother, they get taken down.
It is so intensely satisfying. I highly, highly recommend this movie.
In case you missed it the first time, here’s the trailer that got me hooked. It is still good.
Muxtape
Remember creating mix tapes for your friends, carefully choosing their audio experience? Me neither, but I wish I did. Muxtape endeavors to bring that feeling back for the first time.
They used to be a fast rising star in the internet world until the reality of band labels hit them. It’s an interesting story. Now they seem to be creating a service that if you want in, you have to play by their rules. They are fair rules; fair to the content creators, fair to the users, and fair to the good folks at Muxtape. Independent labels recognize the value in Muxtape and are signing on. Big labels recognize the value, but their lawyers want money first. At some point the business people will hopefully convince the lawyers that the money will come in some other way and roses will bloom on the mountainside and beer will flow from the heavens. It will be sticky.
Google Error Surprisingly Wise
If you happened to try a Google search sometime this morning between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST you would have noticed that every result was marked as potential unsafe to your computer. That’s because Google decided that the entire internet is probably malicious.
Google attempted to fix this problem by unchecking the “entire internet” option on the list of bad sites, rather than actually address the issue at hand. To really fix the internet we’d pretty much have to start all over again with new people. Blogs would definitely be out.