SIGNAL VS. NOISE

Game Blogs

Bloggers are starting to get creative. Check out PuzzleBlog (a take-off on Scrabble) and Babble (a third-party bastard child of Scrabble and Boggle).

Thirty Days Hath September...

...and thus my flame becomes an ember.

Thanks to 37signals for asking me to be guest poster this month. I bet that when Jason told me I could post about "anything," he never dreamed we'd all be discussing our favorite breakfast cereals.

During the past few months, I've been working in my spare time on a new site (with a simple CSS layout modified from one of the Bluerobot templates) for some nature journals and sketchbooks that I did when I was 12-15 years old, way back in the 1970s. I'm still pretty much an amateur when it comes to Web design and coding, so if anyone wants take a quick look and give me suggestions for improvements or fixes, I'd be grateful! Thanks again.

Go Cubs

Hats off to Dusty Baker for turning the Cubs (last year = abysmal) into a playoff team. Best coaching job I've seen in Chicago since Gary Barnett took the perenially awful Northwestern U. football program to the Rose Bowl.

I'm especially happy for my friend Schott who's the biggest Cubs fan I know. He was at Saturday's pennant clinching doubleheader and had this to say about it:

Saturday was a glorious day -- 15 innings of drinking, I caught a foul ball hit by the last batter in the first game, Ryne Sandberg signed my scorecard, and Cubs win the division. If I never go to another game again, it's a'ight.

Jakob the Conqueror

More people would probably take Jakob Nielsen seriously if he didn't have such a high opinion of himself. In today's Alertbox, he takes stock of what he views as his major victories in the battle to "stand up for what's right and defend humans from overly complex technology." A noble cause to be sure, but is he taking too much credit? He writes:

In what might be its most striking victory, the Alertbox ushered in the decline of the glamour design agency. Sure, there are still a few glamour agencies left, and a company that wants to waste money on an unworkable website can easily find designers eager to take the money in exchange for a beautiful, if useless, site. But the average Web design agency pays attention to usability these days....

Similarly, the Alertbox was instrumental in changing the strategy for Flash from annoying users to building useful Internet-based applications.

There's no denying that Nielsen has been a leading force in the quest to improve Web usability, but here he makes it sound like a lone crusade. What do you think?

In Praise of Shadows

Eating at a Japanese restaurant the other day, looking at the bare walls unadorned by paintings, I was reminded of this wonderful essay by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. In it, he notes that "the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows--it has nothing else."

Westerners are amazed at the simplicity of Japanese rooms, perceiving in them no more than ashen walls bereft of ornament. Their reaction is understandable, but it betrays a failure to comprehend the mystery of shadows. Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun can at best but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build on a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of a room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose.

Tanizaki's piece is also available in Philip Lopate's anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, which is full of great stuff, but at nearly 800 pages it's hard to read in bed unless you have biceps like Don Schenck's.

Bamboo, Pergo, Other?

I'm considering putting in new "wood-like" flooring in my bedroom, but I'm trying to avoid using real wood. Has anyone has any experience with bamboo flooring or Pergo? How's the look/feel? I think I'm leaning towards bamboo (I prefer the look and renewable nature of the material). Thanks.

Un-Apple-Like

So, we just got one of the new 15" Powerbooks and a 17" iMac. Love the machines. They're great exept for one tiny thing -- in order to install more RAM, you need to unscrew little hatches that are secured by microscopic Philips 00-size screws. The previous generation 15" Titanium Powerbook didn't require any tools -- you just popped the keyboard off and the RAM slot was right there. On the previous generation flat panel iMac, standard-sized Philips screws were used. But now I have to find/buy a brand new tool to install more RAM in these machines, and finding a 00-size screwdriver is turning out to be quite a challenge.

Now, I realize that you don't have to install RAM all that often, but Apple has made it markedly more difficult to upgrade the new machines when compared to the older ones. And, while I understand there are engineering and design tradeoffs in any new design, this new 00-size requirement is a step backward instead of forward. That's all.

Only On Wall Street

What's the opposite of buy? Underweight of course.

"There's no question their payout ratio was too high, but this cut was still heavier than we expected," said Jack L. Kelly, an analyst at Goldman Sachs who rates the shares as underweight, the equivalent of sell. [from this NY Times article on Kodak]

Good Company, Bad Site

Compass Records is a rarity in the music industry: a record company with a good reputation among working musicians. That's why it hurts to see them saddled with this newly redesigned site, which looks nice enough until you start trying to use it.

Browsing by genre takes you to a page like this. First, mouse over those colored buttons to the right of "genres." See any alt text to indicate what genre is represented by each color? Nope. They're useless as a navigation device. And there's no alt text for the long row of album cover thumbnails down at the bottom either.

Okay, let's check out an artist's page. The brilliant British singer Kate Rusby's page is lovely to look at, but again, there's no alt text for the album covers so you just have to click randomly to find the CD you're looking for. The lack of forethought in this approach becomes even more evident when you go to the page of an artist who has lots of recordings, such as Paul Brady. This site won't stop me from buying records on the Compass label, but I guess in future I'll buy them through Amazon.

Atkins Diet

The Atkins Diet: Good or Bad? I know a few people who have lost a lot of weight extremely quickly on it. They eat tons of fat, don't exercise, and still shed pounds (perfect diet for our culture, eh?). Seems like it might be more than just a fad. Yet I can't shake the idea that it just ain't right.

Macromedia vs. Apple

Macromedia Central (cross-platform) to take on Apple Sherlock (Mac only). What's interesting about Macromedia Central is that it appears to be reviving the old "Push Technology" phenomenon (content coming to you instead of you going to have to look for it). Or am I reading it wrong?

Espresso

A poem by Tomas Transtrmer, as translated by May Swenson

Black coffee at sidewalk cafs
with chairs and tables like gaudy insects.

It is a precious sip we intercept
filled with the same strength as Yes and No.

It is fetched out of gloomy kitchens
and looks into the sun without blinking.

In daylight a dot of wholesome black
quickly drained by the wan patron...

Like those black drops of profundity
sometimes absorbed by the soul

that give us a healthy push: Go!
The courage to open our eyes.

Special Characters

A guide to typing accented letters in Mac, Windows, and HTML. Olé.

Table Highlighting at Orbitz

Orbitz' "flex search" offers a helpful feature where you can specify additional dates to include in your search (e.g. 1 day before and after the date you submit). The results screen comes with an excellent use of table cell highlighting -- example screenshot here. Rollover a cell containing one of the prices and it lights up that cell as well as the relevant arrival/departure date cells. While a lot of table rollovers on the Web seem gratuitous, this one truly is, er, illuminating.

Shopping.com Redesign LAUNCH

We're thrilled to announce the launch of our latest total-redesign project: Shopping.com (which was previously known as DealTime, which recently acquired Epinions). Shopping.com is the web's #1 comparison shopping site.

While the colors are bold, the layouts are clean, quick, and uncluttered. We worked closely with their sharp, highly-customer-focused internal team and key executives to remove all that wasn't necessary. We used larger type sizes to help people focus on what's really important, reduced the number of table columns by consolidating related data, centered the logo and tabs to help balance the stretchy layout, and incorporated "interstitial help/suggestion rows" (scroll down a bit on this page to see the "Want to compare products side-by-side?" row) to help inform people of useful features in an integrated, useful way. Oh, and plenty more ;)

There's more work to be done, and more screens to improve/redesign/launch, but kudos to Shopping.com for seeing the value in simplicity, clarity, and utility. Any and all comments would be appreciated as we move into Phase 2 of the redesign. The big wigs at Shopping.com will be checking this post often so let them know what you think.

The Challenge of Designing the "Blank Slate"

We're currently working on a web-based application that will start off with no data, but will grow and "organize itself" quickly as more and more people use it. When we designed the UI, we designed it as if it was flush with data. Data everywhere. Data in every list, every post, every field, every nook and cranny. And it looks and works great.

However, the natural state of the app is that it's devoid of data. When someone signs up, they are basically starting with a blank slate. Much like a weblog, it's up to them to populate it -- the overall look and feel doesn't quite take shape until it full of posts, data, comments, sidebar info, etc.

Unfortunately, the customer will decide if they like the application at this blank slate stage -- the stage when there's the least amount of information, design, and content on which to judge the overall usefullness of the application. In other words, they won't know what they are missing because everything is missing.

Over the years I've noticed that most designers and developers take this blank slate stage for granted. They never really spend a lot of time designing for the blank slate because when they develop/use the app, it's flush with data (for testing purposes). Sure, they may log-in as a new person a few times, but the majority of their time is spent swimming in an app that is full of data. Unfortunately, every single customer sees the blank slate before they see the "full slate." They base their opinion of the app/site on the blank slate. Ignoring the blank slate stage is one of the biggest mistakes a designer/developer can make.

We've decided to use the blank slate stage as an opportunity to insert quick tutorials, help blurbs, and even links to example screenshots to get people started. If you haven't posted anything yet, we briefly explain how to get started, what a post will look like, etc. We've found that these little vignettes really help people get started. They set expectations and help reduce frustration, intimidation, and overall confusion. They work.

How have you handled the blank slate stage on your own projects?

When Low Means High

Why are gas prices at near record highs when oil prices are at 4 month lows? 92/93 octaine Premium is around $2.20/gal here in Chicago. Of interest: How Gas Prices Work.

Misto

There are few things more satisfying than being motivated.

BloggingWorks Update

Just a few weeks (and a few seats) remain until the BloggingWorks Blogging For Business Workshop on October 3rd. Check out the Agenda & Register Today! BTW: Anil Dash from SixApart will be on hand if you have any specific questions about Movable Type or TypePad. According to Anil, "We're also planning to offer TypePad discounts to attendees who wish to give the service a try." So, don't miss this special BloggingWorks event. See you on the third.

Airline Industry Jargon

I received an e-mail from United Airlines today. It started this way:

We're pleased to announce more details on our low cost carrier, an operation that will complement our current mainline fleet. The new operation will launch in Denver during the first quarter of 2004 and will serve predominantly leisure markets with optimal connectivity to other United flights within our network. A more simplified fare structure will provide low-cost business and leisure fare options.

Mainline fleet? Leisure markets? Optimal connectivity? Fare structure? Sounds good if I'm an airline industry expert. But someone's asleep in the cockpit if this sort of jargon-heavy copy is going out to regular consumers.

Car Horns

Did you ever stop to think that someone actually has to decide what a car will sound like? There are some obvious rules--small cars must have higher-pitched horns than large cars--but beyond that a good designer will want to ensure that the tonal quality of the horn is in keeping with the vehicle's overall character. The original Volkswagen Beetle's horn matched the car perfectly: a nasal, round ball of a beep, exactly the sound you'd expect to come from a car shaped like that.

Most mid-sized American cars sound pretty much the same, which makes sense because well, they all look pretty much the same. There tends to be more diversity in sound among European cars and specialty vehicles. I've never heard the horns of some vehicles: what does a Hummer sound like? Or a Mini Cooper? I wish there were an online Car Horn Museum where you could listen to the horns of all the cars you've ever had; it would be quite a nostalgia trip.

Verisign Wants Your Misspellings

Slashdot and many others are reporting that Verisign is now redirecting misspelled domain names to its new "Site Finder" service. According to their implementation overview (PDF) Verisign's rationale can be summed up accordingly:

Verisign's Site Finder service improves the user web browsing experience when the user has submitted a query for a non-existent second-level domain in the .com and .net top-level domains. Before this service was implemented, when a user entered a URL containing a non-existent (e.g. unregistered) domain name ending in .com or .net, his or her web browser returned an error message that contained no useful information. With the rollout of Site Finder, in the same situation users now receive a helpful web page offering links to possible intended destinations and allowing an internet search.

Now, I'm all for giving users a chance to get back on track efficiently, but this stinks of marketing opportunism. Whereas before you could use IE if you wanted such assistance or Mozilla/Safari if you did not, Verisign is taking this "help" up the food chain and out of your hands. Additionally, your FTP, SSH, Ping, and Traceroute queries to incorrect domains will now all register that you connected to the host you asked for rather than returning "host unknown." Thanks for complicating our troubleshooting, Verisign!

Quick TV Commercial Request

Does anyone have a quicktime version of that E*Trade TV commercial a few years back where the guy is sitting in his home watching the charts go up then down then up then down and then he freaks out and jumps out the first floor window and lands in the front lawn? I really need it. Thanks!

Bill, Jack, and Leon

Two things the web is great for: movie trailers and music videos. Did anyone see "Lost In Translation" yet? Oscar season will be a whole lot more palatable if Bill Murray is involved.

Jack White is (intentionally?) looking more and more like Johnny Depp's character in "Dead Man" (see "The Hardest Button to Button" video). The visual style reminds me a lot of the scrolling interface that is used during digital recording.

Meanwhile, if the hair of new It band Kings of Leon (check out the "Molly's Chambers" video) is any indication, 70's feather will be the new hipster rage. Also, first time I've seen a band offering its own buddy icons (too bad the site's such a muck to navigate).

Great Hot Sauce

I'm a bit of a hot sauce connoisseur (or at least I think I am). This weekend I discovered a new favorite -- Cafe Louisiane. The key seems to be the inclusion of the following ingredients: Cinnamon, Cloves, Allspice. The flavors and the heat are perfect together. Got any other hot sauce favorites?

Hawks in the Sky

Every September, millions of hawks migrate from their Northern Hemisphere breeding grounds to overwinter in the tropics of South America, Africa, and Asia. In central and eastern North America, the flights tend to concentrate along the Great Lakes, the Appalachian Mountains, and the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Over the years, people have discovered lookouts on the flight path where you can sometimes see tens of thousands of hawks pass overhead in a single day. Mid-September is the peak time for broad-winged hawks, the most numerous migrant. At Holiday Beach in southwestern Ontario, observers counted more than 95,000 broad-wings on September 15, 1984.

Other prominent hawkwatches include the famous Hawk Mountain, in Kempton, Pennsylvania, and a few sites along the Texas coast and in Veracruz, Mexico where single-day counts for broad-wings frequently reach well into the hundreds of thousands. You can find current data from North American hawkwatches here. If you live near one of these places, play hooky from work on a sunny, cool day this week and go. It's an amazing experience.

Johnny Cash

"I am not obsessed with death I'm obsessed with living. The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about," said Johnny Cash (1932-2003). His death is sad news but no surpise to anyone who's seen images of him lately. On the positive side, it's great that Cash had an artistic rebirth in the past few years -- the series of "American Recordings" records he made with Rick Rubin are wonderful. The recent video for "Hurt" (a Nine Inch Nails cover), directed by Mark Romanek, works as a nice eulogy.

Have a Favorite Illustrator?

We're looking for an illustrator to do our book cover (we've got a concept but the style could go in a few different directions). Any suggestions?

Independently Fabricated

There is nothing quite like a hand-built bicycle. I remember fondly racing my Battaglin chrome-moly bike in the late 80s and early 90s -- to the point of breaking the rear triangle following a particularly grueling climb in rural Maryland.

A trip to the local frame builder to have the weld repaired took me into a world where old-school craftsmanship and technology meet to create simple beauty. Independent Fabrications, one of America's best frame builders (and an employee-owned company), takes you on a step-by-step tour of the entire process -- from the moment your order is placed to final shipping from the factory. Amazing.

A Writer Writes

Author Jennifer Weiner offers "a completely idiosyncratic, opinionated, flawed and somewhat sassy take on some of the steps you can take to get published." It's a fun/interesting read, even for non-writer wannabes.

The big joke in the publishing community is that smart editors shouldn't waste their time at lunches or conferences, but should instead proceed directly to the local elementary schools. There, they will carefully note the boys picked last in gym class, the girls sitting alone in the cafeteria - all of the outcasts, misfits, geeks, dweebs and weirdos - and give them some kind of small identifying tag (much like wildlife services will tag animals to follow their progress through the years). Twenty years later, the editors should track down the kids they've tagged, now hopefully grown to more successful adulthood, and say, "Okay, where's the book?"

Regionalisms

Coke, Pepsi, and other fizzy soft drinks are generically called "tonic" in Boston, "soda" in New York City, "liqueur" in Montreal, and "pop" pretty much everywhere else in North America west of Utica, New York. What most people in the U.S. call "milk shakes" are "frappes" in Massachusetts and "cabinets" in Rhode Island. And the South's "y'all" becomes "yins" in Pittsburgh and "youse" in Irish Boston (an artifact from the Irish language, in fact, which has a plural form of "you"). Where I grew up, 40 miles north of New York City, when it rained really hard we described it as "teeming." A "traffic circle" in New York is a "rotary" in Massachusetts and a "roundabout" in Vermont (and in the UK). A drinking fountain in Massachusetts is called a "bubbler," a police patrol car is called a "cruiser," and the little chocolate or candy sprinkles that you put on top of ice cream are called "jimmies." I love regionalisms, and it's remarkable that many of them persist despite the forces of homogenization like television, radio, and movies. Do you have any favorite regionalisms?

Lots of Computers in the Classroom

So, two more schools/districts, one in Illinois, and one in Alaska, are going to be buying laptops (Apple iBooks) for their students.

District 54's iBook program is modeled partly after one in Henrico County, Va., where 44,000 elementary, middle- and high-school students are using the machines. High school students there last year recorded their highest SAT verbal and math scores ever.

The article also mentions "there have been conflicting studies on computers and education, with some arguing that technology isn't a proven way to help kids learn, especially given how much it costs." The Schaumburg, IL program has a total budget of $6.6 million which includes the iBooks, wireless Internet access for the classrooms and 21 digital video cameras.

I'm trying to figure out how having a laptop with wireless internet access on every desk actually helps kids learn (although the way my friend David is using iBooks and OS X-based software/technologies at Copenhagen Business School is pretty impressive). Sure, it gives them access to a nearly unlimited amount of knowledge (some fact, some fiction, some hard to tell), but I'm curious as to how they are being integrated with the teachers' lesson plans. Are they distracting? Are kids listening to the teacher, or just staring at the screen? Do they respect what the teacher has to say, or do they just "listen" to the internet? Are they being taught how to filter information on the net? How are they actually using the machines? As typewriters and web browsers, or in more progressive ways? Has anyone had any experience with this? Any teachers out there? Parents of students with laptops in schools?

Politics Politics Politics

It's been a while since we've had a heated political debate here. So, who can beat Bush? Is Dean for real? Will he be able to sell the South? Is it just me, or has John Kerry run one of the worst campaigns in modern history? Can anyone even beat Bush if the DOW hits 10,000? Do people really care enough about Iraq to swing the election on that point? And, what do the Dems have as an alternative to the current state of affairs in Iraq/Afghanistan and the Middle East? What's the alternate, better Road Map? Ok, there should be enough in this post to break the 100 comment barrier. Get on it.

Life Savers

I just moved to a new machine, and Carbon Copy Cloner (along with Firewire disk mode) saved me hours of work and headaches. My very tweaked, perfectly customized and hacked configuration now sits on sparkling new hardware, and all it took was a few mouseclicks and a long lunch. Does anyone else have a Life Saver app?

Tables Your Mom Can Sort

Web developers think that linked text in a table header means "sort by this column," but what are normal folks looking for when they want to sort a table?

Any thoughts, studies or stellar examples?

Things That Last

When you buy something well-made that lasts, you save money because you only have to buy it once. Here are a few examples: In 1987 I bought a Braun coffee grinder. I've used it almost every day since then, grinding coffee, spices, and dried hot peppers. It still works as well as it did the day I bought it 16 years ago. In the mid-80s, a rock-climber friend of mine turned me onto Patagonia clothing. I still wear some Patagonia shirts and a coat that I bought around 1986. Their stuff is expensive, but probably cheaper in the long run. I bought a Honda Civic wagon in 1990 and sold it 10 years later after putting 250,000 miles on it. Last I heard, it was still running fine. And in 1991 I won seven compact fluorescent light bulbs in a contest sponsored by my local electric utility. I've used them daily since then. Two of them burned out recently, but the other five are still going strong after 12 years.

When Higher Prices Are More Attractive

Luring customers with higher prices? Online merchants are doing just that by becoming more upfront about what they charge (NY Times). The article talks about how sites are getting better at disclosing the real selling price of goods and services (after taxes, fees, and shipping charges).

Not surprisingly, complaining customers helped bring about the change. Travelocity's COO says, "We have tons of information from our call centers about the frustration consumers feel when they're at the rental counter and they see all those extra charges."

Nice to see that truthful pricing is getting closer to the surface. Another good example of this is at shopping comparison sites, like Dealtime or Pricegrabber, where you can enter your zipcode and compare the total cost of products, including shipping.

So Many Parts

Mercedes-Benz just announced a new 7-speed transmission purported to deliver "improved fuel consumption and driving pleasure." And maybe it will, but what blows me away is how many parts have to work together to make something like a car transmission work. Look at all those parts. The gears, the nuts/bolts, the gaskets, the casings, the other stuff (?), etc. They all have to be assembled just right. And that's just the transmission. Then there's the steering, the suspension, the brakes, the engine, the electronics, etc. It's amazing that cars work at all. And, it's even more amazing that you can buy one for under $10,000 with a 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty.

Fast Food Nation

Speaking of good books, I recently got around to reading Fast Food Nation. Wow. Sure, I knew fast food is bad for you but I never really thought of it as downright evil until now.

Theres shit in the meat, slaughterhouse workers toil in subhuman conditions, animals are turned into cannibals (cattle are routinely fed to each other to promote faster growth), schoolchildren are being brainwashed through sponsorship programs, etc. The claims may be shocking but Eric Schlossers measured tone and thorough research are extremely convincing. Too bad that, other than a few fringe groups, customers dont seem to really care.

Universal Music Group Reduces CD Prices

Universal gives the but CDs are too expensive crowd one less argument by reducing wholesale prices and implementing a $12.98 manufacturer suggested retail price on virtually all of its top-line CDs in the U.S. Smart move. Are the price wars on?

A little turbulence...

Please bear with us as we transition SVN to its new happy home.

Are Keywords Necessary?

Okay, so metadata are perhaps not as exciting as breakfast cereals, but at some point you have probably had to come up with a list of keywords to describe a Web page, either your own or a clients. The keywords, separated by commas, are placed inside meta tags to help get your site recognized by search engines when someone does a search using those particular words.

Most professional sites, including SVN and 37signals.com, have these keywords. Companies exist whose sole purpose is to sell you services and software to come up with effective keywords. But how important are keywords today? The most popular search engine, Google, reportedly ignores keywords in the meta tags and searches text within the page content instead. And Google powers the second-most and fourth-most popular search engines, Yahoo and AOL. I havent been able to find out the extent to which MSNs search engine factors keywords into its site rankings; if they play an important role that might be a reason to keep putting keywords on your pages. Otherwise, if all the above is accurate, why bother?

Coming up with effective keywords can be a time-consuming task. I know because I get asked to do it frequently. Is the potential payoff worth the expense? Im skeptical. In the meantime, though, Im still doing keywords, and Ive found some useful guidelines here. Basically your keywords will be more effective if they are phrases rather than single words, and you should avoid common single words such as success or results that are likely to be used on thousands of other sites.

Firsts at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair

The first moving pictures on Edison's Kinetoscope. The first zipper. A pancake-in-a-box kit under the brand name Aunt Jemima. The first automatic dishwasher. A new gum called Juicy Fruit. A curious new snack called Cracker Jacks. A new cereal named Shredded Wheat. The first Ferris Wheel (built to out-do the Eiffel Tower). The most important organizational invention of the century: the vertical file (yes, even that didn't exist at one point). The Pledge of Allegiance. Pabst Blue Ribbon (named "Blue Ribbon" cause it won first place).

Find out more in this incredible, begging-to-be-a-movie book, Devil in the White City (Buy at Amazon).

Cereal Monogamy

When I find a breakfast cereal I like, I tend to stick with it for years. When I was a kid, it was Kellog's Corn Flakes. In college I fell in love with Buc-Wheats (no longer made), followed by Wheaties. Then I switched to Cheerios for three or four years. I went through a Grape-Nuts phase, and even had a brief fling with Weetabix. My steady breakfast date for most of the 1990s was Nutri-Grain, until they started putting sugar into it. I switched to Nature-O's, an unsweetened alternative to Cheerios. Now that I live with a French woman, breakfast is usually the traditional coffee with toast and jam, but when I do have cereal it's Jordan's Morning Crunch.

Are you a cereal monogamist?

The Lydon Interviews

Former journalist and radio talk-show host Christopher Lydon has been bitten by the blogging bug, and has posted a string of recorded interviews with some of the "blogosphere's" pioneers, such as David Sifry, Doc Searls, Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit"), and David Weinberger, along with several political journalists and authors. Maybe "discussions" is a better word than interviews; a Lydon interview usually ends up being more like My Dinner With Andre than Fresh Air with Terry Gross. These 1/2 hour interviews are MP3 files, about 10-14 megabytes each, stored on a sluggish server. It can take 10 minutes to download a file even if you have a speedy connection, so be patient.

Picture of the Year

Bush drops his dog. The girls look terrified. And why is that one girl not wearing her blue socks? Softball is a team sport, dammit.

Password Fatigue

I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of passwords. I have one that I use for all my low-security needs, such as my online New York Times account, but I'd rather not use it for more sensitive things like online banking. And even if I wanted to use one password for everything in my life, I can't because sites impose varying requirements for the number of characters, numbers, and letters you can have in a password. So you get password proliferation. Online banks, ATM cards, calling cards, PayPal, wireless base stations, computer user accounts, intranets, keychains, ISPs, Amazon.com, Expedia, software web sites--all of them require passwords and usernames.

I store all my username-password combinations on my Mac OSX keychain, and the Safari browser is keychain-aware. But even that's not a perfect solution. On my Windows machine, Internet Explorer can remember my passwords but I have to remember my username, and I've been forced to come up with several usernames over the years when the one I wanted was already taken.

Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? Will we eventually have secure digital IDs that we can figuratively wave at a web site to gain access? I find myself increasingly reluctant to sign up on any site that requires me to establish a new username and password. And I don't think I'm alone.