Some of the activity this week at our internal 37signals Campfire chat room:
Pragmatism source
David: “My pragmatism just comes from a tendency to give up really easily ;)”
Vox.com’s status screen
Jason noted Vox.com has a status screen set up for when the site is down. It read, “15 mins of ‘scheduled maintenance’.” David: “We should have that too.” Ryan: “Totally makes it look like they are on top of shit. Stuff could be breaking every other day and the site still makes it look like they are all over it.”
Chicagoing
The torch/skyline logo for Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid got a thumbs up…
...and so did the way Chicagoist includes the weather over its skyline image.
But thumbs down to the White Sox for selling the start time of games to 7-Eleven (“Sponsorship deal calls for White Sox to begin games at 7:11 p.m.“). I hear the next step is to sell home plate to Bennigan’s.
Plane info graphic
Jason pointed out this great interactive info graphic of the plane crash involving a Yankees pitcher.
Clever job post title
I got a kick out of this clever “made ya look” job post title: “StyleFeeder is looking for a @job = (‘designer’, ‘info architect’, ‘css’, ‘xhtml’);. See more on the Job Board.”
Dyson vac cleans keyboards
Jason: “OK, now THIS is a great idea. Check out the Combination Accessory Tool video. Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? That’s smart.”
Logitech MX Revolution mouse
David: “Btw, bought this mouse. First new mouse in 8 years ;) It has a very interesting scrollwheel. It’s free-range so you spin it away and it keeps spinning. So it’ll keep scrolling until you stop the physical spinning. Totally rocks for long pages. It has a 3 button on the side as well as two additional direction buttons that I bound to desktop switching and a 4th button underneath the scrollwheel for lookups— got it bound to Dictionary.app.”
Satisficing socks
Jason: “IT’S OFFICIAL: I’ve hit the age where I don’t care if my sock colors match exactly. My sock colors are now JUST GOOD ENOUGH.”
Overbooked
We were discussing features arms races and I mentioned this example of too much of a good thing: Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Benefit for Autism Education. Great cause, great guests. But it’s just too much.
Appearances by Jack Black, Steve Carell, Kristin Chenoweth, Sacha Baron Cohen, Stephen Colbert, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell, Ricky Gervais, Norm Macdonald, Christopher Meloni, Moby, Mike Myers, Bob Odenkirk And David Cross, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Adam Sandler, Martin Short, Tony Sirico, Ben Stiller, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, Brian Williams and more).
Oof. Putting 30 funny people together doesn’t make a show funnier. (The same way adding 30 spices doesn’t make a dish taste better). LESS guests would make for a better event then this mess. Just go with Ricky Gervais, Triumph, and David Cross and then say STOP.
Buffett
The Berkshire Hathaway screen posting led to a mention of this quote: “The five most dangerous words in business may be ‘Everybody else is doing it.’” -Warren Buffett
Da Bears
Best comment on the Sixteen Straight post came from Kevin O’Keefe: “Heck, Ditka alone can beat many of those teams. Da Bears.”
Dean Kamen
Jason pointed out that single Dean Kamen claims he’s “married to his inventions”...
Kamen is currently single, claiming he’s “married to his inventions”. His primary residence is an interesting hexagon-shaped shed style mansion he has dubbed Westwind1, located just outside of Bedford, New Hampshire. The house has at least four different levels and is very eclectically conceived, with such things as hallways resembling mine shafts, 1960s novelty furniture, and a huge cast-iron steam engine which once belonged to Henry Ford built into the center atrium of the house, which Kamen eventually hopes to turn into a Stirling engine-powered kinetic sculpture. Kamen owns two helicopters, which he regularly uses to commute to work.
Jason: “He’s such an interesting dude. He’s obsessed with inventions that can help people. His portable dialysis machine and heart stint were enormous quality-of-life breakthroughs. And the iBot too. Life changing inventions. (I’m a huge fan, can’t you see?)”
Potted
Ryan: “My friend is a potter, and i asked him to make me some latte-size cups. I got ‘em last night. A set of four. I love the realness of them.”
Landmarks rule
Marcel gave Mark directions to the workshop by referencing the river and NBC building. Mark’s response: “Cool. That’s better than random directions from Mapquest or Google. Landmarks are where it’s at.”
Chicagoing
Marcel: “Full moon tonight. I just may turn into a warewolf. SOFTWARE WOLF.”
Jamis checks out
Jamis: “[OUT] found keys to world peace, cold fusion, curing cancer, and one killer recipe for kimchi, but forgot to put them under source code control and promptly lost them in a freak accident involving egg nog and corn chips. Sorry, guys.”
ns
on 13 Oct 06Those cups look like the equivalent of distressed wood floors… why make the dings when someone else can do it for you? :-)
Dan Boland
on 13 Oct 06Agree: The Chicago Olympics logo is very nice, although the thought of bringing the Olympics to Chicago is possibly one of the worst ideas ever. Let some other city foot the sure-to-be monstrous bill. (Never mind the fact that the Olympic games carry only a shred of the significance they did even when we were all kids.)
Disagree: I think the White Sox-7/11 promotion is probably the least intrusive marketing partnership I’ve heard of, provided that there won’t be any “brought to you by 7-11” crap, which the press release insinuates won’t happen.
Mike Doan
on 13 Oct 06I just bought the MX Revolution too and it rocks. TIP: you can switch between the smooth scroll and clickety scroll by pressing on down the on scroll wheel. You can actually set the type of scrolling you want for different applications and it remembers when you switch applications (e.g., smooth scrolling for Firefox and clickety scrolling for Outlook—I haven’t tried this on Mac yet)
Brendan Webb
on 13 Oct 06That MX Revolution does look great, and it has been a while since I’ve bought a new mouse, but can someone give me a half decent reason why there are no legit choices for regular sized Bluetooth mice. Just because I have a laptop doesn’t mean I want to accelerate the onset of carpal tunnel by using those horribly small laptop mice.
Anshuman
on 13 Oct 06I’m really into the Olympics logo, but I’m curious to see if the design will seem anachronistic in a decade. Who else is creating logos that’ll be used, and so prominent, that far into the future?
No love for lefties with the mouse to beat all mice. I just picked up an MX610 (lefty), got around the mac-less support with Steermouse and am loving its customizable buttons and ergonomic goodness. Steermouse gives it about 90% of the functionality of its ‘true’ self, but as a sinister sort that’s about what i’m used to!
Joe Ruby
on 13 Oct 06There’s a hilarious comedy bit about sports sponsorship gone amok. It’s two announcers doing a baseball game (I think) and they work the names of companies into just about everything they say. Perhaps somebody with greater Google Fu than I can find it.
k8
on 13 Oct 06All the city -ist sites do that cool thing with the skyline. Gothamist, Shanghaiist, Austinist, etc. My faves as far as skyline icons are Bostonist, Parisist and Londonist.
Matt Gorecki
on 14 Oct 06Plane info graphic Jason pointed out this great interactive infographic of the plane crash involving a Yankees pitcher.
There were two people in the plane. Most articles barely mention the passenger, let alone his name.
Moral of the story: don’t get in an accident with a major league athlete, because you don’t matter enough to get your name out.
Mark
on 14 Oct 06I agree w/Dan on the 7-11 deal, especially if it’s true that it’s a “subdued” promotion, affecting only the game start time. It’s pretty brilliant as a campaign, actually—if you think about them wanting to seperate themselves from the negativity of Chavez / Citgo. What better way than to go to the one thing most folks associate positively w/America, without coming off as boastful?
Also, regarding Anshuman’s comment on the logo, I believe that logo is for the bidding committee only—not the design to be used for the games. It is cool though.
Mike
on 14 Oct 06That logo is cool and all, but please, please keep the Olympics away. I prefer to have it on TV then anywhere near my house.
Rachel
on 14 Oct 06Dyson vac cleans keyboards
Anyone worried about the static electricity generated by the mostly-plastic vacuum? Might not be a problem unless you crack open your case and vacuum inside or something.
Justin Koh
on 14 Oct 06I couldn’t get the Dyson video to load, but I’ve been using a cheap USB-powered vacuum for a while.
I’m still using a Logitech MX 310, which has extra buttons but not enough to freak my mom out when she tries to use the PC. Highly recommended (and much cheaper).
Kevo
on 14 Oct 06The Dyson adjusting brush tool is nothing new. My Miele has had it for years:
http://www.mielevacuums.com/accessories.asp?cat=1 Additional Accessories > MicroSet > ‘combination crevice nozzle/ dusting brush’
JohnG
on 14 Oct 06The Olympic logo should have something referencing the city’s proud history of political graft.
Chris H
on 14 Oct 06I’m still fond of my wireless bluetooth Apple Mighty Mouse. Nice, simple full-size mouse with a magical scroller ball. I love the elegance and sheer ingeniuty of it. Also it’s probably the simplest mouse I’ve ever used and very precise.
I also love that it can operate on one (or two) AA battery – helps to keep it light and the battery life on one batter is still good – at least a few weeks if not more of leaving it on constantly. It’s a full-size mouse so no hand cramps, either.
Works on a PC, too (though without some of the Mac-specific features obviously).
Zach C.
on 16 Oct 06My favored cursor-handler is a plain old Marble Mouse (also from Logitech). It works better with this small computer cart it’s on than a normal mouse would. I have one of the two extra buttons set to middle click, and the other is left spare so I don’t accidentally misclick. Since the body is entirely symmetrical, it’s fine for left or right handers.
Drawbacks: No laser version. Only four buttons and no scroll wheel(s). Body slopes too much toward the back, leading to overly bent wrist during use.
This discussion is closed.