Category: General

the first post of the day – written from quicksilver.

Darrin points to the MIT SIMILE project. The lifeline/timeline visualization is similar to something I’ve been working on for the Genealogy Namespace for OPML project.

While it’s cool to see a single person’s timeline, far more interesting to me in the intersection and relationship between multiple people (a marriage isn’t just one-sided, a birth has at least 2 people involved, etc).

“Placemaking takes time and sometimes just plain dumb luck. No planner envisioned it all, first laying out the grid of streets and creating a zoning code for Dinkytown, then deciding precisely that an alley was to be converted to become the location of a breakfast counter and a legendary, delicious business.” – Sam Newberg

A nice reminder that things like MySpace, CraigsList – while not ‘designed’ – are more valuable places than some of the more ‘planned’ places.

Like magic, all the crazy stress and pressure I’ve been working through the past 8 weeks evaporated at the stroke of 12 last night. Seriously, magic. I have no other explanation. Then again, I have no explanation for why January was that tough either.

Things feel like they’re right back where they should be. Mind if I celebrate the new year 31 days later? I feel like I missed it the first time around.

RELATED:
David Seah is asking for Groundhog’s Day Resolutions.

One of the complaints I continually hear about companies supporting forums, comments, reviews under their own domain is that their customers will say something “bad”.

The reality is, customers find places to have these conversations – with our without formal support.

Case in point: KottkeKomments.com.

Jason Kottke doesn’t have comments on his blog, so a reader created a site for kottke.org readers.

Thanks to Jackie Huba @ Church of the Customer.

“An inexperienced picker would pick the low-hanging fruit first” – Albert Pell quoted in Fast Company

In the instances where I’ve heard the phrase ‘low-hanging fruit’ the above is true. Rarely does picking the easy stuff solve anything than checking something off a list. The real important, long-term actions take the commitment of getting a ladder.

Or making the tree shorter.

Just got word that Jon Steinhorst‘s latest short film, Awake, is up at 3to1Studios.com.

It’s a great looking, if emotionally tough, 5-minute piece.

You may remember Jon from our podcast conversations.

Just received and email from Bitpass.com saying they are no longer:

Dear Valued Bitpass Merchant

We want to thank you for your past business, however due to circumstances beyond our control, we are discontinuing our operations…”

“On January 26, all US Bitpass Buyer accounts will be closed and we will begin the process of refunding all unspent monies to the accountholder”

Kinda sad, I remember Scott McCloud was using BitPass to sell access to his online comics.

As of this writing, BitPass.com has yet to reflect this development.

Last night, I had bad dream about attending a live recording of a radio program.

From what I can remember, the point of the show was to dismiss highly-personal communications as trivial while a panel of teen girls shared the melodramatic relationship unfolding within their MySpace pages.

While “trivia” (or gossip) might not be the most noble of messages to share, the vast majority of our gestures are just that. In Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language – Robin Dunbar posits that we talk for gossip. Gossip being as much about relationship as primates grooming each other.

I suspect gossip comes right after spam in volume of daily email. I don’t think this is bad – especially with good filters. Filters we don’t really have yet, filters that consider anything not relevant to me now as spam (“news”, “gossip”, “trivia”, and otherwise).

Not having those filter yet is mostly OK – because we don’t yet have the quantity of publishers that demand it. Tomorrow – when news/gossip/trivia is published block-by-block – we will.

ELSEWHERE:
“Truth #2: What viewers/readers deem important is often far different than what we judge important.” – Terry Heaton