Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer
The Dialect Survey, now in progress, is not only a fascinating read, it’s fun to take.
60. What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road?
a) berm
b) parking
c) tree lawn
d) terrace
e) curb strip
f) beltway
g) verge
h) I have no word for this
I recommend taking the survey or, at the very least, exploring some of the linguistic maps.
~ Leonid meteor shower visible in North America November 19. If it weren’t a Tuesday, I’d drag my family to my elementary school again.
~ The Guardian gave Pete Townshend a forum to review Kurt Cobain’s “Journals” and rebut Cobain’s “Hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend” line. And did he ever. “These are the scribblings of a once beautiful, angry, petulant, spoiled, drug-addled middle-class white boy from a divorced family who just happened, with the help of two of his slightly more stable peers, to make an album hailed as one of the best rock records ever.”
~ Speaking of petulance, Mad Magazine turns 50 this fall. The Sunday New York Times ran an article compiling some of Mad’s greatest letters to the editors. “I have been reading Mad for several years now. Mainly, the first issue I ever bought. I just couldn’t see wasting a quarter on another.”
Launching Monday is the Web site of the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and promoting information architecture. I find that conceptually fascinating: “promoting IA.” As vital as it is, IA certainly deserves any possible efforts to increase public knowledge and understanding.
The top level of the organization is jam-packed with name-brand IAs and an ambitious list of projects appears on its initiatives page. This is a site worth bookmarking.
I am curious to see how the organization develops, and whether it becomes public-relations oriented, like the EFF, or more communal, like the WWWAC. Stay tuned.
Update, November 5: There’s a vitriolic but compelling debate about the long-term usefulness of this organization on Metafilter.
“I can’t identify the people doing the best work,” says Jesse James Garrett in a Boxes and Arrows interview. “Everybody says Amazon’s interaction design is a big factor in the company’s successâwhy don’t I know the names of any of the people responsible for it? Why do most consultancies hide their talented staff, whose expertise makes their success possible, behind a faceless corporate identity?”
Jesse answered his own question: If a corporation’s staff is faceless, it is the company itself that has the expertise, not the individuals, who may come and go. Why externally hype someone? If the person leaves, the company takes a public-relations hit, and all the accolades walk out the door.
Still, this is intriguing. I’m not promoted externally by The Economist, yet it is known that I design Economist.com. Here’s a better question for Jesse: Does Amazon prohibit its employees from publicly mentioning where they work, and if so, is that a bad thing? Anytime I see an Amazon staff member mention something in public, it’s always with an “I’m not supposed to tell you this but…” disclaimer.
Part of Amazon’s success is its continual, and faceless, excellence. Jesse mentions it with negativity, but I don’t know if it is a bad thing.
When did that happen?
A minute ago I was newly engaged, playing in the summer sun, roadtripping out of the city every weekend, getting a dog.
And now Halloween is already gone and tomorrow the temperature won’t break 40, and the puppy has been around for more than a month, and I’ve been promoted and sent to London, and the engagement is fact, not novelty, along with family dinners and holiday sharing, and the car being in the city is a novelty today, and I no longer have an apartment uptown.
It has been a summer and fall to remember, if only I noticed it as it rushed by. I need to take notes more frequently.
…for a few more hours, at least. My employer’s London office is fun. Great camaraderie amongst my coworkers, and lots of welcoming introductions the last few days.
Today I try the never-before-attempted feat of working the morning in London, flying to New York, and spending the evening (overnight GMT) moving out of my old apartment. Wish me luck.
Just a public service announcement from here. Oh, and do yourself a favor and start using more than one or two passwords for the dozens of sites you visit. Access to your data is more vulnerable than you think.
My brother got me thinking about the cost-per-annum expense of the furniture and appliances I’m selling as I move out of my old place.
I lived uptown for five years, and my furniture at the most was that old (some pieces far less). Factoring in what I get back for the items, even as I sell things cheap, I make out OK:
Item Retail Resale Yrs CPA Bed . . . . . . . . . . . . $600 $150 5 $90 Dining table and chairs . . 250 50 5 50 Wall unit . . . . . . . . . 350 150 5 40 Dresser . . . . . . . . . . 120 10 5 22 Microwave stand . . . . . . 100 25 5 15 Bedroom lamps . . . . . . . 110 45 5 13 Coffee table . . . . . . . 50 10 4 10 Vacuum . . . . . . . . . . 60 20 5 8 Foyer table . . . . . . . . 40 10 4 8
Even the expensive stuff, like the bed, comes out under $10/month. Not bad.
That $150 wall unit is a steal, by the way. And wait’ll someone buys my $950 sofabed for less than three hundred bucks.
Doonesbury has been covering the weblog world this week. The run has been amusing, and plenty linked in the blog world, of course. Tuesday’s strip is the most pointed (and my personal favorite).
Ideapad © 1998–2025 David Wertheimer. All rights reserved.