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The other red meat The Wall Street Journal reports that horse meat prices are rising (requires subscription) as demand in Europe grows. Apparently it's a reaction to both mad cow and hoof and mouth disease. Note to Mr. Ed: it might not be a good time to retire. Keep that Nick at Night job.
Plan B Someone's come up with a much more realistic version of Iconocast's ridiculous Take Back the Net crusade. Parody... the ego antidote. Let's hope it's strong enough to cure the net.
Surprise, surprise. Windows XP will require more powerful PCs. Hasn't pretty much every version of Windows? Microsoft does have to help keep Intel in business, after all. But before you complain, check your machine -- XP in only requiring a minimum of a 300 MHz Pentium II processor, but it does need a bunch of RAM (128 Megs). That's more than most machines came with until very recently. For many users who aren't able to upgrade their RAM, it's just as bad as requiring a new processor.
Tribal Warfare Tribes 2 must really be near arriving if Penny Arcade is covering it. OK, who cares about the comic, I just wanted a reason to talk about Tribes 2. Anyone for a 64-player online game? Sheesh. I'm going to need more friends.
Welcome to My World Michael Kanellos at Cnet writes about the uncertainty of product design and how it affects high technology product development. Too often, companies mistake the fact that a product or feature can be built, with the fact of whether consumers want it. The only solution, even if it's partial, is to actually test products with consumers. But even asking the consumers what they want doesn't always lead to a highly popular product: just ask anyone who has tried to sell Linux to consumers.
Laptop for Geeks I try not to pimp stuff directly from stores, but I like ThinkGeek a lot, and they're the antithesis of certain e-commerce borgs. Uber-geeks will give up their laptops for this sexy fashion accessory. The more sober will want to look at this nifty FM tuner/equalizer that fits, much like a car radio, into a 5 1/4" drive bay on your computer. I already use my computer for all my music - being able to tune in NPR and have a volume control within easy reach would really close the loop.
Tax time. It bites, but we must all do it. At least there's a new 1040 for the dot comers to fill out this year.
The big day. Yippee! I am getting my new computer today. LCD monitor, GHZ processor, need I say more?
And to think I wanted a Q45. This BMW ad really shows why maximizing safety is so critical in automotive design .
Blogging nerdboy, coding geekoid You knew it had to happen: Crouching Title, Hidden Mad-Lib
It's about time. There is a growing worldwide movement to start jamming cell phone signals in certain public places. I carry a phone with me at all times, but sign me up: if I can once again get through a movie without hearing a cell phone ring, it will be worth any inconvenience to me. The industry's argument that this is a safety issue -- "to put ourselves in jeopardy by not having access is not acceptable" -- is ridiculous; the world functioned just fine before cell phones. I don't believe that even 1% of the calls that constant harass all of us are emergencies; the problem is inconsiderate people who sit and blather about nothing for an hour, not someone who gets an emergency call and runs off to deal with it.
New York, New York. The weather finally feels a bit warmer and Spring is just around the corner. There's no other place to be than here in New York. As cheesy as the movies Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail go, I love them because they show great scenes of New York City. Luckily, I have a beautiful view of the Empire State Building from my apartment and I've enjoyed the yummy desserts at Cafe Lalo many times. I do miss walking in my old neighborhood in the upper westside and stopping occasionally for a snack at Gray's Papaya. Those hotdogs are terrible for you, but delicious! This weekend, my friends and I will venture to Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. I love New York!
Industrial design, anyone? I'm sorry, but Handspring really needs to hire someone with better 3D skills to work on their PDA cases. The designs right now are just chunky, nerdy and awkward, a Dilbert next to the James Bond of the Palm V. Even their "sexy" new Handspring Visor Edge, seen here in photos at Amazon, is just a gilded geek of a device.
Metafilter Rocks. Yes, you probably already knew that. But community weblog Metafilter is definitely worth seeing if you haven't visited it yet.
Blame Game: there's a lot of finger pointing going on about who created the hype on Internet stocks. (I remain glad that I always refused to give relatives and friends recommendations on Internet stocks.) The NY Times bashed analysts last week (who were certainly part of the problem) but the Washington Post has a more balanced assessment. The media should definitely take much of the blame here -- it's their job to be skeptics who don't buy into hype. If the reporters act like sheep (and they all too often do), then how can we expect the public to be any more independent?
Ads You Can Land a Jumbo Jet On. That's Cnet's new strategy. In the place of several small ads, they have started placing just one ad per page - probably to raise click-through rates. But what an ad it is. Never mind the helicopter pads they put in the middle of the news stories, mostly carrying house ads. On the main page of News.Com, they have a 728x90 banner running across the middle of the page - and almost all the way across my laptop screen. 65,520 pixels that most users will immediately learn to ignore. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself.
It's Not Too Late! Funny, the Industry Standard doesn't think that if you haven't worked for a broke dot-com yet, that you can't still try it out. I'm glad I'm not in a startup-mode firm anymore though... it gets tiring to be told to think big, but spend tiny, over and over. When a team isn't given enough money to leverage its efforts, all the intelligence and hard work in the world won't overcome a media marketing budget of zero. Even the best product requires a few guys out there on soapboxes preaching about the salvation it offers.
Dot-Com Backlash. The NY Times article published a few weeks ago about the demise and lay offs in the dot com world sparked many discussions in its technology forum. While some commiserated in their experiences, others taunted them for "selling their souls." The disconnect simply comes from a lack of knowledge of the real dot com experience and what the media has been touting in the years past. Those who ventured into the dot com world are not all of the same entity. They are not all millionnaire wannabes who cash out options upon vesting, nor are they all twenty year old managers. That said, however, I do feel that too much money was burned at dot coms where business plans simply sucked. The glass isn't empty yet, and I am looking forward to the next wave of new ideas. Until then, the dot goners can go here for some refuge.
Farewell, Napster. (Hello BearShare.) Songs have started to disappear from Napster, according to published reports. Oh well; I've already been using BearShare, a Gnutella client, for weeks. I just wish it supported ID3 meta-info as well as Napster did. On the flip side, I get better transport rates, it's more intelligent about managing downloads, and its makers haven't sold out.
Santa Wears UPS Brown. There's nothing like getting in a new batch of goodies for building a system. Thanks to web tracking,
I now know the minute my computer parts arrive at my house, even when I'm at work. Woot, as some would say.
Life After Blogger. I have to consider what I'm going to do with this site if Blogger, our weblog service, goes out of business. The best option I've found so far is PHP-Nuke, a Slashdot-clone with nifty features and modularity. I'm going to install it on a test machine, but I'll probably wait for the 4.5 release to consider putting it into production.
