Karlo.Org - Weblog

The rise of NYC Bloggers, a web site that lists New York weblogs graphically by the subway stop they're nearest to, also illustrates one of the primary weaknesses of the blogging community: vanity. Despite the fact it's not very interesting to the 99.99% of the world not writing web logs, the site is now the number one linked item on weblogs tracked by MIT's Blogdex index of weblog news activity.

This isn't suprising, but it's revealing. Imagine if whenever the Pulitzers were announced, it was the A-1 story in your newspaper. You'd think they were pretty silly. (As it is, I think it's pretty silly when they get the front page at all, unless it's a really slow news day. Hardly anyone outside the news or publishing industry is affected by them.) Weblogs need to keep in mind that their readers may not be as interested in web-logging "the practice" as in the actual content of their web logs. Otherwise, they could go read a weblog about weblogging.

(Notice how I have managed to link to this site, while at the same time criticizing others who linked to it? Learned that one in journalism school.)

Posted by at 8:15 AM | Permalink

Although it's a foregone conclusion for most Windows users to depend on the ubiquitous Internet Explorer (especially if they've tried the last adware Netscape releases), Linux users remain a fragmented lot when it comes to browser choice. Personally, I haven't settled on one -- I just use whatever's close at hand.

For those who want to pick a single Linux browser and stick with it, Rob Valliere has published an excellent Linux browser comparison. He examines Konqueror, Mozilla, Galeon (Ximian's Mozilla-derivative) and Opera, both subjectively and in terms of raw performance. I guess I'll have to take a closer look at Galeon for use on lower performance machines -- the memory requirement of KDE make employing Konqueror expensive, especially if you've already got the Gnome desktop loaded.

Posted by at 7:27 AM | Permalink

I died laughing last night when I saw a cheap late-night local television ad starring M.C. Hammer. Oh have the mighty have fallen. Looks like his official web site isn't going so well either (did he hire MarchFirst, Viant, or Scient to build it?) Oh well, there's always his Yahoo! page. Did they already do a Behind the Music show about him, and I missed it? I guess I'll never get to pull my hammerpants out of the closet.

Bonus question: Which web design company was the M.C. Hammer of the late 90's?

Posted by at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Trillian 0.725 is a very sweet solution for those of us who juggle 2 or more IM accounts all the time. This unified messenger has come a long way since early versions (which had some major bugs, including problems with the "away" detection.) I spent a lot of time at work examining instant messenger design, and for a multi-headed client this is definitely the best I've seen so far.

My only complaint: they ignored Jabber, which merits inclusion if not for popularity, then for it's open standard/network stance. Still, it's not something that 99% of users will notice.

Posted by at 7:19 AM | Permalink

Steven Jay Gould passed away yesterday at the age of 60. I don't have much to add to the New York Times obit, except to say that as a child who was interested in science, several of his books were the best reads I ever picked up.

"One of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and perhaps the best known since Charles Darwin, Dr. Gould touched off numerous debates, forcing scientists to rethink sometimes entrenched ideas about evolutionary patterns and processes. He is credited with bringing a forsaken paleontological perspective to the evolutionary mainstream."

Whatever blog writer chose to link to his obit as "succumbed to natural evolution" needs to stop writing and read Gould's books.

Posted by at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Police units in Japan and Korea are bracing for violence at the World Cup. Japan's police have little or no experience with unruly crowds, so they've been practicing ffor stadium riots over the last few weeks - including simulating a "crowd of fire-setting, motorcycle-driving fans". Um, how many fans are bringing their motorcycles with them on the plane? Still, seems like rather a lot of fun, except for the part where they practice using the water cannon and giant nets on you. Oh yeah, and the big whacking stick (see: Simpsons.)

For each game, the Japanese police will mobilize more than 7,000 riot police. (To be fair, there is also increased concern regarding terrorism.)

The Koreans are somewhat less worried, having gained experience dealing with violent student protests. Somehow, though, I don't think that a bunch of teenage/early-20s college students compares with a crowd of skinhead soccer hooligans for sheer destructive power.

Posted by at 7:28 AM | Permalink

Last night I posted a gallery of 77 photos from Shanghai, taken during my trip there last week. Shanghai has some of the most amazing skyscrapers around, since they were mostly all built during the last 5-10 years. Also, since it's not on an island like Hong Kong (or Manhattan) there's more space between buildings, allowing each to stand out on its own.

New in the gallery: if you click on the "Properties" link in each window, you'll be able to see the camera settings and exact time when it was taken.

Posted by at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tomorrow I have to start the 20+ hour trip from Shanghai back to New York City... amazing that I'll travel halfway around the globe in less than a day... even more amazing that the two cities are so similar. I'll have 100-odd photos to put online when I arrive home, more than I've even taken in a week (thank god for digital cameras, they pay for themselves in the cost saved on developing and prints alone.) Lots to post this week!

Posted by at 4:54 AM | Permalink

Yesterday we visited the Temple of the Town Gods in old Shanghai. I took tons of pictures and also a great deal of video, but uploading the 1600x1200 pictures from China is kinda painful. I'll have to post the rest when we get back this weekend.

Posted by at 9:48 PM | Permalink

My father (circa 1975) versus Jakob Nielsen, usability guru, web celebrity and author of useit.com. The difference? My dad changed his haircut 20 years ago. Still, the implications are horrifying when you've got these genes running around in your cells.

This comparison occured to me while working on a new article on photo retouching for The Pixel Foundry.

Posted by at 11:54 AM | Permalink

There is an interesting article on Yale's LawMeme regarding PVRs (Tivo) and the legalities of the contract with the network regarding the contract with the network... it is fundamentally an analysis of comments from Jamie Kellner (head of TBS) that portrayed Tivo use as theft.

By extension I would include the online trading and downloading of music in this issue; what is happening is not so much that people are choosing to destroy the music industry, but the industry's own unwillingness to adjust to a changing marketplace is threatening to make their entire distribution channel irrelevant/obselete. Their whole business is a relatively recent development that's an accident of technology; they don't have any fundamental role in the development or distribution of creative content.

I particularly liked this citation from the article:
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.
- "Robert Heinlein"

Posted by at 11:27 AM | Permalink

With Mother's Day approaching, a number of organizations are doing their annual P.R. stunt of releasing press releases estimating what mom's would get paid if compensated for their labor. According to CNN Money, the estimates range from $60,000 to over $600,000 -- the "salary of a top-notch CEO."

I'm all for valuing the contributions of mothers (hi mom) but some of these organizations should be embarassed by the quality of their estimates. If these guys were doing this as a case study, they wouldn't get the job. Ric Edelmen, chair of Edelman Financial Services is the source of that high-end, $635K estimate. RicEdelman.com's tag line is "your financial planner." But they arrive at their estimate by totalling the annual salary of each job role a mom undertakes, from financial planner ($70K) to computer systems analyst ($60K). Um... so you're telling me that she does twenty-odd jobs, but produces as much value as full-time employees doing just one of those each? Or that her work is as leveraged doing it for 3-6 people as it would be doing it for the thousands of customers some of these jobs impact? Sorry, but I'm not letting Ric Edelman be my financial planner any time soon, if this is how carefully he thinks.

Posted by at 7:47 AM | Permalink

Forwarded to me by my QA manager at work. Makes me proud to be a software designer. I'm sure out there somewhere, a business guy is saying "why didn't we do that with our product?"

Posted by at 2:35 PM | Permalink

Any weekend where I end up on Delancey Street three times, on three days, was likely interesting (although next weekend promises more excitement, since I'll be in Shanghai.) Friday night I was in the Bowery Ballroom watching new band Hot Socky perform... it was all right. Their music seemed to be a funny mix of 80's hard rock and the Beatles, but it worked most of the time. I think they need to change the order of their set a little -- the crowd didn't seem to respond so well to the way they came out right away with some of their most high-energy stuff. Saturday, I ended up a block away at Smithfield (a bar) squeezed into the back near the DJ at the tail end of someone's birthday party... and finally, on Sunday, it was a large dinner group of friends at Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse, on Chrystie near Delancey. I'll have to put my own photos of that online shortly.

Sunday also reminded me how small New York can be. At the Asian-Pacific heritage fair (I think that's the name) on Sunday, I ran into about 5 people I knew, and saw several more I recognized. Amazing that happens so often in a city of millions.

Posted by at 7:05 AM | Permalink

"The remote-controlled "roborats" can be made to run, climb, jump or turn left and right through electrical probes, the width of a hair, implanted in their brains. Movement signals are transmitted from a computer to the rat's brain via a radio receiver strapped to its back. " -- Reuters

So some scientists at SUNY Downstate have managed to wire up rats to allow them to be controlled remotely, like some biological version of $20 Radio Shack toys.

They say they're working to develop the rats for "rescue and security uses" (Wonder if they thought of that after 9-11?)... but you know they race them around a track in the lab, when nobody's looking.

This could have great potential for my dog... forget that, I know a few people who I think might be good candidates. Where can I sign them up?

Posted by at 7:49 PM | Permalink

It's been a long time since I thought a comedy on television was actually funny. Too many of them like in the territory between Friends and Just Shoot Me, forcing us to choose between Enya-music and one-liners with a laugh track.

NBC's new comedy, Scrubs, is actually funny -- something I haven't said about a TV comedy show (other than the Simpsons,) in a long, long time. It's younger actors are a little bit weak, but older players such as John C. McGinley add the necessary touch of acidity and bitterness to keep the show appealing (and particularly help distance it from the gooey saccharine of Friends)

A definite Tivo pick.

Posted by at 4:16 PM | Permalink