Smarter Stuff

You Be The Judge

Programming language inventor or serial killer?

(link courtesy of Dave Grenewetzki, who really ought to be blogging these things for his vast circle of friends)

Worth A Post: Bruce Sterling

He identifies six converging trends:

1. RFID
2. GPS
3. Search
4. 3-D modelling
5. 3-D printing
6. Design for recycling

And posits we will be designing objects with their own identities.  Brian has pulled out some additional quotes which are well worth your time to read.

Sterling does a much better job of articulating an idea that has been bouncing around in my head since the original Smarter Stuff: we want our devices to have personalities.  Sterling is more specific: we want someone to remember things for us.  For example, the little voice in our ear (or Bluetooth headset) that reminds us who we're about to shake hands with.

Anthropomorphism 'R' Us.

To My Vast Readership

A belated "Merry Christmas!"

Tech Talk: January, 2005

My January, 2005 column, You've Got VoIP!, is now available.

Spolsky Interview

Joel gives good interview.  Worth a read if you're a software development type.

Google Suggest

Stop.  Do Not Pass "Go".  Do Not Collect $200.  Go Directly To Google Suggest.

The "number of search results" attached to each phrase is definitely cool.  And undoubtedly a boon for marketing people trying to come up with search keywords.

OK - it's clear I need to spend some time understanding IFRAMES, which is the underlying trick.

Places to Go

I'm starting a list of places I'd like to see for one reason or another.

1. Visit Meteor Crater (now Barringer Crater) in Arizona.  When I was a kid, we visited once and (as I recall) it was possible to hike down into the crater, which no longer seems to be possible.
2. Visit the Trinity Test Site at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.  This place is open twice a year on the first Saturday of April and October.  Next open date is April 2, 2005.
3. I've been there before, but I'd like to go back to Carlsbad Caverns.

Not sure if there's a theme here or not, but I've always thought of these as "cool places to visit".  Oh, and I'd like to climb Half Dome someday, too.

The Paradox of Choice

From this NY Times article (free registration required)

Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore, is the author of ''The Paradox of Choice,'' a book that addresses the incredible (and at times paralyzing) abundance of options available to the contemporary consumer. In the past, Schwartz notes, the challenge for the consumer was navigating a world of faulty, shoddy or unsafe products. That's not much of an issue anymore. Now, Schwartz told me, Consumer Reports might test 40 stoves, find that 38 of them are pretty good and then resort to sifting among increasingly minor differences to decide which one is the very best value of all, by however narrow a margin. The ''Pretty Good'' Problem complicates our lives as consumers and makes it increasingly difficult for one of those 38 stoves to stand out.

So, functionally they're all pretty much alike.  That means less-tangibles like the quality of the design become more important.

Why I Use Typepad

Two reasons:

1. Six Apart founder Mena Trott is the daughter of a long-time friend (Hi, Ted!).
2. Seth Godin uses it, and he's a pretty sensible guy.

Basically, Typepad works well, looks nice, and is fairly priced.  I'm surprised that Six Apart doesn't have a list of "important people who use Typepad for their blogs."

Someday I may get around to hosting my own copy of Movable Type, but not today.

Don't Do This

The 17 most common mistakes made by entrepreneurs, via Scoble.