“Usability has two roles: to set the direction for the design and to check that the design works. The second has gotten the most attention since it is the simplest: just run a user test of any Web site and you will quickly have a long list of things that must be changed to make…
“The arctic rodents called Lemmings are well known for their periodic mass suicides by collectively swimming into the sea and drowning, or at least the Norway lemmings do. This is probably caused by environmental pressures usually from over population…” —Mass SuicideHolology) Actually, the cause of this behavior is more likely to be Disney employees hurling…
“American troops in Saudi Arabia have been listening with amusement to Baghdad Betty, Iraq’s version of Tokyo Rose, who tries to demoralize them with her radio broadcasts. In one monologue, she warned them that their wives back home were sleeping with ‘famous movie stars,’ including Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger and even Bart Simpson….” David Ellis…
“Over their keyboards, lonely souls submit questions into the ether, praying that answers lie somewhere in the vast network – and, if not resolution, then at least succor.” Michael S. Malone —Inside the Soul of the Web: 24 hours watching the world look for answers at Google.Wired) Articles in Wired make technology the hero of…
“Good evening, I’m Andy Card — Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush. I welcome you to the inaugural ‘Ask the White House’ online discussion. I am pleased to be here tonight to answer your questions. The Internet is an important communications medium. We have witnessed, especially during Operation Iraqi Freedom, a substantial increase…
“Until earlier this afternoon, a CNN server housed mock-ups of web pages announcing the yet-to-happen deaths. The CNN pages, which were discovered by the intrepid folks at fark.com, were yanked about 20 minutes after being exposed… In addition to Cheney and Reagan, CNN also prepped online farewells to Fidel Castro, Bob Hope, Pope John Paul…
“Many people who were classified as feebleminded would now be called mildly retarded, learning disabled, or simply underachievers. Although the eugenicists saw the Buck family as a pedigree of degeneracy, many would now say that they had few problems a bit of money, education, and opportunity would not have solved. Their only sin was to…
“For years, games have been racing to catch up to the visual standards of animated films. Before long, Carmack says, game graphics will rival Monsters, Inc. in their detail. When that happens, technical advances in games will proceed at Hollywood’s more measured pace – incrementally instead of in great, creative leaps. Innovators will focus on…
“I was on the roof of the Ministry of Information, preparing for my first ‘live shot’ on CNN. A producer came up and handed me a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. ‘[CNN President] Tom Johnson wants you to read this on camera,’ he said. I glanced at the paper. It was an item-by-item summary…
“In spite of denials from congressional leaders, the rash of job cuts has some legislators worried that Congress will be fully mechanized within 10 years.|’The House and Senate will always need people,’ Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said. ‘These machines are a valuable tool, but there’s still no substitute for the wisdom and experience…
“Never, ever pick a fight with a surrealist. Not unless you are packing a kipper yourself, and are prepared to use it. That much I now know. But at lunchtime on Monday, when I tried to slip through the surrealist blockade of the André Breton auction at the Hôtel Drouot, I assumed a black polo…
Perhaps it was the sight of Captain James T Kirk scribbling away on his executive starship tablet. Maybe it’s the recurring dream of reducing computing to its simplest, starkest elements — a screen, an input device, perhaps some sound. It could even be the thought that with the technology now just about able to do…
The bottom-feeding 419 scammers are exploiting the Iraq war now, according to this Spam I just received: “First let me use this medium to introduce myself , I am Mohammed MARGAI from KONO district north of Baghdad IRAQ from the family of late Alhaji Mustafa MARGAI THE FORMAL MINISTER OF PETROLEUM AND NATURAL RESOURCES.”SPAM Scammers…
“Are you out there Dennis Jerz? Are you reading this? Are you keeping track of me? I kind of hope not…it’s weird to know that my anonymous readers aren’t so anonymous. But if you are, that’s OK too.” [Anonymous Blogger] anonymous readers aren’t so anonymous A UWEC student who keeps a weblog is blown away…
At End Of Road You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. >how did I get here? That doesn’t matter. You’re here now. >but this isn’t where I want to be I’m…
“I started an e-mail network almost spontaneously several years ago, when my next-door neighbor was mugged walking home from the bus stop at 6:30 p.m. Outraged, I sent out an e-mail to perhaps 20 neighbors, and within 24 hours, a dozen of them had volunteered for neighborhood patrols. | With that, our e-mail network was…
“If you like Interactive Fiction at all, I would like to draw your attention to Ad Verbum, a marvellous game written in 2000 by Nick Montfort. When I first downloaded this, I really didn’t expect it to be any fun at all — I prefer IF that is more a story than a game, and…
“Usability insights also help later in the project, and there is value in fine-tuning user interface details, but late-stage changes impact the final user experience less than fundamental changes early in the design. It’s a rough estimate, but I would say that the benefits from early usability data are at least ten times greater than…
Last week, Elwyn Jenkins provided a good rebuttal to Orloswki’s “second superpower” complaint. When I recently noticed that the good microdoc resorted to an ad hominem argument against Orloswki, I was a bit put off. Can’t we all get along without name-calling? But then I read Orlowski’s rant against the PageRank of his “googlewashing” article.…
“I’ve collected hundreds of rejection slips from agents, producers, and studios. Recently, all this changed. I wrote an article last year called “Hacking Las Vegas” (Wired 10.09), and the next thing I know I’m being approached to turn it into a movie starring Spacey…. But I’ve heard rumors that have made me question my confidence…