This is the best blog post I’ve read in a long time.
http://www.borthwick.com/weblog/2008/05/04/dimensionalizing-the-web/
Some choice quotes to whet your appetite:
The spacial assumption we imposed on the web — that a site is a discrete experience that a publisher can control — maps with both a human need to impose hard edges on a dynamic, complex system but also with how we have understood media for the past 100 years or so.
Openness of interface, api’s — letting data come in an go out of a domain is central to this thesis.
John’s post really got me thinking. I agree with all of his ideas about opening platforms and piping data out, but I wonder about the difficulties of making a business out of an open platform.
I guess I can imagine some ways twitter might monetize their platform: compete with cell carriers by charging Madison Square Garden with a promotional @twitter handle for a particular concert (or concert series) that is much cheaper than licensing a text-messaging short code from a cell carrier. A business might want to use this short code to take song requests at a concert, have a live discussion about the Emmies, or conduct virtual debate about the upcoming election. I guess the model would be similar to Google App-Engine’s–twitter is free for the small people, but costs money for a company that wants to do a lot of traffic or use it for a commercial purpose.
I wonder, though, how other web services would monetize open platforms. Facebook says they don’t want to pipe their data out because of privacy concerns: while I understand that privacy is a very difficult problem, sharing data with granular privacy control is Facebook’s core business and if anyone should be able to figure it out, it should be them. More likely, they have ad-revenue concerns that prevent them with piping data out.
What are your thoughts on turning open platforms in general into legitimate businesses, given that piping data out will severely cut into ad revenue? Perhaps ad revenue is a bad model for social services to begin with? Since people are not in “search mode,” as they are on google, they will be less likely to click on or even notice ads. If banner advertising is not a good way to monetize a social service, then what alternatives are better? Selling analytical data to marketing companies? Is that enough?
John’s post provoked mostly questions without answers from me, but if you have thoughts post them in the comments.
( To see some examples of what John’s talking about, check out his portfolio companies at betaworks.com )
Tags: desultory
I just sent an email response to my old kempo / stickfighting club at Penn. Worth sharing:
You may think that you don’t have time to come to class during finals week, but in reality, even were it possible to study 24×7, it would neither be healthy nor produce better results than a different study schedul
In my experience, going to Kempo during finals week was always a great break from studying, a chance to get some much needed exercise, and a place to relax my mind. Giving your brain a break from studying will benefit you in two ways. First, you’ll be more focused when you come back to your books and better able to concentrate. Second, you’ll be constraining your time and limiting your study hours, so your productivity will increase. I would be willing to bet that you’ll accomplish the same amount of work in less time if you block out time where you prevent yourself from studying. Work tends to expand to fill the amount of time you’re given to do it: decrease the amount of time you have to do your work, and you’ll do it faster and more efficiently.
Bottom line, go to class! You’ll increase your study power:
W / t = P
(NB: much of this speech is ripped off from Dave and J, so if you’ve heard it already in class, sorry. If you weren’t in class, though, now you’ve heard it.)
Tags: productivity
I surveyed my friends with iPhones, asking them where they used their phones most. Survey says!
An overwhelming marjority of iPhone users (that I know) reported that their most frequent iPhone usage occurred while “in the john.”
Chime in with your response here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p-RCaZW1plpBiRNEmpRgkRw&email=true
Tags: desultory · survey
After a few weeks in the new DUMBO apt, I’m finally settled enough to start doing some cooking. This is another recipe that I’ve tended to overcomplicate in the past, adding things like oregano, paprika, cumin, zucchini, carrots, or other silly stuff.
After deviating way too far from the flavor I remembered from my childhood, I called my Grandma with a notebook in hand and have been adhering to the recipe strictly. The result is a better red sauce than any I’ve tasted (other than my Grandma’s).
Cathy Belli’s Red Sauce (Best Red Sauce Ever)
** Cook sauce in a stainless steel, not teflon, pan. This seems to remove bitterness / acidity from tomatoes.
Mince 1 medium onion (tennis ball size).
Cover bottom of pan with extra virgin olive oil.
Saute onions with salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes in olive oil until golden.
Add 2 cloves sliced in half garlic.
Saute 2-3 minutes (make sure garlic stays white, not brown).
Add 1 28oz Hunts whole peeled tomatoes.
- If you use real tomatoes (about 10-12 plum tomatoes suggested), roast them in the oven first, then peel off the skins before adding to onions.
Cook for 1 hour on low heat (simmer, not boil).
Add basil and 1/4 cup white wine (add 1/4 tsp sugar if nec.).
Cook 1/2 hour.
Tags: kiss · recipe
Charles from iminlikewithyou.com showed me the new game they’re working on today, Draw My Thing.
A year ago, iminlikewithyou was fooling around in the online dating / flirting space. Then they added gossip news, viral video commenting, and a bunch of messaging tools called chatter. Then they added a game called Blockles, returning to what Charles does best: make beautiful, fun games.
They’ve started to strip out a lot of the clutter ( gossip, viral videos ) and refocus the site on the Arcade. Dinglepop ( think Snood or Bust a Move ), their second game, was as pretty and fun as Blockles, but I am really excited about Draw My Thing. It’s a real time Pictionary-like game that is the closest thing I’ve felt to playing a real life party game on the web. As usual, the aesthetic is lovely and the palate bright–not since old-school Mario have I seen design that better captures the word “fun.”
I hope they continue to strip away the fluff and focus the site more on the arcade. It’s great to see people so willing to drop extraneaous features, cut away the fat, and focus on their core value.
Tags: design
> > UPDATE > >
Got an email from Sean Glass, founder of Pikum. Quite impressive (1) because it was within hours of my writing this post and (2) because this blog has no readership (see graph). Talk about listening to your users…damn!
Sean informed me that the site is still in a pretty small Beta release right now and that they are still working on polishing the UI / design. He said they’re planning to collect feedback from everyone testing this iteration and use that feedback to make the user interaction much easier.
Sean also made a point that
The core of the game is that it’s played between people…. the social pieces like identifying friends who you can challenge, having a place to show games you are playing in or hosting (what a profile is good for) are part of what makes the experience compelling in the long term…
I agree that for Pikum social features are core, but I think choosing which social features to implement will be one of the toughest problems for their product team.
If Pikum keeps up this type of user feedback, I’m sure they’ll do well.
< < UPDATE < <
This week I got an invitation to join a site called Pikum, a site where “Players compete with others in their social network to see who can best predict the results of sports and other events.” I was pretty excited to check it out and had high expectations because some of the screenshots I had seen looked pretty and the company was backed by Virgin and First Round Capital.
After completing a daunting signup process with about 8 required fields (I guess they need a lot of info because they are a gambling site?), I managed to login to the site and attempted to place some bets.
Here’s what I saw immediately after logging in:
All of the main focus of the body of the page deals with my profile and prompts encouraging me to invite friends. There are also a few small links to “How It Works.” Instead of links to instructions and distractions like editing my profile, Pikum should present me something obvious and actionable. I (and I’m probably not an exception) am generally familiar with the concept of gambling enough that I shouldn’t require a complete page of instructions in order to place a bet.
I continued checking out the site and I clicked the “Play” button in the top navigation, hoping this would take me somewhere that I could place a bet.
Clicking “Play” brought me to the page above, with more instructions and no actionable items where I could actually bet. I clicked on a “Pikum my friend is playing” hoping to place a bet there.
That brought me to a landing page for the contest where the main focus was a middle-aged man from South Africa. There was a “Play Pikum” link that looked like it might take me somewhere that I could actually play, so I clicked that.
That brought me to a very long page with lots of radio buttons that looked actionable. I clicked a radio button and nothing happened, so I scrolled down to the bottom fo the page and found a submit button. I tried to click submit, and nothing happened, so I assumed this was some sort of advanced contest where I had to place bets on everything on the page. I scrolled up, clicked about 10 radio buttons, then submitted the form.
Submitting the form gave me this confirmation page, which might be useful if I had real money riding on this game, but since I was playing with fake cash it was annoying. Plus, I had to re-enter my password ( something probably also only important if you’re betting with real money ).
Confirming my password finally let me place a bet, about 5 screens later. In order to capture anyone who has as short an attention span as I do, Pikum needs to make it much, much easier to actually use their site. I should ideally be able to place a bet with one click from the page I see immediately upon logging in.
I explored the site a little more and saw a page like this:
IMO, classic mistake I see clients make all the time. Here’s their reasoning as I see it:
Let’s make our website grow virally by adding social elements. Social networks have profile pages. Social networks are social and grow virally. In order for us to grow virally and have social elements, we just need to add profile pages to our site.
I understand this line of reasoning, but disagree with it. Although not everyone is already on some sort of social network like Facebook, Myspace, or Bebo, I just can’t see the value of adding profile pages to something like a gambling site. Pictures, profile names, and even a short blurb or some links are all great, but full blown profile pages are too much. The best social features a site like Pikum can add are sharing features that rely on existing social networks–a way for me to import my bets to my Facebook newsfeed or embed a widget of my betting stats on my blog would be great.
Adding profile pages and duplicating other features of full blown social networks are mistake you pay for many times over, however.
(1) You waste engineering and design resources actually building this stuff.
(2) Adding these things makes your development cycle longer and this means it takes you longer to get your product to market. This is an extremely important one for a gambling site, because there are lots of people looking to move into this space, and I read about smart people with strong VC backing getting into the gambling space at least once a month.
(3) Adding extraneous social networking features can distract the user and dilute the core focus of your site. I come to Pikum to gamble (perhaps socially), but I should not be required to put forth any effort into the social part of my gambling. That should be automated behind the scenes by Pikum’s engineers. Just let me gamble here!
Tags: design
I am one of the organizers for a monthly whiskey tasting meetup here in NYC, and I’m just getting to recording notes from last month’s whiskey meetup. I decided that I need to start recording more notes about each meetup, because we’ve been growing quite a bit and now that we’ve been meeting for about a year, it’s harder to avoid repeats.
Every time we have a whiskey meetup, I learn a lot and think about Kathy Sierra’s comments about “high resolution experience” at SXSW this year. ( Can’t wait for them to post the video to SXSW site!!! ). Kathy was talking about wine tasting, but I’ve found that learning about anything ( sports, food, whiskey ) can really make almost anything more enjoyable and “higher res.”
Anyway, last month’s meetup featured:
Mystic Mezcal *
Old Potrero Rye
Black Maple Hill Bourbon *** (best american whiskey I’ve had)
Van Winkle Bourbon
Dalwhinie 18
Glennlivet 16 Nadura, Cask Strength
Springbank 10
Bruichladdich 18
Bruichladdich 13 Full Strength
McKillop’s Choice Single Cask
Caol Ila Black Adder *
Caol Ila Private Collection Gordon and McPhallan Claret Wood
I also had noted 2 recommendations from various members for next time:
Lagavullan Doublewood
Glenfarcas
If you’re interested in tasting some really nice stuff, you should check out the meetup.
http://whiskey.meetup.com/6/
Dont be intimidated if you’re not a scotch drinker. We are pretty laid back and there are some really knowledgeable people who are happy to share what they know with you. From the meetup site:
This event is a snob-free whisky tasting, located at the apartment of one of our members.
Tags: desultory
vim is a very fast text editor for unix.
$ cheat vim
vim:
Cursor movement
h - move left
j - move down
k - move up
l - move right
ctrl-f - page up
ctrl-b - page down
w - jump by start of words (punctuation considered words)
W - jump by words (spaces separate words)
e - jump to end of words (punctuation considered words)
E - jump to end of words (no punctuation)
b - jump backward by words (punctuation considered words)
B - jump backward by words (no punctuation)
0 - (zero) start of line
^ - first non-blank character of line
$ - end of line
gg - Go to first line
[N]G - Go To line N. No N: last line
Note: Prefix a cursor movement command with a number to repeat it. For
example, 4j moves down 4 lines.
Insert Mode - Inserting/Appending text
i - start insert mode at cursor
I - insert at the beginning of the line
a - append after the cursor
A - append at the end of the line
o - open (append) blank line below current line (no need to press return)
O - open blank line above current line
ea - append at end of word
Esc - exit insert mode
Editing
r - replace a single character (does not use insert mode)
J - join line below to the current one
cc - change (replace) an entire line
cw - change (replace) to the end of word
c$ - change (replace) to the end of line
s - delete character at cursor and subsitute text
S - delete line at cursor and substitute text (same as cc)
xp - transpose two letters (delete and paste, technically)
u - undo
ctrl-r - redo
. - repeat last command
~ - switch case
b~ - switch case of current word
>> - indent line one column to right
<< - indet line one column to left
Cut and Paste
dd - delete (cut) a line
dw - delete the current word
x - delete current character
X - delete previous character
D - delete from cursor to end of line
yy - yank (copy) a line
2yy - yank 2 lines
yw - yank word
y$ - yank to end of line
p - put (paste) the clipboard after cursor/current line
P - put (paste) before cursor/current line
:set paste - avoid unexpected effects in pasting
Visual Mode - Marking text
v - start visual mode, mark lines, then do command (such as y-yank)
V - start Linewise visual mode
o - move to other end of marked area
U - upper case of marked area
ctrl+v - start visual block mode
O - move to Other corner of block
aw - mark a word
ab - a () block (with braces)
aB - a {} block (with brackets)
ib - inner () block
iB - inner {} block
Esc - exit visual mode
Visual Mode - Commands
> - shift right
< - shift left
y - yank (copy) marked text
d - delete marked text
~ - switch case
Visual Mode - Cut and paste
1. Place the cursor at the start of your text.
2. ma (marks the location as point ‘a’)
3. Place the cursor at the end of your text.
4. d’a (cuts back to location ‘a’)
Exiting
:w - write (save) the file, but don’t exit
:wq - write (save) and quit
- same as :wq
:q - quit (fails if anything has changed)
:q! - quit and throw away changes
Search/Replace
/pattern - search for pattern
?pattern - search backward for pattern
n - repeat search in same direction
N - repeat search in opposite direction
:%s/old/new/g - replace all old with new throughout file
:%s/old/new/gc - replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations
Working with multiple files
:e filename - Edit a file in a new buffer
:tabe filename - Edit a file in a new tab (Vim7, gVim)
:bnext (or :bn) - go to next buffer
:bprev (or :bp) - go to previous buffer
:bd - delete a buffer (close a file)
:sp filename - Open a file in a new buffer and split window
ctrl-w s - Split windows
ctrl-w w - switch between windows
ctrl-w q - Quit a window
ctrl-w v - Split windows vertically
Tabs (Vim7)
gt - Next tab
gT - Previous tab
:tabr - First tab
:tabl - Last tab
:tabm [N] - Move current tab after tab N. No N: last. N=0: first.
$vim -p file1 file2 fileN - Open multiple files in different tabs (vim7)
Command Line Options
$vim -c “vim command” file - execute an editor command on startup
Tags: desultory
This symposium by SEED Magazine, the MOMA, and Parsons School was amazing and inspirational. Saw presentations by people figuring out models of the universe, building robotic limbs, pioneering genetic engineering, and building computers modeled on the brain.
Below are some of the notes I took.
Official site:
http://mind08.com/
There’s a bunch of related material in this month’s SEED:
http://seedmagazine.com/
If you’re at all interested in emerging science or collaboration between science/design disciplines, I recommending checking some of this stuff out.
notes…
Ben Aranda / Chris Lasch
- Built structures by first designing a six-sided building block object with various polyhedral surfaces. By using only this atomic object (in different sizes), was able to algorithmically construct larger structures. By “algorithmically,” he means the atomic elements can be combined according to a small set of rules to produce a vast number of different, larger, stable structures. He drew an analogy to the same atoms combining in different patters to form different molecules.
Chuck Hoberman
- Had a bunch of ideas about building canopies that responded to environmental stimuli (light, temperature) in order to control internal environment (more / less shade, etc.).
Paul Steinhart
- Presented alternative explanation to the Big Bang and expansion/inflation of the universe, involving parallel “brane-worlds” or dimensions of the universe we cannot experience colliding with the brane that we do experience. Definitely need to read some more of this guy’s stuff.
Interesting: brane worlds each have matter and are attracted by gravity. Some sort of potential energy exists between them, and as they get closer, PE increases (think of a spring being compressed or loaded). When they get close enough, they collide, PE is released, and they push away from each other. The collision is the big bang.
Second brane world has something to do with dark matter.
What is the PE force? He said it was related to gravity, but not gravity itself.
He gives the universe about 1 trillion years before it is a complete wasteland / vacuum.
Matthew Richie - Artist who collaborated on “The Morning Line” with the first presenter. Trying to explain the current state of our perception of the universe visually and verbally is his task.
Neri Oxman - Six dimensional structural diagrams were amazing. x, y, z, elasticity of surface, thickness of surface, and potential energy held by the surface in its shape are the 6 dimensions she diagrams. Lots of people today interested in surfaces of objects and how forces in the surface define the shape of the resulting object.
Erik Demaine - MIT Prof who does all sorts of cool stuff. Computation geometry uses curved folds that produce interesting 3D shapes. Collaboration with other mathematicians and artists is a large part of what Demaine does. - He’s interested in math as art.
Greg Lynn - making New City software that uses torus shapes as a view of the world. Mentioned a room in some museum or palace called “mappamundo” by Vignola that sounds awesome–maps and drawings on all the walls and ceilings.
Janna Levin
- Travel around earth in a straight line and you will end up where you started. Is the universe similarly finite?
- When we look into space, are we seeing our light from own own galaxy wrapping around? If so, it is light that we emitted billions of years ago.
Kevin Slavin
plundr.com
jane + katrina game
Shark runner - for discovery channel. Sharks are tracked and are your opponents in this video game.
Deliberate distortion of reality.
Blue Brain
Can you discover something new about this world in a virtual world? Modeling brain 1 neuron at a time.
Analyze brain activity and reverse engineer it–when you see someone’s brain activity, you can also see what they’re seeing.
Drew Endy
parts.mit.edu
Programming bacteria, eg:
if growing
call wintergreen
else
call banana
Engineering e. coli to see light and make photos
Christophe Laudamiel - made a “scent track” for a movie.
Hugh Herr, MIT
- titanium/silicon legs - biomechatronics.
Natalie Jeremijenko
Designs participation in environmental movement. Runs an environmental health clinic at NYU. Hot rod high heels give 40% more stride, eg. No Park / Green Zone–very interesting. Urban space station.
Tags: brain · genetics · science
I hear so many designers talk about improving a product by taking away rather than adding features that it has almost begun to sound cliche to me.
At SXSW, every presentation on design I saw recommended removing features instead of adding clutter. Even at a fashion show I saw a few months ago, designer Scott French said, “I look at every garment when it is done and ask, ‘Is there anything else I can remove and still have it succeed as a design?’ If not, then I consider it complete.”
Since KISS principle works for the leaders of application, UI, and clothing designers, I decided to apply it to my cooking.
Years ago, my friend Hamim recommended cooking African style chicken like he used to eat in Zimbabwe and Uganda. Since we were both big fans of Sri-Lankan curries (especially those cooked by his wife, Fatima), which have all sorts of delicious, amazing spices, I was surprised when he recommended chicken cooked with just salt, pepper, and chili.
After eating chicken prepared African-style at one BBQ, I was sold. But, over the years, I kept trying to create better chicken dishes, making curries with cumin and coriander or adding basil and other extra stuff to my grilled chicken. I realized recently that all my cooking has been suffering from “Ingredient Creep.”
So, lately, I’ve been keeping it simple, stupid, when I cook. Tonight, the main course for dinner was 1 ingredient, organic chicken drumsticks from Whole Foods. I used 3 spices: salt, pepper, and olive oil. This recipe is so simple that I don’t even need to list quantities. Just season to taste. (Also, I’ll admin I coated the bottom of the stainless steal pan with a little extra virgin olive oil to prevent sticking.)
Received exception:Wrong content-type:
The results of practicing judicious seasoning have been delicious. Go get some organic chicken drumsticks or thighs, and give this a shot. I guarantee, you’ll (re-)discover that chicken actually has a lovely flavor of its own, a fact which you may have forgotten after too many years of boneless, skinless white meat chicken breasts.
For those of you who missed it,
African Style Chicken (KISS Recipe)
Organic chicken drumsticks
Salt (kosher)
Black pepper (fresh ground)
Chili (extra hot from Indian spice store)
Remove as much skin from the drumsticks as you care to. Season both sides of the chicken with salt, pepper, and chili, patting to make sure the spices stick. Heat a stainless steal pan with a little bit of olive oil. Put the chicken in pan, and cook covered on medium heat until cooked through, about 15 minutes.
Tags: kiss · quotes · recipe
