Posts

Interesting weblog post on the design philosophy behind MarsEdit beta , which has become my blog weapon of choice (much better than ecto IMHO). Basically, the UI philosophy was blogging like sending email.

It’s interesting, but misleading in terms of actual usage, because I think of MarsEdit as a blog management tool though do use it for posting from NetNewsWire and Firefox> (I use MacJournal 2.6beta5 for writing and posting much of the time). I’m not necessarily a normal user, but still. MarsEdit is great for adding in pix though which is a feature still missing from MJ.

Following up on Social Software Interfaces , I’ve been looking around at different classes of software (blogs, wikis, collaboration spaces, social softs) to help self-identify, self-create and self-publish a large, de-centralized global community. While outsourcing to a “private label” Blogger, TypePad or LJ (if they had it) might be an option, it seems silly even considering it with all the amazing open source tools out there once you abstract infrastructure and admin.

They did it. Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composite’s SpaceShipOne made a successful first Ansari X Prize rocketing to 100 miles and the limit of space before returning safely to earth.

Like the 1919 Orteig prize which spurred Lindbergh to attempt the first transatlantic crossing in the Spirit of St.Louis, the Ansari X Prize has managed to do what superpowers have failed to do: open space.

I think the X Prize competition is important, but not for the reason most people think I do (my father being an aeronautical technician, my brother an airplane mechanic, and my mom a trekkie). I honestly think the benefits to science and industry will be minuscule to the changes I hope it creates in our ideas about ourselves.

Joel on Software has a great usability article on the difference between designing social software interfaces versus user interface design. This is on my mind a lot right now as what my potential employer is asking me to, while fixing their corporate backend, is build software to power their society.

Whereas the goal of user interface design is to help the user succeed, the goal of social interface design is to help the society succeed, even if it means one user has to fail.

Often, even useful software never gets used, because it does not align with the way people want to work together. Getting the social interfaces right is critical. Creating belonging is key. We’re really building communities with social software .

Since my plane buddies from the other night and I talked at length about what could be done to stop this slow, terrible erosion of democracy we all seemed to see and help resurrect public discourse about real issues :

Adbusters, the anti-consumerism culturejammers , have launched a legal challenge against the major Canadian media outlets which refuse to let Adbusters buy airtime on Canadian networks for airing their ads.

How important is this case? For a generation of people, and a growing social movement that sees the media as its main battleground, a victory here will change everything. Without media democracy - which means genuine public access to the most powerful forms of communication - we can’t raise healthy children, create good public policy or hold elections that are legitimate or that matter. We lose power to shape our consciousness, our culture and our future. We even lose the power to imagine what that future should look like.

Quick followup on the wikipedia authority challenge .

Ed Felten did a quick smackdown comparison ; the mighty Wikipedia vs Brittanica cage deathmatch.

Very interesting actually. Wikipedia seems to do very well against Brittanica when it goes toe to toe. Would be interested in seeing how far that actually goes though for a representative statistically significant comparison of entries.

Overall verdict: Wikipedia’s advantage is in having more, longer, and more current entries. If it weren’t for the Microsoft-case entry, Wikipedia would have been the winner hands down. Britannica’s advantage is in having lower variance in the quality of its entries.

Several very highly qualified bloggers Mike of techdirt , Joi Ito , Cory Doctorow recently lambasted Al Fastoldt’s article where he says that a librarian said the Wikipedia is not authoritative and that it should not be used as a knowledge source.

Much more than a proof of concept, I think the wikipedia is fascinating as on the surface it does appear a very fragile way to generate knowledge. Allowing anyone, anywhere to edit and alter an article page on something or create new knowledge appropriate is a revolutionary idea and I can definitely see why a librarian would have a problem with this.

Great op-ed piece worth reading by perhaps America’s foremost security expert, Bruce Schneier, on the DHS security warnings (Department of Homeland Security, for the non-US acronym followers) and their actual effect in terms of security (zero) versus the effect on the populace (fear). Short, pulls no punches and questions the political motivation of the entire system.

There are two basic ways to terrorize people. The first is to do something spectacularly horrible, like flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing thousands of people. The second is to keep people living in fear.

by Dr. Seuss

Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away! You have brains in your head, You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself Any direction you choose.

You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t care to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, You’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

Yesterday’s post about Firefox raised some questions about what else is on my desktop. I have to admit I feel much more productive on Macs. I’ve also selected the apps that really enhance my productivity. Macs have excellent apps. These are the ones I think help the most with little comments as to why I’ve selected them. Some of them have windows or Linux equivalents for those of you who haven’t switched or find other platforms work better for you.