Life With Alacrity

As a user-interface designer in the 80's for companies like Apple Computer, and as old 'groupware' professional in the early 90's, I've been quite disappointed with how design of collaborative apps appears to have practically ceased since the introduction of the web. It is not that there haven't been lots of new features added in the last 10 years, it is that they are often too complex, or are pure eye-candy and not particular useful.

I'm fascinated by the melding of various ethic music styles with contemporary music, in particular, when the mix includes some middle-eastern or central-european infuences. For instance, listen to these: A mix of rock and middle-eastern: Too Tight by Falik on their album Streaks and Strokes(stream complements of by the "We are not Evil" MagnaTune). Turkish Pop and Dylan lyrics: One More Cup of Coffee (sample only), by Sertab Erener.

A very interesting article that has a different take on why the tussle of people who file share vs. the Music Industry. What I like is that it is taking a "behavioral economics" approach to understanding the problem. The New Economics of Music: File-Sharing and Double Moral Hazard Every major label 's setting up an iTunes these days. They're all, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash, 'born to lose, and destined to fail'.

I have been experimenting with eLance, which is a source of contractors for various web, graphic, and business related projects. So far I've put out bids for 4 projects, ranging from web programming with PHP, to graphics, and business competitive research. I've been amazed at the number of and quality of the bids I've been getting, as well as extremely reasonable prices for small project. I have my doubts regarding this system for big projects, but for well defined projects of under $5-10K, so far I highly recommend it.

I have been working on some code for experimenting with some of my ideas regarding the future of wiki's, at EditThisPagePHP which is hosted at SourceForge. At this point it is just a trivial application -- it just lets you edit remotely a single page. I'm trying to slowly add in elegant features without compromising on this projects essential simplicity. Longer term goals are focused around trying to figure out better solutions for the RefactoringWiki Problem, which might include such future features as proposals, voting, different commenting techniques, different versioning, etc.

RSS is finally available to Blogger members, so as soon as I've figured it out I'll be adding it here. original layout

Game Designer and Pundit Greg Costikyan: wrote in his blog a thought I can't believe that I've not heard of before, it makes so much sense. But it is new to me:Games * Design * Art * Culture: "Oh.... And you fellas. Sure, I like portraying the angry, um, middle-aged man... But, yet, I understand the importance of capital in bringing a product to market. But think about it: Back in the day, capital provided four essential things: development funding, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution.

Stuart Henshall has been investigating for a while the use of converencing software (iChat, Skype, etc.) for use with business. I thought this advertisement was a datapoint toward his proposition that this area will become more important. Basically How to Get Your Permission Email Past Filters: New Handbook + Q&A Teleseminar is a .pdf book at one price, or a .pdf and a "teleseminar" at another price. original layout

I have been hesitating on committing to Blogger because ever time I check into availability of Blogger Pro, it was not available. Apparently now Blogger Pro is Free. My remaining concern is that the new feature list for Blogger Pro does not mention RSS syndication at all, nor does it mention if it will be available in the future. There is a help item for for Syndication, however, it refers to a "

Scott McCloud, a very smart comic book artist and author of the fantastic book "Understanding Comics" has been trying for a number of years to both reinvent comics but also has been experimenting with how the medium of the Web transforms the comic medium. In addition, he has been an advocate for exploring new business models for comic book artists. A few years ago he strongly advocated micropayments, however, none of the many attempts at micropayments in the 90s have taken off.

I decided after years of reading blogs that it was time to start blogging. Why Blogger? I wanted an easy web interface, but also I wanted it hosted on my site (which is Debian based). A couple of blog tools offer this. I wanted something really simple and I didn't want to host my own tools (keeping my own TWiki's up-to-date has been a pain) so I wanted the tools hosted elsewere.