dsandler.org

Usually I put this kind of thing on del.icio.us, but this point by dan Bricklin is too good not to pull a long quote from:

Instead of making you feel bad for “only” doing 99%, a well designed system makes you feel good for doing 1%. People complain about systems that have lots of “freeloaders”. Systems that do well with lots of “freeloading” and make the best of periodic participation are good.

At IRIS we talked about this a bit. During the panel discussion at the end of the presentation day, we talked about freeloading vs. contributing, and where Joe Schmoe (or Joe User or Joe Schlemiel or Joe Q. Random, as he was variously referred to) falls on that axis. I argued that there’s a vein of willing contributors out there, and while it certainly doesn’t cover the entire user population for distributed software, there are enough (based on the Open Source movement, SETI@Home, etc.) of these “civil servants” to make the world go ’round. (As it is on Earth, so shall it be in software.)

[Link via Guilt Is Good (Many-to-Many).]

Delicious comix from last week that I’m just catching up on: Cat and Girl’s The Blue Comic; Jeffrey Rowland’s Enchanted Delight Breakfast Beer.

Update: So much more! Strong Sad: “Have you seen my Moleskine notebook?” And a vision of our children in Penny Arcade: The Next Generation.

“Basically, being friends with a married couple is like going for a hike in a neurosis minefield.” (It is entirely possible that I, fully deserving of any and all ridicule dished out, am referenced somewhere therein.)

… the two most cherished words in academia.

My talk about FeedTree, “Sharing Web micronews with peer-to-peer event notification,” has been scheduled for the last slot on day one of IPTPS ‘05. (I hope that doesn’t mean everyone will be exhausted and grumpy by that time in the afternoon.)

The new Google Video Search allows me to verify what Darryl claimed: that J. J. Abrams is crossing his shows over.

Alias | The Awful Truth

Sydney, consider the ramifications. She’s my sister. I need to tell her the truth. This isn’t about what you need, Sydney. No, apparently it’s out what you need. You don’t know how Nadia May react to that information. Which will be especially true If she finds out from another source. I needn’t remind you that your sister has sworn to kill the man responsible for your mother’s death. Hey. Hi. Syd, where are the candles? These guys want to do the cake. I’ll be right there. Okay. [ “You all, everybody” By driveshaft playing ] trust me, Dad, I don’t look forward to telling Nadia what you did or why you did it.

It’s been all over the place today, but just in case you hadn’t seen it, footage [Coralized link] has been uncovered of the introduction of the Macintosh at the January Apple shareholder’s meeting. Also read the story of how the video was recovered. Spass!

Sigh. After 12 or 13 years of reading my email newest-at-bottom, an annoying UI quirk in Mail.app (it always “helpfully” scrolls mailbox lists to the top) has forced me to reverse my email sorting order. It’ll take a few days (at least) for my brain to get used to standing upside down.

Wooden tables seating six replace the round four-seaters at the Coffeehouse.

They’ve begun making improvements to the Student Center, including the Coffeehouse (see previous dsandler.org coverage: 1 2). So far, only furniture has been added (as seen above, and elsewhere in the building).

U2 tour dates:

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Two quick somewhat belabored points. First, I mentioned this over in my del.icio.us feed, but I think it demands the very-slightly-wider distribution of this page: USM, the Universal Subscription Mechanism, is a pretty simple idea that aims to patch a hole in the current RSS/Atom subscription scenario.

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What do the French call their rap? Le Eep Opp?

Brilliant rant about Not One More Damn Dime Day. [Update 1/23: dkp recommends Naked Economics to those looking for more reasons that this kind of zero-sum thinking is unproductive, no matter how well-intentioned.]

I never heard anything back from the Rice Coffeehouse about my suggestions for the renovation, but a recent visit to the site shows that they’ve developed a final concept that seems to share a few things with my sketch (including bar seating and a convenient coffee-condiment station).

I’m still not sure I like the partitions, but maybe they’ll look better in person than they do in my head.

GZY, a collection of all references and descriptions of the fable of King Solomon’s ring (or, “This Too Will Pass”). [via Boing Boing]

One day, Master Foo was browsing the Web, reading about optional typechecking on Guido’s blog.

A great multitude of static typing zealots arrived up the mountain from the town below and begged an audience with Master Foo.