The microblog is something of an odd bird, defying easy classification or even explanation (as evidenced by the many attempts to articulate its purpose and properties). Originally conceived as a way for strongly-connected friends² to keep track of one another’s whereabouts and present activities using SMS, it’s become a kind of ultra-lightweight conversational tool that doesn’t map exactly onto any existing publishing or communication system. Twitter’s single prompt—“What are you doing?”—is almost vestigial at this point; it is evolving into a micropublishing platform, and as such has become an important and interesting topic of research.

Microblogging has already had impact. We can speculate—from the amount of news and media coverage that the phenomenon has earned³—that it is poised to take its place next to the blog as a prominent method of publishing and interacting online. Many now rely on services like Twitter for business and personal interaction; beyond the “ambient awareness” of physically distant friends and neighbors, microblogging now finds use in business networking, customer service, national politics, journalism, and general lazyweb⁴-style requests. Microblogging has unquestionably become a part of the everyday lives of active users, and in extreme situations—such as the recent Sichuan earthquake—it can literally be a lifeline.⁵ Encouraging and improving these services is therefore an important and valuable goal.

As a computer scientist, I’m interested in microblogging systems in part because of their unique properties. They are remarkably spam-free, mostly due to the way in which users explicitly select those senders whose messages they wish to see (by “following” them). The many subscription links between microbloggers forms an interesting social graph: can we put this network to use in some way?⁶ Microblogging is also an unusual mode of communication, falling somewhere between blogs, chat, IM and BBSes in terms of how, when, and to whom messages are distributed. Even the way users consume messages is peculiar: a constant stream of updates commingling their own messages with those from their friends, ensuring that no two users have the same view of the system.⁷

Microblogging is every bit as compelling as research because of its limitations—specifically, the limitations of the flagship microblog service, Twitter. First, it is a large but entirely centralized system; there are currently a few million registered user accounts⁸, of which maybe half a million are active⁹. How much larger can it get? The folks at Twitter are, by all accounts, barely keeping up with their own success; in fact, scaling problems have been at various times the subject of much public frustration. As a result, Twitter is also fragile; its users are all unavoidably bound to Twitter’s robustness and reliability. When Twitter goes down, service is completely interrupted for everyone. It is a closed system, by which I do not necessarily mean that the source code is not available, but rather, the ways in which the system functions are not up for debate or (easy) amendment by the community.¹⁰ Twitter, Inc. is a dictator, albeit a benevolent one, and while users may wish to switch to another service—and there are plenty of Twitter-alikes to choose from, many promising more advanced features or better reliability—powerful network effects prevent users from leaving. After all, everyone you know is already on Twitter, and they’re not on, for example, Pownce.¹¹

The potential is certainly there for Twitter to become, as its founders style it, a “communication utility”; whether or not Twitter can actually achieve this aim depends in large part on its technical evolution. That’s where my recent work fits in the microblogging timeline; watch this space.

The day after Thanksgiving, November 28, has been declared National Day of Listening by the StoryCorps oral history project and NPR (among others). The idea: With family in town, bellies full, and (hopefully) a little time off work, we might all take an hour to sit down and tell each other stories. An essential part of the NDoL is to record those stories, because they probably don’t already exist on blogs or email or Twitter—particularly if the storyteller isn’t of the Internet generation.

We realized this is a perfect use for TapeDeck, our fast, fun, and foolproof audio recording software for Mac OS X. So this week we’re taking 20% off the price of TapeDeck with the hope that you’ll use it to capture your family’s stories this Friday. Just download TapeDeck and press the big red REC button to get started. By purchasing a registration you’ll remove TapeDeck’s time limits (so you can record for as long as you like); do so before Sunday, November 30 to get the discounted price.

We sincerely hope this helps you and your family start and preserve your own oral traditions. Happy Thanksgiving!   —Dan & Chris

I went to post a remark about this article from yesterday’s New York Times on the computer science gender gap (particularly how this graph shows how the tech boom utterly failed to inspire young women) and found that Twitter was down:

Actually, that’s a lie; at first, I didn’t notice anything, because this is what I see when I use Twitter:

This is a screenshot of Birdfeeder, a prototype implementation of a distributed and secure microblogging protocol called FETHR, which operates independently of (but connects to) Twitter. I posted my comment to a personal instance of Birdfeeder, which happily accepted it, digitally signed it, entangled it with other messages in my timeline, and forwarded it on to my FETHR subscribers—one of which is a Twitter gateway, which takes care of forwarding my messages on to my Twitterstream. It’s also responsible for sending me messages from people I follow, so (as you can see from the screenshot) I never have to leave my Birdfeeder interface—and therefore can occasionally miss minor Twitter glitches. (Or, as in this case, major hour-long outages. Nothing yet on the status blog, either, so it must really be all-hands-on-deck over at Twitter HQ. Update: Over an hour in, there’s a small note on the status blog.)

When Twitter eventually comes back up, the gateway will busy itself with the task of forwarding along my queued messages and fetching news from my Twitter subscriptions. I can continue to tweet in the meantime and even page back through my entire history and the archived messages of my friends. This is the fundamental benefit of decentralized micropublishing: independent providers may experience local failures without bringing the whole damn thing to a screeching halt.

So, in something of a twist on the usual, Twitter is down for everyone—but not me.

This is fun and exciting new research (currently under submission) and I hope to push out a technical report version soon so that others may begin to evaluate and improve the system design. Hit me at dsandler@ (or @dsandler, once Twitter wakes up again) if you can’t wait and would like to know more.

Photo credit: Doug Mills / The New York Times

So I’m firing up my first draft of a long, long, long-awaited dsandler.org refresh. At first glance it probably looks like just another tightly-tracked Helvetica design; while I do believe that that particular Max Miedinger Old Style look is timeless, I’m actually going for something a little different. Font nerds with Avenir (or Gotham, a slightly boxier substitute) installed will see more of what I’m going for: something a little more open and friendly. [Update: See a screenshot of the Avenir version.]

Feedback is welcome in the comments or shouted to @dsandler.

Twitter feedback

al3x @dsandler I’d click it.

boredzo @dsandler Much improved; thank you.

dangerdave @dsandler v. pretty. But the Avenir family is expensive: I can’t afford Sandler Platinum.

davidrperry @dsandler new layout = elegant & clean. I did get a kick out of the temp version, though!

But I’ve got a few actual blog posts in the queue, and if I want anyone to attempt to read them, I need to put this damn thing back together. So keep an eye out for a return to readability, but for today enjoy an even-more-eye-assaulting Halloween color scheme.

The code update is done, but the classic “blue bars” design is totally broken (in part because my custom tagging scheme clashes violently with the taxonomy features introduced in WP2.3) so I think I’ll start from scratch.

You’re looking at the “from scratch” part right now, a kind of extreme experiment in non-layout. Over time I’ll build up the design up bit by bit, with an eye to eventually having a consistent new L&F that spans my personal and professional web outlets.

I hope to see you back here (and over on twitter, of course) as things evolve.

So there’s this hurricane. It’s kind of a big deal—currently forecast to be nearly as large as Katrina, if not her equal, and currently on a beeline for Houston/Galveston. Dr. Masters of the Weather Underground projects damage in the tens of billions of dollars as a result of a massive storm surge and damaging Category 4 winds at landfall.

I don’t expect to update dsandler.org a whole bunch; instead I’ll be posting to Twitter over the course of the next few days as E and N and I shelter in place down in Sugar Land with the in-laws. We’re likely to be slightly closer to the center of the storm, but on much higher ground, with access to more resources (larger vehicles, a generator, more people to watch the Boy, etc).

With any luck, this will be just another Adventure to tell and re-tell. “You know, you lived through a major hurricane, when you were just two months old…”

Source: Weather Underground

It had become clear to me that I have grown to depend on coffee’s (sometimes uncontrollable) capacity to power my brain. Ever since I started drinking coffee (my freshman year at Rice), it has been a perennial companion. We even threw a couple of parties—under the moniker “Devil Mug Café”—in honor of its awesome and terrible power:

Coffee giveth, but coffee taketh away. It has exacerbated my predisposition to anxiety and panic. It makes Erin not want to kiss me. And when I try to give it up, it fights back. I’m unsettled by the degree to which I appear not to function without it.

For more than ten years, coffee has been by turns my friend (making me the best version of myself) and my enemy (making me the worst version of myself). Its companionship is mercurial and destructive. Erin has therefore dubbed coffee my bad friend. (I tend think of it more as a seductress, but I can see how she might not share that characterization.)

On a related note, I am now officially looking for other, less-harmful habits to pick up. Ideally: something that will give me the feeling of inner warmth and cerebral industriousness without the unpleasant side-effects of 200 mg of caffeine. Tea is perhaps an option, but it must be reasonably decaffeinated (as anyone who was present at Pei Wei two weeks ago will attest—stupid iced green tea!).

My (non-bad) friend Jeremy has proposed “weekend coffee” as a way to enjoy its effects on occasion without developing a mind-bending tolerance for them, but I fear I would find my bad friend on the couch long after the weekend is over. Recidivism is a potent risk with such a strategy.

However, as the father of a three-month-old, Jeremy also offered a word of warning: once our baby arrives, I may need my bad friend more than ever. Coffee, it is said, is the third parent.

Chris has written up an excellent summary of our TapeDeck development experience, from the first sparks of an idea in September through our April betas and finally to the release in May.

At some point I’ll scan my early sketches and add them to the historical record. For now, I’ll leave you with an early about box for TapeDeck (and since I love about-box easter eggs, you can find this in the shipping app, along with some others).

Chris Liscio and I just unveiled our top-secret Mac application project of the last few months: TapeDeck. While Chris is on the ball with his own blog post commemorating the release, here I am with a lot to say and no time to say it. I’ll write up something more “official” over at the toastycode blog over the weekend.

For now, I’ll just collect press and links over the course of the next few days here at dsandler.org.

Update 5/10: TapeDeck is the top featured Staff Pick on Apple’s Mac OS X Downloads site:

When this happened to Cuckoo a couple of years ago, it meant a huge jump in users and lots of great feedback. Very exciting.

New $25 audio recording app, a joint production of SuperMegaUltraGroovy and Toastycode. The gimmick is that it’s modeled after an ’80s era cassette deck. It uses a library for recording management — no interaction with the file system necessary — but you can easily send clips to iTunes or email. Worth a download just to watch the tape spin while you record.

—John Gruber, Daring Fireball: TapeDeck 1.0

Every once in a while, an application comes out that just works. It’s so intuitive that anyone can pick it up and use it. A new app from SuperMegaUltraGroovy Software (FuzzMeasure) and Toasty Code [sic] (LCD Scrub, Cuckoo, and Pyrotheque) is just that kind of app. Tape Deck isn’t bloated with features or totally unnecessary eye-candy, and best of all, anyone who has ever used a tape recorder will be able to use it right away.

—Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica: Quick Look: Tape Deck, simple audio recording on the Mac.

The real question is: does the UI help or hinder TapeDeck? I’ll have to spend more time using TapeDeck to fairly answer that, but at first blush this app is great fun to use (especially if you remember using tape recorders like these).

—Scott McNulty, The Unofficial Apple Weblog: TapeDeck 1.0

All the familiar stuff is there — the clicks, whirrs and pops of a real cassette deck recorder. They even threw in that sped-up sound that plays when you fast-forward or rewind a real tape recorder while holding down the play button.

—Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired Listening Post: Even Luddites Will Enjoy Recording with TapeDeck

The release note that the software takes extensive advantage of Leopard technologies with rich animation in TapeDeck’s user interface: “Live level meters, rotating cassette spindles, live search, and UI sound effects make TapeDeck truly fun to use,” the company added.

—MacNN: TapeDeck 1.0 quickly, simply records audio

TapeDeck carries with it some retro charm — it’s designed to look like a cassette tape deck, and even operates like one, complete with a tape deck-style interface. It’s designed to quickly capture recordings, stored as “tapes,” recorded directly to MP4-AAC audio. TapeDeck is aimed at users who want to make band recordings, practice speeches or capture lectures, according to the developers.

—Peter Cohen, Macworld.com: TapeDeck audio recorder debuts

Mit TapeDeck steht ein neues Programm zum einfachen Erstellen und Verwalten von Audio-Mitschnitten bereit:Im Stil eines Kassettenrecorders aus den 80er Jahren kann TapeDeck in verschiedenen Qualitätsstufen aufnehmen. Anschließend lassen sich die “Kassetten” beschriften und in einer Art Schublade verwalten. Man kann das Programm als typischen Vertreter der sogenannten “Delicious Generation” brandmarken, denn es bietet eine ansprechende Oberfläche, aber einen recht begrenzten Funktionsumfang. Ob das den Preis von 25 Dollar rechtfertigt, muss jeder für sich entscheiden.

—Hendrik Auf’mkolk, MACNOTES.DE: TapeDeck: Schnelle Audio-Aufnahmen

TapeDeck [1.0 - 1.5 Mo - Mac OS 10.5 - US - 25$] n’est pas le plus sophistiqué des enregistreurs audios et on doit même trouver moins cher. Mais il a le look et il fait le bruit d’un vieux lecteur de cassettes. Le fonctionnement est hyper simple, comme l’est un lecteur de K7… Le choix des formats audios est lui aussi très simple, c’est m4a ou rien. Mais on peut varier la qualité. On peut également envoyer ses fichiers directement vers iTunes ou en pièce jointe de Mail. La démo enregistre des sessions de 15 mn puis ce délai se réduit.

—Florian Innocente, MacGeneration: TapeDeck 1.0 : le bon bruit du lecteur de K7

[Note: Apparently K7 is French shorthand for “cassette.” I get it now, but I had to look it up.]

Mac software bloggers sharing the love: Daniel “Punkass” Jalkut; Brent Simmons; Gus Mueller.

Searches: Twitter posts containing “tapedeck”; Technorati search for “tapedeck”

Update 6/3/08:

You need another program to edit and “finish” a recording, so why do I like it so much? TapeDeck’s interface wisely capitalizes on the familiar, in sharp contrast to the over-powered applications I’m used to seeing in the audio world. Creative types can distribute a tune or audio blog moments after pressing STOP. I can capture and organize business notes with a minimum of fuss before and after. That’s “excellent” to me.

—Matthew Glidden, Inside This Particular Macintosh: TapeDeck 1.0

I can’t remember exactly when I got it; during my tenure at Be, I think. It replaced a much more traditional leather computer bag that I received as a gift (but that quickly became a chew toy for our furry roommates). It’s stylish black messenger-style laptop bag; it’s always had some niggling design flaws, but all in all it has served me well for years.

Those years have come, I think, to an end.

So I’m in the market for a new bag—in all likelihood another messenger-style shoulder bag. Here’s where you come in, dearest lazyweb: I’m looking for personal recommendations. “I’ve been using the Timbuk2 Laptop Messenger, and the small is too small.” “The Waterfield is worth the money.” “This simple JanSport is better than all those fancy messenger bags.” That kind of stuff. (Basically what Dan Benjamin did a couple of months ago.)

Suggestions are welcome in the comments below or tweeted to @dsandler.

Update:

I now present, for archival purposes, the long-awaited Dan = Doogie page.

I pretty much gave up reading for pleasure some time in high school (probably right around the time I was forced to read The Grapes of Wrath); I’ve probably read a dozen novels in the last thirteen or fourteen years. Now I read internet crap (news, essentially) and technical material, things found online and most easily consumed via LCD screen.

Except, for some reason, research papers. I can’t read research online. It doesn’t sink into my brain in any meaningful way unless I kill a tree and curl up with a stapled, 2-up duplexed printed copy and a highlighter or two. (I haven’t yet figured out why this is; perhaps my technique is broken—see below.)

And yet there are plenty of lovely PDF readers for the Mac: Skim (which I do use for LaTeX preview), Papers (winner of an Apple Design Award), and so forth. Clearly some people are able to consume journal articles and conference proceedings electronically, else there would be no demand for such tools.

So I ask: How do you consume your research or other non-reference technical material? Online or offline? More to the point: is there some refinement to my reading technique that will allow me to use a different medium (ideally, an electronic copy plus PDF annotation)? Or am I doomed to my pulpy ways?

Tonight’s entry: Supermodels and the mortgage crisis.

These two problems are related in that they both stem from the message being pushed on Americans that anything is possible. That’s the American dream, isn’t it? That anyone can do anything in America. With respect to physical appearance, girls seem to have internalized the message, from shows like America’s Next Top Model and Extreme Makeover, that it’s not only possible but desirable and easy for any woman to be ridiculously gorgeous. Clearly too many Americans literally bought into the idea that they could own homes, without regard to the realistic limits of their income.

Related: Don’t buy stuff you cannot afford.

(Source: NYT election map, 9:55 PM CST)

(Note that I Twittered from the caucus and will continue to be opining/snarking/groaning there as the results come in tonight.)

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(With apologies to @rands.)

See also: larger version, Acorn source (?).