Stuff you should know, stuff I should remember.

From 1983. I remember reading this book obsessively as I tried to develop my own versions of Zork . I was in middle school learning how to write a language parser. Nerd! 470 N=1 480 IF MID$(A$,N,1)=" " THEN C$=MID$(A$,N+1,3): IF LEFT$(C$,1)<>" " THEN 530 ELSE 500 Full text of the book by Tim Hartnell…

Relying on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ to guide you while forgetting that sometimes that produces shoddy folk-art and lowest common denominator output. Technically I shouldn’t use the word ‘tard’ since it is offensive to people with mental disabilities. But the people I’ve met with mental disabilities are about 10x more skilled than some webtards I […]

Andy Sernovitz (blog), author of Word of Mouth Marketing and general marketing bad-ass is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies at a very large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best introduction to word of mouth that there […]

I like how we’ve now coined a word for a vacation where you don’t have enough money to leave the house: staycations. AAA Vice President Mark Brown says the slowing economy and high fuel prices "have pushed some Americans to what we call the traveling tipping point. It’s clear that a small number of us […]

A thread on Metafilter looks back at Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz pizza places where a cavalcade of animatronics would serenade youngsters as they alternately tossed pizza down their gullets and played video games. One commenter boils it down: Robot furries that sing, entertain you, then bring you carbs. That made me smile. (We talked […]

Usability and design touches us all day, every day – every single item around you right now was designed by someone, somewhere with varying degrees of attention to your needs and goals. ATMs are a huge exercise in design and functionality that has to be immediately accessible and useful and obvious. For me they are […]

Downloading the Blurb Bookmaker that helps you make books to then be printed by the Blurb service. Here’s their instructions on installation for a Mac: Drag the BookSmart folder into your Applications folder, then drop it like it’s hot. I love that.

In a critique of the Lilith-sphere: It’s just odd that while there has been a significant advance in sites by and for women, much of what is being produced replicates, rather than revolutionizes, the template set down by women’s magazines for decades. "The lack of evolution is disappointing to me," said Caterina Fake, one of […]

Mötley Crüe, who simultaneously managed to ruin umlats and a timeless Shakespeare reference at one time, released one of their new singles to players of the Rock Star video game. Rock Star is in the same vein as Guitar Hero, instead of a joystick you have a fake guitar and have to match the screen […]

I’ll probably always blog about things related to Six Apart after their big splashes – I’m always skittish about saying something too early. Yesterday Six Apart released TypePad Antispam a service that any blogger can use to guard their blog against spam. Here’s how it works: Each time a comment or trackback or pingback is […]