Year: 2006

  • Round two of the 2007 SXSW Interactive panel selection process starts today

    The first round of panels proposed for SXSW Interactive 2007 were those proposed by past speakers (I had two proposals in that round). Voting for the first round is now closed. 2007 SXSW Interactive Panel Proposal Picker (Round Two) starts today, featuring panel proposals that were submitted in the last few months. Go check out…

  • Then, Why Not Torture?

    “[Sen. Allen] said the United States needs to interrogate terrorism suspects effectively. ‘I don’t want to stop these interrogations,’ he said. ‘I’m not for torture . . . but some of these techniques have been very helpful to us.’” Article,” Washington Post. DKo: Then why not torture? Wouldn’t those interrogations be even more effective? Wouldn’t…

  • They signed it, didn’t they? The letter stays in the show!

    Military Lawyers Caught in Middle on Tribunals, NYT, 9/15/06 On Wednesday evening, the night before a crucial Senate vote…the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, summoned the senior uniformed lawyers [judge advocates general] from each military service to a meeting. …Mr. Haynes sought to enlist the lawyers on the administration’s side by asking whether…

  • Mini Friday UX Links

    Amazing amounts of work going on around here, so it’s been hard to find the time to blog (I know: excuses, excuses). Here are a couple of things I’ve been meaning to post about recently: Jared Spool’s new SpoolCast: I go to 20+ conferences a year and while many of the conferences have excellent programs,…

  • Beaker sings 'Feelings'

    Today’s been pretty stressful. This was just the chuckle I needed:

  • Joel Spolsky on painless functional specs

    From the oldie-but-goodie file, here’s Painless Functional Specifications from Joel on Software. Bonus: The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code

  • Focus on Disney is playing their game

    I agree with k / o completely: >My impression of the pulse of the netroots is that all-Disney all-the-time has actually been a net negative. I’m sure GOP strategists are happy that netroots diarists are talking about Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright today and not vulnerable GOP incumbents. I wrote a piece yesterday on dKos…

  • Blogs United supports local bloggers

    Blogger (and former Kos front-page poster) Kid Oakland has been gradually building a network called Blogs United to help local political bloggers learn from and support each other: Local bloggers are citizen journalists and activists. They are a vital part of the emerging netroots infrastructure. My goal this election season is to show how local…

  • Had enough?

    Enjoy this customized version of Have You Had Enough with Rickie Lee Jones and the Squirrel Nut Zippers (I think).

  • Brown University's new website

    There’s a lot of buzz in the interaction design world about the new Brown University website. Seems like they’ve broken out of the now-traditional, near-clich

  • Day of Action to defeat Richard Pombo

    Just wanted to pass this along to Bay Area readers: DAY OF ACTION TO DEFEAT RICHARD POMBO SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 10am Help defeat “One of the 13 Most Corrupt Members of Congress,” U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) this November by coming out Saturday, September 16 for a Day of Action to canvass and phone bank…

  • Jay Rosen discusses NewAssignment.net

    Back in late July, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen announced an initiative called NewAssignment.Net. (Full disclosure: I am one of a medium-sized set of advisors to this project.) The goal of NADN, in my words, is to leverage blog networks and traditional editorial expertise to define, assign, write, and edit news articles covering assignments that…

  • Precinct walking for Jerry McNerney

    Hi, This is a quick diary to relate the experience xian and I had today walking a San Ramon, CA precinct for Jerry McNerney. Short version: great experience, highly recommended. Lesson learned: even if (like me) you live in a deep blue district, there may well be a red(dish) district a short drive away. And…

  • Designing urls and other text strings

    Thomas Vander Wal explores the design implications of text strings (Domain of Digital Design Includes Strings). I used to think I was the only one who cared about the text in a file name or a url, but actually of course a lot of people do. Unfortunately, most CMS’s still produce butt-ugly urls, and I…

  • Paper-prototyping graphic resources

    Nice kit for putting together paper prototypes: Paper Prototyping Graphics (Design Usability Resources) from Information & Design, for the arts and crafts crowd.

  • Designing data tables

    LukeW (from Yahoo) explores some ideas for Refining Data Tables at UXMatters. (Nice illustrations, too!)

  • DHTML drag 'n' drop folder tree

    Check out this Folder tree with Drag and Drop capabilities based on unordered list tags.

  • The web is inherently social

    Karl Martino says “paradox1x: Social software can’t be a fad since the WEB is social software“: The fact is the most successful web services – since the beginnings of the web – were social software applications. The Web’s participatory architecture lends itself to them. It’s always been a Two Way web as Dave Winer would…

  • HCI due for a quantum leap?

    At ACM Queue, John Canny, the Paul and Stacy Jacobs Distinguished Professor of Engineering at UC Berkeley, writes about the future of human-computer interaction, For many years HCI has been evolutionary, not revolutionary. Is this about to change?. He begins by making a case for the centrality of HCI in product design: [I[t’s not a…

  • Outing Sen. Ted Stevens

    My friend Freeman Ng alerted me to this post at Slashdot: Slashdot | Bloggers 1, Smoke-Filled Room 0: MarkusQ writes “A few days ago a bi-partisan bill (PDF) to create a searchable on-line database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans, financial assistance, earmarks and other such pork was put on ‘secret hold’ using a procedure…

  • Mobile web held back by poor usability

    Interesting stats from this article: Poor Usability implicated in Rejection of Mobile Internet: Three quarters (73%) of people with access to the Internet through their mobile phone are not taking advantage of it. Amongst the reasons for not using mobile Internet were being frustrated by slow-loading pages (38%), problems with navigating websites from a phone…