Thursday, September 25, 2003

IBM DeveloperWorks: What can users do? Peter Seebach. In principle, usability problems should be addressed by encouraging people to stop making unusable things. However, that's not always practical. While you're waiting, you -- as a user -- can do a lot to make up for the hassles and annoyances of modern computer usage. [Tomalak's Realm] 7:54:08 PM    comment []

'Do not call' list fights back. Despite court ruling stalling it, the registry may yet take effect Oct. 1. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 5:20:09 PM    comment []

(And my copy of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1), by Neal Stephenson has graced my hands. Nobody told me that the other two volumes have covers already! More on the subject in the days ahead.....) 4:27:06 PM    comment []

Sure, the dictionary got 'phat,' but it also trimmed the fat. Let's shed a tear for forgotten pieces of our language. And there goes your last hope of learning what 'snollygoster' means. Pity. By David Kipen, San Francisco Chronicle. Hard to believe that even a fuddy-duddy could work up much indignation over the ouster of vitamin G, now that pretty much everybody calls it riboflavin. But more than a few folks are bound to miss a lovely mouthful like "frutescent, " which means "having or approaching the habit or appearance of a shrub." There is, mercifully, a court of appeal for these and other condemned words. . . . Not to be a broken record here -- and how much longer does that expression have to live? -- but how many of those titles are edited west of the Mississippi, or even the Hudson? Could it finally be time for a Dictionary of the West, as different from its Yankee predecessors as Noah Webster's first American dictionary in 1806 was from Samuel Johnson's? Harry Truman might have thought so. A Midwestern master of American English who lived most of his life west of the Hudson, Truman supposedly numbered among the last to use the word "snollygoster" freely. This raises an uncomfortable question for Merriam-Webster: How are those of us dedicated to the biodiversity of language ever going to save the snollygoster from extinction when regional pockets like Truman's Missouri, where the word thrived -- and may still thrive, for all Massachusetts knows -- tend not to write for, or get quoted in, or even subscribe to, the New York Times? Let alone Chocolatier. 1:26:39 PM    comment []

Much Ado About Bylines: Siegal Sets Out to Rewrite the Times' Rules. The "Press Clips" column by Cynthia Cotts, in The Village Voice. Though some insiders think this liberal crediting could get out of hand, the consensus seems to be that the new policy is a good thing, if still taking shape Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis confirmed that the newspaper is considering a systematic overhaul of its byline policy. We learned during the events of this past summer that readers inside and outside the paper would like more information, rather than less, about who writes what in our columns, she explained, so we have been experimenting with new variations in crediting. Mathis said desk and department heads are now discussing the proposed changes, which are likely to be adopted in the next few weeks. The new policy will not be made public, she added, but will eventually be incorporated into the online edition of the Times stylebook. (A call to Siegal was referred to PR, and a request to interview executive editor Bill Keller was declined.) 12:26:30 PM    comment []

E-Government for All: A Virtual Conference on E-Government and the Digital Divide, November 3-14, 2003. Sponsored by the Benton Foundation, the New York State Forum and Group Jazz (in conjunction with the American Library Association Office of Information Technology Policy, the Association for Community Networking, Athena Alliance, BytesForAll.org, the Council for Excellence in Government, CTCNet, the Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center (ITTATC), La Sociedad de Información de las Américas, One Economy Corporation and Thinkofit.com). 9:24:25 AM    comment []

Red Herring to resurrect Web site [CNET News.com - Front Door] 6:31:20 AM    comment []

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Hunter Becomes the Hunted. Saying that the music industry is ripping off its file-sharing software to track down music pirates, Kazaa is suing for copyright infringement. [Wired News] 6:28:03 AM    comment []

Toward a Weblogging Empire. Jason Calacanis was last seen as the editor of the Silicon Alley Reporter. Now he's resurfacing as the would-be czar of a weblogging clearinghouse. But is there any money in it? By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 6:25:10 AM    comment []

Court Blocks Do-Not-Call List. A federal court in Oklahoma blocked the national list that would allow consumers to stop most unwanted telemarketing calls. By Reuters. [New York Times: Business] Ruling says the agency's not authorized to do that, no matter what the importance of halting deceptive, fraudulent, or just plain nuisancesome telemarketing calls. Congressional leaders say, "Um, just a minute. We'll fix that authorization problem in a jiffy." Would Bush veto that Congressional authorization? 6:15:39 AM    comment []

One Unwired Day. You know a technology has arrived when someone gives it a "day" – in this case, Intel's corporate PR event, One Unwired Day , which invites the public to "experience the freedom and flexibility of wireless computing." Intel knows how to push its own technology, in this case the wi-fi equipped Centrino chip, and this is a pretty cool pile of PR, with listings of events and various pages on wireless - a survey of hotspots, music you can download via wireless broadband, etc. September 25, 2003 [Smart Mobs] 6:11:34 AM    comment []