depth first search

• Downloading Hot Chip's latest. Hoping this will turn the day around. #
• @CBStober Not quite a revelation like The Warning, but worth the price of admission. #
• Imagining a future that includes live-tweeting the premier of a reality show about the making of a documentary about Twitter. #

The first is about what makes a good blog:

To really work, Sierra observed, an entrepreneur’s blog has to be about something bigger than his or her company and his or her product. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. It takes real discipline to not talk about yourself and your company. Blogging as a medium seems so personal, and often it is. But when you’re using a blog to promote a business, that blog can’t be about you, Sierra said. It has to be about your readers, who will, it’s hoped, become your customers. It has to be about making them awesome.

So, for example, if you’re selling a clever attachment to a camera that diffuses harsh flash light, don’t talk about the technical features or about your holiday sale (10 percent off!). Make a list of 10 tips for being a better photographer.

Now about those Apple patents:

What worries me is that idea that Apple, or even just Steve Jobs, believes that phones like the Nexus One have no right to exist, period, and that patent litigation to keep them off the market is in the company’s interests. I say it’s worrisome not because I think it’s evil, or foolish, or unreasonable, but because it is unwise, shortsighted, and unnecessary.

Apropos my previous post:

He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

Darwin, of course, was wrong; his recurring fits didn’t prevent him from succeeding in science. Instead, the pain may actually have accelerated the pace of his research, allowing him to withdraw from the world and concentrate entirely on his work.

Of course if Twitter were around in Darwin’s time he never would have gotten around to writing On the Origin of Species.

I downloaded duo505’s Another Illusion and Hot Chip’s latest One Life Stand. Both are solid albums that I suspect will grow on me, but neither provided quite the cleansing inspiration I was looking for today.

I can’t complain too loudly. My state of mind lately oscillates between total despair and grim resignation. I know from experience that I should not expect to actually enjoy anything during this period. I’ve given up alcohol, started exercising twice a day, and have adopted a nearly fetishistic approach to food consumption. None of these lifestyle changes is really making any kind of dent in my psyche as I dance around the hollow shell of my true problem.

I seem to be out of ideas.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the “Keep Austin Weird” campaign. What can I say? I’m a sucker for loose and mysterious confederations of local people campaigning under a banner of weirdness.

But that sort of begs the question: who’s turning Austin normal?

I came across one answer as I was reading up on the latest counter-proposal for the Cactus Cafe closure over at Student Friends of the Cactus Cafe. That in turn led to a series of Chronicle articles detailing the brutal budget slash and burn that the Union has faced under the direction of Andy Smith.

I guess Andy gets to retire after he’s eliminated everything unique about the Texas Union. Maybe when the Starbucks gets to expand into the gutted corpse of the Catcus Cafe, Andy will get free mocha lattes for life. But first Kinko’s has to take over for the UT print center, and we definitely need some kind of satellite Border’s bookstore.

Only then, Andy, will you have a career you’ll be proud to look back on.

• Playing around with Google Apps. Now have an email address for my domain: depthfirstsearch.net #
• OkTrends has the prettiest graphs: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/02/16/the-case-for-an-older-woman/ #
• Nothing like a little domestic terrorism to liven up a slow #Austin newsday. #
• Tried to go to a colloquium titled "The Search for Randomness" which turned out to be "The Search for an Empty Seat." #

There’s been some coverage in the New York Times of the recent e-book pricing dispute between Amazon and Macmillan focusing on the potential for consumer backlash over e-book prices. The coverage includes the following quote:

“The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing,” said Douglas Preston, whose novel “Impact” reached as high as No. 4 on The New York Times’s hardcover fiction best-seller list earlier this month. “It’s the Wal-Mart mentality, which in my view is very unhealthy for our country. It’s this notion of not wanting to pay the real price of something.”

I certainly suspect that in today’s retail culture, basic economic reasoning often gives way to a kind of applied psychology. The prevalence of $x.99 prices, the strategic use of “discounts,” and the variety of tricks and techniques that raise retail bottom lines are certainly proof that this kind of tactical salesmanship does something (which studies seem to support). 

But really people, boycotting based on price isn’t exactly a new or serious problem, which is probably best seen if we consider the more common name for this practice — shopping.

My recent project to get back into shape is ramping up quite a bit. I was looking at old photographs the other day and reminiscing about the heady days of during and just after high school. I don’t have a particularly good memory, though I seem to understand the rough outline of how I felt at the time, and I’ve been struggling with how I can feel nostalgia for a time when I do not remember being particularly happy.

I was in the best shape of my life back then, even if my continually self-doubting nature would not or could not recognize it at the time. Since then I’ve been shedding good habits for bad, often in pursuit of the kind of casual adaptation that various places tend to force upon adults. The real world, it seems, is less about striving than about trying not to forget too quickly. But I’ve been living in Austin as a student for awhile now, and by now I’ve realized that singular interests often result in singular disappointments, and that a diversity of interests is not the zero sum game I thought it was.

In other random news:

• The price of a haircut rose $1 since my last trim.
• The luge governing body issued a statement prevaricating on the nature of causality.
• Uchi is louder than I thought it would be, and the parking situation leaves a lot to be desired.
• I have Google Apps set up for this domain!
• I also have Google Voice: (512) 814-8037.
• I agree with Peter Norvig that data is unreasonably effective — until it isn’t.

• I'm watching the superbowl. My wife is listening to a podcast on critical theory. We have different interests. #
• Judging by these commercials misogyny is the new black. #
• Watching football games before Twitter must have been really boring. #

I know you probably don’t care about what goes on inside my head most of the time, but here’s a taste anyway. I was rehashing the iPad in my head while perusing my iPod Touch and thinking about the bezel size — a subject of some criticism and a certain amount of defensive posturing:

People are complaining about the wide bezel around the display, but without that, where would your thumbs go? You don’t want your thumb that’s holding the device to cover on-screen content or register as a touch. Trust me, it’s just right.

For some reason I really hate bezels. Well, maybe I don’t hate bezels so much as I admire places where we both expect them and they are somehow missing. The aesthetic I’m after is the infinity edge pool. This is a good example of the kind of random stuff I think about for no reason. Anyway what are the user interface implications of a bezel-less iPad?

If you’re worried about touch, then the solution is easy: no touch sensors in the “bezel” region. Or, better yet, allow touch in the bezel region for touch commands that originate outside the bezel. Even better, ignore touches that result from holding the device. (This assumes that it is possible to classify touches into support and intentional types.) As for obscuring the screen, the right kind of design guidelines could deal with a lot of the problem there. The problem of margin maintenance would move from the hardware to the app designer, shifting a bit of work. But the gain in real estate and the aesthetic power of the bezel-less screen would be huge!