think or thwim

Wikipedia just raised $1 million in their latest pledge drive. Admittedly, I don’t keep up with such things, but the last time I knew anything about it, Wikimedia had about 5 employees and they all drove VW vans. I gave $50 thinking I was buying them a years worth of Ramen Noodles, so imagine my surprise when Florence Devouard, French chick and Chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation, said this last week:

At this point, Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for about 3 to 4 months. If we do not find additional funding, it is not impossible that Wikipedia might disappear.

Apparently, the Wikipedians have increased their burn rate significantly. I didn’t look into what they’ve been using the money for, but I have noticed that their logo is a nearly completed death star. Those things don’t come cheap.

Anyway, Ms Devouard caused quite a stink around the internet. To me, it seemed a little overly sensational, but hey, if somebody doesn’t give me a Ferrari Modena by June, it is not impossible that I’ll stop writing this blog. You’ve been warned.

So, why don’t the kids at Wikimedia just put some Google Ads in the sidebar? To me, it makes perfect sense:

• Sophisticated users would block the ads anyway.

• Unsophisticated users could occasionally benefit from the ads since Google serves up semi-relevant content.

• At least in theory, Wikipedia pages are written by anyone. If I wanted to change the elephant page per Mr. Colbert’s instructions, I wouldn’t be swayed by Wikipedia’s sponsors in the slightest.

• Except for the ability to deny some ads, the website doesn’t have control over which ads Google serves up, so there’s no conflict of interest for the website.

In the worst case scenario, the Google page at Wikipedia would be locked after it was edited to say something to this effect:

Glory be unto Google, our Lord and Savior, who hath bestowed upon us a great abundance of pretty good search results, text ads, and banner ads that doth not flash. We thank thee, oh Google, for thine blessings of 2.6GB email storage, feed reader that canst play YouTube, and map API which hath enabled thine humble servants to build great and most holy mashups in your honor.

I’m fine with that, and it seems inevitable at this point anyway.

Google would probably even host Wikipedia on their servers for free if Wikimedia would just give it up. By my calculations, Wikimedia would have roughly 14 bazillion dollars after operating expenses per year. Think of the good they could do in the world with that kind of scratch. They could buy the rights to all the great books and set them free, fund fusion research, or move everybody out of Africa.

What am I missing?

:: Rough Type :: Calacanis

Hey, even bigoted idiots like a good carnival.

After this, they shot a man just to watch him die and went for ice cream.

:: Canon City Public Library

The good folks at Gillette recently sent a sample of their new pentabladed razor. My curiosity was peaked when I noticed that it was addressed to me personally rather than ‘occupant’ or ‘resident’ as with all the other mail I receive. Something like 93% of American men and women shave, so you would think the AOL spam CD marketing approach would work for them with minimal effort.

Ironically, I have a beard, but since the crack marketing team at Gillette sought me out personally, I assume they found me through this blog and hoped I would do a review. I decided to trim my neck with it this morning. Here’s how it went:

1. Packaging

It came in a box. Within that box the razor was safely wrapped in another impenetrable plastic box. After 6 minutes of creative cursing the razor was finally liberated. I threw away all the packaging, and I was ready to begin.

2. Contents

• One razor (blade factory installed).
• An instruction manual or something. I don’t know. I threw it away.
• A clear plastic razor support thing to avoid resting the razor on the counter when not it use. It was made of the packaging material and should last about 20,000 years. I threw it away.

3. Appearance

As you can see this thing is a real looker. It’s shiny with blue trim.

4. Features

The blades are the focus of this new model as it has five of them. The Onion famously predicted this advance way back in 2004, but it took scientists this long to bring this technology from the realm of science fiction into our bathrooms. Technically, this beauty has six blades because there’s an extra one on the back for trimming up tight spots. There’s also an oval blade-release button visible in the picture above.

5. Performance

The handle is well padded, and the weight evenly balanced. The five blades work so smoothly you’d swear there were only four. I enjoyed it so much that I shaved my entire body. I’m silky smooth, four pounds lighter, and I’m lovin’ it. I can’t wait to use it again. While I’m waiting for more hair to grow I’m considering shaving the cat.

However, the blade release mechanism is easily my favorite thing in the world right now. With previous models, when the release button was pushed, the razor blades just fell off into the trash can. This baby ejects the blades at high velocity. There’s nothing like a six-razor-bladed projectile careening around the bathroom to perk you up in the morning.

6. Conclusion

With the Gillette Fusion I think we have reached the pinnacle of multiple blade technological achievement and possibly the zenith of human civilization. I highly recommend this razor. It worked at least as well as the double-bladed razor I’ve been using since 1988, and the blade shooting feature is well worth the $22 upgrade price. However, I’m going to stick with the old razor for actual shaving. At $2 per blade, these blades are twice as much as I normally pay, and something like 20 times what they are really worth.

Purchase yours here, and I’ll make 40 cents: Gillette Fusion Starter Kit at Amazon

Jason Fried wrote a beautiful post called Control vs Communication for the 37 Signals blog today.

Every once in a while we get an email from a customer asking about how permissions work with our products. They’re almost always asking how to prevent someone from doing something…

When they ask how to prevent people from doing this or that I usually reply with something like ‘Have you tried asking them not to do this or that?’ …And to my delight, their replies are usually ‘Great idea! I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll try that and see how it works.’

For this he was hammered by commenters who said he’s naive and that his philosophy doesn’t work in the real world. It seems to me that 37 Signals has already proven that it does work, and when 37 Signals say limiting what people can do is a bad idea, we should listen.

Limits Are Bad Design

If there’s one thing that drives me absolutely bat shit nuts, it’s someone assuming their superiority over their users and limiting what the users can do. It inevitably leads to inefficiency and frustration for the power users. If users screw something up, it’s because either 1) the design wasn’t straightforward and intuitive enough or 2) the user was trying to do something the designer didn’t anticipate. In both cases, better design is the right fix. A lazy, unimaginative designer fixes the problem by imposing limits from above.

An Example

I’m not just talking about software. Frank Lloyd Wright insisted on designing everything in the houses he designed: furniture, lamps, drawer pulls, every detail. He didn’t want his users messing up his creation by filling it with ugly modern furniture or whatever else their inferior minds might dream up. Occasionally, he would freak out when he returned to a house he’d designed and found the furniture rearranged or curtains on the windows.

He was also a fairly small guy, something like 5′-8″, and he’s famous for low ceilings and doorways designed to his proportions. I love the changes in ceiling plane, but I’m 6′-3″ and I literally can not stand up in some of his small rooms. Just raising them all a few inches would have solved the problem for most people.

The problem with Wright’s top-down megalomaniac design approach is that a lot of the people that actually lived with his prearranged furniture, lack of privacy, and head bumping ceilings didn’t like them. His designs tend to be beautifully composed, but uncomfortable and awkward. Once, a tall fellow told Wright that his hat was constantly being knocked off by Wright’s low doorways to which Wright responded “don’t wear a hat.”

That’s the wrong answer. Wright’s houses are beautiful, but he went way too far with the control-freak thing. Whatever you are designing is there to provide a service for the user. As the designer it is your job to anticipate what that user will want and give it to them as best you can. After that, the user needs to have control. After the first design iteration it is the designer’s job to sit back, watch users interact with it, and learn. Then adjustments can be made to better meet their needs.

Good Design Involves the Users

Good design is a co-creation between the designer and the users. Great design usually comes from designers who are themselves users. Christopher Alexander designs architecture that way, the open source movement designs that way, and 37 Signals designs that way.

I wonder how many of the negative comments were from actual 37 Signals users. Was this user feedback or was it system admins who assume that their users are idiots and want to lock down the system to control the lowest common denominator?

Online Applications Are Perfect For Great Design

In 37 Signals case, they have the advantage of designing on-line applications. They can watch how users interact with their products in real time. They get instantaneous feedback, and can make a small adjustment and see the effects of that one change. As I understand it, they are also users. They are in a good position to have an opinion. Jason also says this:

We do have some permissions in Basecamp. There are some basic controls over who can do what, but as far as products like Basecamp go, Basecamp would be considered among the least controlling. If we started all over today we’d probably have even less permissions and less controls. Some of the controls we’ve put in place have turned out to make collaboration harder, not easier.

Amen, brother.

This is very funny, and I love this version of the song.

Kristen Shirts, the video poster and uke player, writes:

Professional troubadour Jonathan Coulton and guest non-professional uke player Kristen Shirts perform “Code Monkey” at Union Hall, Brooklyn, 1/30/07.

Contrary to appearances in the video, Jonathan and Kristen were not actually wearing matching outfits. Although, wouldn’t that have been adorable?

I never noticed how much Jo Co and Hodgman sound alike before.

The lyrics are here. There’s lots more where that came from as he recently finished creating one per week for a year. I think Kristen and JC should record some songs together. I’d like to have a higher fidelity version of this.

The Code Monkey remix contest winners are here.

:: Lore Sjöberg

:: xkcd

This is handy. A sleeping bag that doubles as a Gumby costume. $225-$300.

Design by Rodrigo Alonso

:: The Parka Shop

Edwin Abbott Abbott (I didn’t stutter. That’s really his name) wrote Flatland in 1884. It’s a cool little 100 page novel about a society two dimensional beings (flatlanders) who literally can’t see anything outside their plane of existence. Things get interesting when a sphere from the 3 dimensional world (spaceland) starts to interact with the 2d world.

Since its old enough to be in the public domain you can read it online or buy it.

There have been a couple of movies made about it in 1956 and 1982 (with Dudley Moore). Now there are two new versions coming out simultaneously:

Flatland the Movie

Flatland the Independant Film

The filmmaker says he tried to stay closer to the novel than the movie makers did. Flatlanders internal organs are visible to spacelanders, and they don’t cross because that would require a 3rd dimension. There are no cars because they would require three dimensions. It’ll be interesting to compare to two approaches.

In January 2007, after the Swedish Government confiscated their servers, the Pirate Bay announced their plan to buy the micronation of Sealand and move their servers to the platform six miles off the eastern coast of England. Over the next month they raised $20,000 in donations, but the asking price from the Sealand Monarchy was closer to $500 million. When negotiations with the Royal Family broke down the Pirate Bay decided to find a more suitably priced island.

This latest event in the strange history of Sealand, is not out of character for the 6000 square foot man-made pedestal which started out as a British Naval Fort in 1942. After the war, the British Government had no use for the fort and abandoned it. The nation of Sealand was established in 1967 by a pirate radio broadcaster called Roy Bates after a gunfight with his former partner. Several skirmishes between bands of pirate broadcasters followed, but Prince Roy was able to hold the island. He also fought back a British invasion when he won a court case by claiming that the island was outside British territorial waters and was available for settling due to dereliction of sovereignty by the British Government.

In 1978 Sealand was briefly taken over by several Dutch and German citizens led by the then Prime Minister of Sealand, Alexander Achenbach. After three days, Prince Roy retook the island in an armed helicopter assault holding the rebels as prisoners of war. Most of the prisoners were quickly repatriated, but one prisoner who held a Sealand passport remained in captivity charged with treason. After several weeks and a visit from a German diplomat, he too was released unharmed. Since the War of 1978, the rebel government has remained in exile in Germany where they are accused of selling 150,000 counterfeit Sealand passports (only 300 official passports exist).

In 1999, facing health problems, Roy of Sealand ceded control of the nation to his son, Micheal, and the Royal Family moved to the mainland. Since 2000, the island has been leased by the HavenCo datacenter. From their website:

HavenCo is building a secure managed colocation business with the added advantage that the customers’ data will also be physically secure against any legal action.

An electrical fire in June 2006 inflicted extensive damage to the power generators. By November repairs to the platform had been completed and 3 kW of wind turbines installed.

Look for the forthcoming movie in 2008. You don’t suppose their refusal to host the Pirate Bay on their servers might have something to do with that, do you?

:: Principality of Sealand Official Website
:: Rebel Sealand Government Website
:: Damn Interesting Article