An article idea just occurred to me (for those who may not know, I'm an editor, and very occasional author, for boxes and arrows -- an online design magazine), but then I remembered I'm too lazy to actually write it. But I'm still interested in the topic: What is the best, most significant stuff the web has brought us? What sites or services that use or are dependent on the web have had the most impact on our lives? (And not from a design perspective, really, more from a quality-of-life or convenience point of view. Also, I'm more interested in the web than the Internet -- we all know email and IM are awesome.)
I'm curious because it's really easy to criticize the web, and products in general, and there's not enough recognition of the good stuff out there.
Here are a few I came up with:
- Amazon: What real world store allows you to shop for, compare, read reviews of, sell, and buy almost any consumer product you could want?
- Online package tracking: And when my package from Amazon ships, I can use UPS and FedEx's package tracker tools feed my materialistic impatience and thirst for up-to-the-minute knowledge, without interacting with a single person or stupid automated phone system.
- Ebay: One of the few web sites that offer a service that is basically impossible to provide in the real world.
- Online banking and bill pay: Five years ago, I probably wrote ten checks a month, and relied on my ATM receipt or monthly bank statement to know how much money I had. Today, I have exactly one recurring monthly payment I handle with a check (and I could even pay that one online if I wanted), and I can see charges to my bank account within minutes of the transaction.
What can you folks think of?
i really don't have anything to say, but you should look at this, because i totally agree with it.
Holy crap, is it really quarter to midnight? man, i swear i keep intending on going to bed earlier so i can get up earlier so i can go to work earlier and thus come home early.
There's a flaw in that logic. A deep deep flaw. I'll find it later.
Saw something interesting on my morning commute - a guy was flying the UN flag from his car. I thought to myself, "Hey, that's cool. I support that."
Only 1 problem - it was regular size. (They apparently don't make UN flags in a plethora of "car friendly" sizes like the US flag.) This guy had it flying from a 10ft pole sticking up out of the driver's side window. I don't know if that was so he could hold onto it or what, but that meant it blocked his view. At each stoplight, it lay directly across the windshield.
He should learn to display it flat on the hood or trunk, like they do during Cinco de Mayo. Or at least get a passenger to hang onto it for him. That would support the UN and carpooling at the same time.
Much like our last war, there is a surprising lack of change here at home. I, of course, wasn't alive for WWII, but our cultural understanding of what homelife was like during a major war is so different from our actual exeriences with war. It seems like such an event should really touch our lives in a much more profound way, changing the way we do our jobs and interact day to day. Alas, it doesn't work that way.
I'm always surprised to feel the simultaneous detachment and support I feel for my own country. It's hard to reconcile.
I certainly don't feel this way.
This morning i couldn't get enough of this song: "Get up, get , get, get down, 911 is a joke in yo town."
I don't know why.
There really isn't much more to say.
Congress Nixes 'French Fries' in Fit of Pique
House cafeterias change names for 'french' fries and 'french' toast
French fry ban targets wrong country
I started taking the bus to work today. It made me realize that I am just not used to the urban life. I couldn't tell you if the town I grew up in had a bus system at all. Everywhere I have ever lived, I drove places - or carpooled. The bus is a whole new experience. There is a whole bus ettiquite that I am not familiar with - which makes me wonder how people learn this stuff? Guess I will just have to muddle my way through.
In other news, aparently the house I grew up in blew up on Sunday. According to our old neighbor, the furnace exploded, taking a good half the house with it. We sold the house in 1998 when I moved to San Francisco and my parents moved to Memphis - but in my heart, that house has always been home. Its strange to think of it just not being there. Funny what you grow attached to in life.
You ladies in the house might not be aware of this, but there is a portion of the male population who upon entering (and occasionally even before entering) a public restroom, with the intent to use a urinal, begin unzipping their fly before they reach the actual plumbing fixture. Now, I'm not a fellow who does this, but regardless this, um, technique seems to present two problems:
1. With their hands down at their crotch, it looks like these guys are holding themselves, in the manner of a toddler who hasn't yet mastered the art of internal bladder restraint. Considering the particular environment, this seems like it would be embarrassing.
2. What happens when all the urinals in the restroom are occupied? Do they just stand there, pants ajar? Or do they re-zip to try to maintain some decorum? Either way seems awkward.
Another behavior I've noticed is that some guys stand at the urinal with their hands at their hips, elbows spread wide, looking down at their business. This has the effect of making them look like the Colossus of Rhodes or somebody peering down at what passes beneath them: "You down there! Do my bidding! Into this sacred basin release my golden flow! I doth decree it." It just looks weird.
My point is, I don't like urinals.
Just to change the subject, and since I have this site open on my computer:
Mohamed Elbaradei is the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which, among other things, monitors and regulates the development of nuclear weapons. In a recent interview in The New York Times Magazine, when asked whom he would rather have coffee with, George Bush or Saddam Hussein, he replied: "I really don't drink coffee."
He also said, "I worry about a democracy having nuclear weapons as much as a dictatorship having nuclear weapons." But that's not as funny.
What's going on? This is not my beautiful house!
There's, like, a cartoon dog and he's talking. I'm freaking out!