aaron c beals

• Key moments at MIT

• The Studios Are Driving People to Piracy
  - i’m not advocating piracy, but they make a very good point.
• The Studios Are Driving People to Piracy
• Don't Be Afraid to Shoot in Low Light Without a Flash [Quotables]
  - read the NYT article if you have a moment. i like his take on low-light photograph, but of course that’s all well and good when you’ve got a 50mm f/1.2 (!!) lens…

note: these are not actually from the last week. in the future they will be, but right now i’m trying out a new Wordpress plugin and it pulled from my entire ’shared items’ history.  –acb

• Realize your product is not the center of your customers’ worlds
• Comic for January 18, 2010
• Organ Damage In Rats From Monsanto GMO Corn
  - scary, scary stuff.
• iPhone or Droid
• Quickly Scan Your Gmail Spam for Missed Messages [Spam]
• Caffeine & Candy : Tac Bac – Tactical Canned Bacon
• Suspicion
• Gadgets : Handycooler Personal Air Conditioner
  - ah… that’s the dream. next up: air-conditioned clothing.
• Gadgets : Handycooler Personal Air Conditioner
• Tech Support Cheat Sheet
• Caffeine & Candy : Bacon Gumballs
• Tweenbots in the city
• Students
  - This is true on a level I cannot begin to explain.
• The cult of done
• Red Auerbach Hates Flopping.
• Security
• Dieting cavemen on twitter
• Super Nintendo cartridge wallet: you probably want this
  - must resist the urge to build this. but only because i don’t have any SNES cartridges that are worthy of sacrifice.
• 15 Spectacular Stairs and Staircase Designs
• Comic for November 20, 2008

boston.com posted a short review of John Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Email”, a book that i’ve added to my ever-growing “to read” list.

i’ll admit it: by the expectations of our society, in both professional and personal realms, i am a poor–if not terrible–participant in the email process. the issue is not the nature of my emails — i usually answer completely and as concisely* as possible, recognizing that the person on the receiving end has a busy life and as imposing an inbox as i do. the issue is that i will periodically let emails slide. sometimes you might get lucky, and i’ll respond right away… but i have been known to respond to emails weeks, months, and in the rare case years later. i don’t let them go completely–i do eventually reply–but i don’t lose sleep over delayed replies.

granted, there’s something here to be said about the increased stress level that comes with carrying around a “to do” list of old emails. i do need to get better at dealing with the emails (replying or deleting) and moving on, getting them off my plate. that said, what i really wish i could do is send an announcement to everyone who emails me saying “thanks for your email. don’t be hurt if you don’t get a reply from me in the next few hours. if your email didn’t provide a deadline, but you are expecting a reply from me in a timely manner, please pick up your phone and give me a call instead.”

i have many more thoughts on the onslaught of information, but they will come later. right now, i have some emails to ignore.

* two points on the topic of brevity:
1) i recall reading somewhere that you shouldn’t write more than 5 sentences in an email, as anything more warrants a phone call or in-person visit. i like this strategy, and would like someone to write a Gmail Labs feature to warn me whenever I exceed the limit in a draft.
2) today’s Dilbert comic was outstanding.

i received an invite to Google Wave a while back, but haven’t made the time to really try it out until now. there seem to be more people on it now, which is a good thing as makes it easier to test collaboration.

first impressions:
* the interface is a wee bit messy. it looks a lot like an email interface (even uses the terms “inbox” and “spam”), but there are a number of controls in the list and detail frames. it also seems as if i can move each frame around… but i can’t. i can just minimize them.
* i like the fact that it automatically pulled my contacts from Gmail into the contacts list, and just those people who have Wave.
* i dislike the fact that i received new wave content over the past few months, but never received an email letting me know. i realize that Wave is supposed to act as a sort of replacement for email, but why am i going to check it if there’s nothing yet going on? talk up your product a little more, Google.

my first wave:
* received a wave from my friend who invited me. it seems empty. is it weird that you can start an empty Wave?
* the playback option seems neat, but i’m not sure when it would be useful. perhaps from a mobile device…
* this wave doesn’t have a subject (or text, for that matter), so where i’d expect the subject to be, there’s a list of the avatars for the participants in the chat. pretty straightforward how to add other people to the discussion / wave.

my other waves:
* ok, now there’s some content. my friend sent me a wave that includes an embedded photo. he also references adding ‘robots’ to the wave, and it seems as it on this wave there is an ‘email notifications’ robot. doesn’t it seem silly that you have to add a robot to send you emails? shouldn’t that be one of the built-in options for Wave? couldn’t i just set that app-wide if i wanted? either that, or a follow/unfollow via email model would work.
* looks like they’re already using a follow/unfollow model to keep or remove things from your inbox. unfollow makes sense to me… it’s like ‘mute’ in Gmail. follow doesn’t make as much sense. the action exists in your inbox, and if something’s in your inbox, doesn’t that mean that you’re already following it?
* there’s a ‘draft’ checkbox on my reply, but it won’t let me check it. unfortunate.
* oh… i get it. playback shows the progression of the wave. when you make something look just like audio playback, with controls and everything, your users expect it to be audio. just saying.
* apparently, i can edit my friend’s post. when i do so, it says that that post is now by him and me, but otherwise, there’s no indication in the text about who wrote what. in that way, it acts a lot like a Wiki. interesting.
* almost constant saving of text means that you don’t lose what you’ve written. nice.

other:
* you control your Wave settings in a wave? i know that we’re all supposed to buy into the Wave model of the world, but can’t you just put settings up in the top right nav, like every other Google app?
* when i click on my avatar in a wave, i see my info: an email address and a website. apparently i have a wave (@googlewave.com) email address? that’s news to me — haven’t seen that listed anywhere else on the page. if i can email info to myself and then discuss it with others, isn’t that an important feature?
* i tried emailing my own google wave email address. after 5 minutes, still no new waves.
* why is so much real estate dedicated to the list of waves? i would prefer the Gmail model, where the list of waves is the default but is replaced by the content when you click on one. This 3-column approach is very Outlook.

contacts:
* my contacts list looks a lot like google chat — i can even set a status (by clicking on my avatar). but it’s not chat. if you click on a contact, you can start a new wave with them, find waves by them, and ‘ping’ them, which i assumed was like ‘poking’ someone in Facebook.
* the ‘ping’ is actually just a wave, but one that renders itself initially as a chat, a sort of inverted version of the Facebook chat.

praise:
* Wave is an interesting concept, sitting at the collaborative intersection of chat, email, wiki, and document editing.
* there are collaborative elements here that could be split off and re-purposed elsewhere, perhaps integrated into other websites or applications. from what the Wave team has said in the past, it appears an API of this nature is forthcoming.
* i think the real value in Wave comes from the real-time aspect — being able to very rapidly interact with your fellow collaborators.

criticism:
* let’s assume that Gmail let you embed objects (images, maps, etc) right into your emails. let’s also assume that editing someone else’s text is something you’d rather do in fully-featured app like Google Docs. what value is Wave adding? it’s a confusing email client (compared to Gmail), sub-par document editor (compared to Google Docs), and a middle-of-the-road wiki (compared to MediaWiki, PBWiki, et al).
* Wave is still pretty rough around the edges, and while Google has been good at generating hype (hour+ presentation, limiting invites, getting good press via major news outlets), they have been operating in a “here’s a tool — figure out what it means for you” model. not a terrible model, but certainly not the way you’re going to revolutionize email and overthrow the status quo.

—

update:

let me preface this update by letting you know that when it comes to software, i’m a notorious non-instruction-reader. i believe that most software should be intuitive, so i wrote my review before reading or watching any of the instructional information. after writing the initial review, i watched some videos from the Wave team and learned some things:
* apparently you can reply within a Wave ‘blip’ (creating a sub-’blip’) by double-clicking on the blip. pretty cool for in-line comments.
* there are some Wave use cases listed by the Wave team: organizing events (ok, but i’d rather have it tied into my calendar); meeting notes (i’m not a huge fan of extensive meeting notes, but this would work well for those who are); group reports and writing projects (as i mentioned before, i’d rather use Google Docs); brainstorming (yes, yes, yes!); photo sharing (meh. i’d rather use Picasa, Facebook albums, Flickr, etc)
* i sent that email in to my account a while back, and still don’t have a new wave. i even tried sending from another email account, but no dice.
* robots seem pretty powerful (Blogger, Twitter, email notifications, etc), but i can’t seem to see an easy way to add these robots to my contact list. the UI doesn’t make it clear, and the short tutorial videos all assume that you already have the robots in your contacts (which i don’t, in case that wasn’t clear).
* Rosy the robot does automatic translation, so people who speak different languages can communicate — ok, that’s just amazing.

when i do listen to non-internet radio, an occurrence that is growing rarer in these latter days, i tend to be a fan of music rather than talk radio. that said, i found the morning show on WFNX — “The Sandbox” — highly entertaining. the DJs, with the exception of longtime FNX-er Henry Santoro, were in their late 20’s / early 30’s, putting their retro pop culture references and sense of humor right in line with my own. they tended to shy away from the overtly political (i’m talking to you, Greg Hill and Dennis and Callahan) and focused instead on the absurd. they had a good talk / music mix for the morning hours and included guests from the local Boston scene (politicians, writers, etc).

yesterday, after 2.5 years, that show abruptly went off the air, taking with it the last shreds of faith i had in the Boston radio scene. WERS (excellent college radio, albeit with too much reggae) and Paul Driscoll’s Alter-Ego program at FNX (he’s given a lot of latitude to play what he wants) are the only good things left on local radio.

word on the street is that the new VP of Broadcast Operations, Mike Tierney, blew up the show as a not-so-uncommon ‘i’m the new guy’ power move. way to screw up FNX, Mike. welcome to Boston.

after reading this article about Jennings getting fined for tweeting after a game, i can’t help but think that the ban on tweeting before, during, and after games (up until the media session) has less to do with the NBA not wanting players distracted in the locker rooms and more to do with the media getting upset about players scooping them.

i’m loving the new blog by Paul Pierce on boston.com. Pierce has been one of my favorite players for years — watching and supporting him through the lean years, celebrating with him when he finally got his ring in 2008 — and I have said ever since ~2005 that his numbers should go up in the rafters even if he never won a championship, simply because of what he’s meant to and done for this team. and now we’re getting a chance to hear what’s on his mind in a more verbose manner than Twitter.

his first post explained how Boston became his home. great to see that he feels about this town the same way this town feels about him.

today’s post covers what he’s do if he ran the NBA or the country. two of my favorite quotes:

(On changes he’d make to the NBA) 3. Raise the rim three inches: The athletes today are crazy. You see the way guys are jumping these days. I would raise the rim three inches. Then, you have to learn the art of the jump shot. You’ll have to know how to play this game a little bit better then. Raising the rim, you’ll see improved play. You’ll see increasing fundamentals. I’m telling you.

(On changes he’d make to the nation) 1. Every person who goes to war, when they come back, they get a free house — no taxes: I was talking about this the other day, about what happens to people who go to war. When they come back a lot of them are on the streets. A lot of them get certain benefits, but the adjustment they make, it’s crazy.

through his blog, we are getting to see a side of Pierce that has not been shown on the court or in post-game interviews that focus on the team or the season. it is encouraging to see that our captain and The Truth has a mind as sharp as his game.

a recent post on WBUR’s CommonHealth blog, written by our executive director, Rebecca Weintraub:

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/guest-contributors/2009/12/life-saving-health-information-a-global-necessity/

i work in Mission Hill, just down the street from the Mission Church where the funeral ceremony is to be held for Senator Ted Kennedy tomorrow morning. because he was, arguably, one of the most well-known senators in US history, and was part of one of the most famous political families, and because President Obama is coming to town to give the eulogy, it goes without saying that things are a little busy today on Tremont Street. i couldn’t help but chuckle quietly to myself, though, as i looked around at the work being done–from windows being washed to trees being trimmed to light poles being re-painted–because it took the death of an elder statesman to get the City of Boston to actually tidy up this neighborhood.

now don’t get me wrong: Mission Hill has come a long way in recent years and is a much cleaner and safer place to be. we’ve got JP Licks, Flann O’Brien’s Pub, and the Savant Project. the people are great, and there are little parks tucked away, most with great views of the rest of the city. but it still isn’t what i would call “well-maintained”. today, that’s all changing, as the neighborhood prepares for the media spotlight.