Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

I was wondering something today, and figured I’d throw out out there. Is there a term for words or phrases that can be typed with one hand (while still on or near the home row position)? For example, with my left hand I can type some of the following words quickly:

• draft
• stewardess
• freeze
• trace
• stewart
• racecar
• earwax

It should be noted that this is by no means a comprehensive list, but a simple overview of what I’m talking about here. So the question is, does a term exist for such a word?

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Posted on July 16th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Steven Frank of Panic fame has managed to capture my feelings perfectly in his post about blogging. Almost daily I alternately think that I should write a blog entry, or that I should blow the whole thing up and make a simple portfolio site.

Much like Steven, I ponder if I should be writing about what generally boils down to either a) personal matters or b) trivial matters - both of which would be better suited to places that aren’t my personal website. Still, other days I think that without my website, I would have probably not have learned as much about web design, nor would I have had as much fun going thru the old entries seeing what I had to say, what others had to say in reply, and generally just shaking my head wondering what I was thinking. Surely one day I’ll look back at this post and do the same.

Twitter’s existence certainly has complicated things for me as well, as Frank also notes. Not that I really churn out much good content anywhere, but Twitter does suck up all of those little ideas that could certainly grow into longer winded blog posts down the road. Dumping them onto my Twitter page allows them to die the short, painless death that is probably for the best in the long run. In any event, most of my ideas for blog posts (generally about something relating to a website or user interface that bugs me) gets sucked into that vortex and goes away, thus leaving my material for this site much thinner.

Ah well. As long as it’s still fun in some weird or small way, or as long as someone still stops by and reads this thing (surprisingly, a lot of folks still do), it’ll be worth my while.

Posted on July 8th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Monday, June 30th, 2008

I received the following email today from Netflix:

I’m sure a lot of you don’t know about Netflix’s profiles feature, but it’s a really neat system that allows folks to allocate movies to friends or family on the same account. For example, I currently use the ‘3 movies out at a time’ plan, and I allocate 1 at a time to Michelle, and 2 at a time to me. This allows Michelle and myself to keep separate Queues of movies that we want to watch, while guaranteeing that at any given time we each have something we’d like. This (amongst dozens of other reasons) is what makes the service so easy to use.

Anyway, a few weeks ago the Netflix team announced that the profiles feature was going away. They gave a pretty vague reason as to why they were doing this, but it sounded all but final. Thousands of folks posted comments saying how valuable the profiles feature was to them as users, and as expected, many threatened to take their ball and go home.

Well, as the email above shows, Netflix listened to their customers and is going to keep the feature. I of course hope that them doing an about face doesn’t screw up some sort of massive overhaul, but I am glad to see the feature sticking around. Well played, Netflix team.

Posted on June 30th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

At some point over the past year or so, I have noticed signs along Georgia 400 that say ‘Hospitality Highway’. At first, I thought this was some sort of program established for highway cleanup, but I could never be sure. A few weeks ago, Michelle noticed another one of the signs, so I looked up “Hospitality Highway via Google. Boy, I was in for a treat.

Georgia 400 is henceforth to be known as the Hospitality Highway, a corridor of highway stretching from Atlanta up to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Apparently, the site of my daily commute is more than just a road to some — it’s a marketing opportunity, and one that should be exploited to the greatest amount possible.

For example, I direct you to the suggested itinerary section of the site. It’s here that you can learn how to fully explore the quaint southern charm of suburban Roswell, Alpharetta, and Cumming. The activities outlined in this section are laughable to any local North Fulton resident, but that doesn’t stop the writers of this site. Part of Day 4’s schedule includes:

Rise and shine! Get your motor running with a complimentary breakfast—offered at many of the Alpharetta hotels. Then drop by the Alpharetta Welcome Center in the heart of downtown for a glimpse into the charm and vitality of the city. Pick up a local Calendar of Events to find out what’s happening in town. The Welcome Center is the best source of information on nearly all that the area has to offer.

Spend the morning at the Honda Rider Education Center where you can take beginning, intermediate or advanced courses for street or dirt bikes on Honda’s own courses. Be sure to register for this popular experience beforehand.

How charming!

The tour takes you all the way from the north end of the highway strip, down towards the toll road in Buckhead. And it’s chock-full of corny things to see and do around town. I just want to remind everyone that the GA 400 corridor is simply suburbia. Tons of it. There is nothing ’southern’ or ‘fascinating’ about 30 minutes of traffic no matter where you want to go, a Publix on every single corner, and a Starbucks every quarter mile.

So if anyone asks you how to get to Alpharetta, just tell them to take the Hospitality Highway — but don’t forget to stop along the way and make a memory that will last a lifetime!

Posted on May 1st, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I’ve tried to be good lately and not post about politics as much on here (I’ve been posting most political-type stuff on my tumblelog), but this one was too much to pass up.

The New York Times has posted an editorial today about the ongoing Democratic race for the nomination, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think that they were ‘un-endorsing’ her (the NY Times endorsed Hillary right before Super Tuesday). While the author (rightly) does not claim that Obama’s hands are completely clean in the latest round of mudslinging, he certainly makes it clear that Hillary is the one that seems right at home in this style of politics, and is benefiting from attempting to destroy Obama’s electability by focusing on fringe issues that do not matter to Democratic voters.

Because Hillary has been constantly attacking, there has been little time to talk about things that I feel voters deserve after 7+ years of divisive, brain dead politics. As the author says, we deserve a nuanced debate for a change, about how each candidate will approach all of the issues facing our nation over the next 4+ years. Instead, we get multiple questions about a flag lapel pin. We get Hillary invoking 9/11, Giullani-style, unprovoked. Even Karl Rove would be proud of her fear-mongering.

I guess you could say that I ‘called it‘ back in February after Super Tuesday came and went. I wasn’t alone in this prediction back then, and I’m certainly not alone now. However, I would like someone to ask her to honestly answer the question of how she plans on winning the nomination. So far, all I have heard is that she plans to say that Obama is not electable, and she is. However, her negatives are off the charts among independents and Republicans. Most Democrats will vote for her, but if the Superdelegates were to flip the pledged delegate count in favor of her, I think a lot of folks would walk away from this election. Now that’s what I call an electability problem.

I’m still confident that Obama will win the nomination, as there is just not a realistic path for Hillary. But god, am I tired of all of this. I think the positive is that Hillary is bringing up all of the petty stuff that 527’s and McCain’s folks will try to bring up in the fall. If it’s already had it’s run on the news now, it’s kind of hard to revisit it in a substantial way come general election time.

Regardless, it’s time for Hillary to hang it up if she can’t win North Carolina and Indiana in two weeks. She’ll try to spin it (just like she claims she ‘won’ Texas, she won by double digits in Pennsylvania, and she’s winning the popular vote) in a number of ways if she doesn’t win one of those primaries, but the stark truth is that she needs to win every primary by a 70 - 30 margin to overtake Obama’s delegate lead. That’s just not going to happen.

Sadly, she doesn’t realize this. Ah well.

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politics, obama, clinton, hillary, barack, north carolina, indiana, pennsylanvia, democrat

Posted on April 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »