Monthly Archives: October 2007

User Interface Design: Language

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the letter “Q” is nearly always followed by the letter “U” (statistically speaking that is all the goddamn time), it makes more sense to just drop the u and teach our children to pronounce the letter q like “kwuh.”

quality will now be qality.
quiet will now be qiet.

seriously, why use two letters when it makes more sense to use one?

if you’re dumb and have trouble seeing the obvious superiority of this system, take a qick look at the wikipedia page on List of English words containing Q not followed by U. See? Those words are almost all worthless, unless you’re trying to transliterate arabic (something i know all of you do every fucking day). If you are transliterating arabic you should really just be using a k instead of qu or just q. qabob? no, it’s kabob, duh.

on a related note, these are my four favorite highest scoring scrabble words. Yes, in my mind these things are directly related but you know what? fuck it, i’m not even going to explain why.

ZYMURGY 75 pts (beer makin)
SQUIFFY 75 pts (deeerunk)
ZOMBIFY 76 pts
MUZJIKS 79 pts (russian peasants)

Go Meta

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The etymology of the word trivia seems to start with Latin tri- = “three”, and via = “way”, “road”, thus trivium, “Where three roads meet”, especially as a place of public resort. The Latin adjective triviālis, derived from trivium, thus meant “appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar.” The first known usage of the word “trivial” in Modern English is from 1589; it was used with a sense identical to that of triviālis. Shortly after that trivial is recorded in the sense most familiar to us: “of little importance or significance.” Gradually, the word trivia came to be used in English for what in Latin would have called “triviālia”, for anything information or concern which is treated as everyday and unimportant.

The word “trivia” was popularized in its current meaning in the 1960s by Columbia University students Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky, who created the earliest inter-collegiate quizzes that tested culturally important and unimportant facts, which they dubbed “trivia contests”.

I often feel isolated because it seems like I’m the only person who sees something as dangerously hilarious. I then post these things in my blog in the hopes that at least christina will think they are funny. For instance, I’ve been chuckling about this all fucking day. {go meta, just a little bit}

I'VE GOT IT!

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Okay, this is how the next president could sell single payer healthcare to the nation.

Plan: Cut Taxes.
Press: How would you do it?
Candidate: Single Payer healthcare. We could cover everyone for less money than we’re currently spending. I’d put the difference right back in your pocket.

sheeeeit, maybe I should get back into the wordsmith game.
{granted this requires some accounting creativity}

Seriously: Holidays

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There are some holidays that should have a rolling date rather than a specific one. For Example: Halloween. People are expected to dress up in elaborate costumes and celebrate the dead with sugar and alcohol on a
wednesday night? that’s hallowbullshit. Halloween should clearly be on the last friday of october. come on people, get it together.

Seriously: Rules

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From the netflix get a job with us page.

# Rules annoy us
Rules inhibit creativity and entrepreneurship, leading to a lack of innovation. Over time this leads a company to being both less fun and less successful.

Instead of adding rules as we grow, our solution to increased complexity is to increase talent density. Great people make great judgment calls, despite ambiguity.

We believe in freedom and responsibility, not rules.

For example, our vacation policy for salaried employees is “take some” – there is no limit on vacation as long you get your work done. Similarly, our travel expense policy is “travel as you would on your own nickel.” That’s it. No soul-sapping policy manuals for us. In five years as public company, growing from $100m to $1 billion in revenue, our commitment to freedom and responsibility has only grown.

We have found that by avoiding rules we can better attract the creative mavericks that drive innovation, and our business is all about innovation. We are mitigating the big risk technology companies face (obsolescence), by taking on small risks (running without rules).

Our only absolute rule is integrity, and violations almost always result in termination.

SATURDAY-> wooohoooo!

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looking-up-in-blue.jpg

It’s time for the latest edition of the It List/Shit List

::It List::
Saturday, Mint Newman O’s, indian food (big up viks chaat house in berkeley!!), ron paul – for introducing a bill to reinstate habeas corpus and banning torture, loud music, Getting Things Done by David Allen

::Shit List::
Pants with shallow pockets so the stuff in them falls out when you sit down…wtf?, ron paul – for voting no on schip {what a douche}, evites, urinals that splash piss back on you no matter what angle you adjust to.

Revolutionary Iconography Gone Meta

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It’s as if he’s saying “You want some of this?? Yeah I got it right here!n626258736_138493_784.jpg”

I’m not a fan of che, he’s a stalinist from what I can tell. Plus, I’m going to side with all the other people tired of 1st year college students wearing revolutionary tshirts rather than actually being revolutionary. Furthermore, I don’t support killing people, ever. I’m more of an Zapatista Army of National Liberation man myself.

450px-mexicochisezln01.jpg

This sign reads, in Spanish: Top sign: “You are in Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people give the orders and the government obeys.” Bottom sign: “North Zone. Council of Good Government. Trafficking in weapons, planting of drugs, drug use, alcoholic beverages, and illegal sales of wood are strictly prohibited. No to the destruction of nature.” Federal Highway 307, Chiapas.

Yeah, that EZLN article on wikipedia is pretty good.

The Reality Approach

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You probably know that RadioHead just released a new album that people can pay whatever they want for. You can check that out on the RadioHead.com website. This is what I call a “reality based approach.”

In reality, we have to understand that it’s very difficult to control what people do. Since the album is going to be downloaded for free on the internet anyway a reality based approach is to make it easy for people to give you money.

This has been a pretty solid success. A recent new york times article reports that the average sale price is $8. The same article also talks about how economists are baffled that people would pay anything at all, if they don’t have to.

“Since we economists don’t understand tipping, we can’t really say whether this new scheme will work,” Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor of economics, said in an entry on his blog.

ummm, just to be clear, people who don’t understand tipping are autistic douchebags.

Also, a lot of people are heralding this as the death of the music industry. I doubt it, but is anyone really surprised that both fans and artists are eager to get away from and industry that’s been a total dick?

Here’s another example:

A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

…duh.

But the legal status of abortion did greatly affect the dangers involved, the researchers said. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Dr. Van Look said. “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

also, duh. Here’s an example of the Reality Approach from the same article

The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available, said Sharon Camp, chief executive of the Guttmacher Institute.

Also, people are going