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From George Dyson’s “Turing’s Cathedral,” an essay on his recent visit to Google.

“We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,” explained one of my hosts after my talk. “We are scanning them to be read by an AI.”

They understand. No one else does. Everyone’s bickering over copyrights and competition and all these stupid little things, and we’re all shooting way too low!

I’m sorry, I’m stunned by that. I never thought of it that way before. It half scares me and half excites me that a company would put so much investment into the good of a future AI, recognizing how much of our knowledge is stored in books, and how useless it would be to a computer unless someone makes it digital.

Man… what a mind blow. Let’s hope Google sticks to “Don’t be Evil.”

This should get an award for the best user interface ever devised for a microwave. I mean, look at it: it’s a dial. It’s accurate, obvious, intuitive, usable in a single motion, looks like a clock (our standard mental model of time), and it’s really friggin’ simple.

Why in God’s name did they ever switch to numbers? Someone in the home appliance industry please read this and bring the dial back to the microwaves of the world. People will think it’s genius and they’ll buy your microwaves, I promise.

It really is better, in case you’re skeptical. It is so easy just to turn the dial, there’s nothing to think about. Want to add more time? Just turn the dial more. It makes so much sense it scares me sometimes.

All the smart people are talking about it. Seriously, everywhere you go, it’s “I’m not saying ‘Web 2.0’ ever again” this and “I’m not linking to you if you say it” that, or “Web 2.0 is arrogant,” which, wait, I said.

It’s become a dividing issue in the blogosphere (note that’s only the second time I’ve ever used the word blogosphere here—I am not a metablogger—note also I’ve never used the word metablogger except these two little times). Unfortunately, both sides are getting too polar and forgetting the point.

Okay, everyone’s going to be talking about flock, but I’m jotting my thoughts down from my initial ten minutes of playing around with it.

First, love the blog integration, but how useful is it going to be to anyone except us early adopters and bloggers? Oh, wait, everyone blogs these days.

Second, pretty rough around the edges (some interface quirks here and there). It’s a beta, I’ll let it slide.

Third, I’m stuck with flickr?? Sorry, I want zenphoto integration. As a side note, how much did flickr pay flock? And del.icio.us?

Fourth, the favorites look good, but I haven’t used them enough to be useful.

Fifth, it seems too fake, and what I mean by that is Web 2.0 is arrogant, why can’t you realize that? It’s a “we’re better than everyone else and we know it” feel. It’s like
saying you’re cool because you hang out with the cool people. Let’s get real, folks. The web is not high school.

So screw the hyped apps, let’s have some real integration. I really want to see a browser so flexible that it exposes this kind of functionality with almost any web app, not just the cool kids—flickr, technorati and del.icio.us. Which leaves me wondering, should all this be in a browser anyway? Aren’t I limiting myself an awful lot here?

So I’m wondering if they got the whole idea wrong from the beginning. I’d feel awfully sorry for them if they did, so I’ll give it a chance and see if it does anything for me. After all, I do like this blog manager.

Update: Joel gets it too. I couldn’t agree more. Also, I’m updating this in Wordpress, and I can’t read the code the stupid Flock blog editor made. So much for that…

I felt the most ecstatic joy a few minutes ago, and I just have to explain it. Forgive my verbosity.

I have had a song stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. I’m not kidding. I had a melody and a lyric and a general feeling all bunched up in this little memory and I had no idea where it came from or when or who sang it.

I remembered this: “School books, in fancy colors, la-la la la la laaa la la-la…” and the melody that went along with it. I even wrote down the notes several times so I wouldn’t forget, and I thought it might have been Alison Krauss, hence, not only have I listened to every song Alison Krauss has ever sung (ever), I have also e-mailed and sent letters to her several times over the last six or seven years with the written notes and what lyrics I can remember, just to see if she knew the song. I never heard back, of course.

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I’ve never really thought about graduating from college before. Seriously. The last time any kind of graduation crossed my mind was when I was handed my high school diploma.

Today, I saw an advisor about my status. I knew two things going in: that I was pretty much a senior, and that I was winging it and loving it. I’m not one to think about the end as much as the means; so much more time spent in the doing than the moment of being done.

So I found out I’m accidentally graduating on time. I say accidentally because I didn’t mean to—I never wanted to, actually. It just sort of crept up on me and bit me in the ass all of the sudden. Now I have to think about it, and damn I have a lot to think about. It’s the rest of my life I’m looking at—or, at least, I’m realizing that a little decision made now could affect things later on—not bad or good, just different, completely. So there’s a lot to think about.

Yeah, this is deep. I’ve been in a deep mood lately—turning 21, taking interesting classes, releasing zenphoto, supporting myself with my own money, graduating from Berkeley, and other things—a lot is changing.

I love it.

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
    Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.
   —Phillip Larkin

P.S.: Send job offers to trisweb at this domain.

I updated the header images (and the background) for the new season. Have to admit, it is one of my favorites. The other three of my favorite seasons are pretty good too though…

I tried to make a major visual adjustment, but realized I didn’t have enough time to play with the CSS tonight, so it’ll have to wait for another time. Or maybe I’ll just do the cool thing and redesign. I was thinking something simpler, cleaner, and with no shadows. Shadows are so last year. I’ll see what I come up with in my (ha) free time.

Edit: Hm. I think the background’s too bright this time around. Maybe I’ll darken it up a bit later.

Noel Jackson has released the beta of the new version of Photostack! Congratulations!

I have to say that the original Photostack was about 65% of the inspiration for zenphoto. I loved the innovative way it just took folders of photos and stuck ‘em online, and the only reason I wrote zenphoto was because I saw demand for something that could move beyond Photostack, that I could play with and innovate on in little areas. I haven’t tried the new Photostack yet, but I’m thrilled to see it doing the same thing.

Come to think of it, there are a lot of good new photo gallery apps popping up. I say try them all and use what works best for you. I know I’ll try Photostack, if only for old time’s sake…