The Great Flash Debate continues to spark interesting conversations. I’m sort of walking the fence on this one. I love the idea of Flash, but so far hate 95% of the implementations. It’s still unusable in most cases and doesn’t behave as it should. Most Flash use is still in the “look what I can do” category. I’ve got no use for that. Most other normal people don’t either. The above article says:

Even sites that avoid the invidious splash screen can fall victim to Flash and Shockwave animations that leave you less likely to ask, “How did they do this and how can I hire them?” than “Why did they do this and how can I make it stop?”

I know the feeling.

The personal computer is going away. It’s being replaced by a whole bunch (that’s any number more than 5 or 6, in case you were wondering) of other types of devices. Phones, PDAs, Clothing and hell, even furniture.

Don Norman uses the analogy of an electric motor. Way back before computers, electric motors were invented. They were so cool, that really bright engineers attached them to everything (the motors, not the engineers.) After a while, the motors got smaller, quiter and cheaper. Soon, the fact that a device contained an electric motor was not even considered. It was just a device.

That’s what’s happening with computers. It’s gonna get cooler.

While this is happening, we’ll need something to happen with our data. This infoworld article has a few thoughts. I think they’re right.

CURRY.COM - Formats - What Napster Really Needs

Adam Curry (yep, the one from MTV so many years ago) writes about Napster, broadcast formats, playlists etc. In some ways, he’s describing what [launch.com is trying to do.

Apparently, Amazon changes it’s prices based on how many times you look at an item, or how much you’ve bought before. Either way, it sucks. Here’s a thread discussing the issue

Amazon continues its fall from grace - or at least continues to piss me off. Same thing.

A month ago they “lost” my account. After several emails, they said that I was back in business. Trouble was, they didn’t seem to have a record of anything I had ordered since February!. I asked them about this and they said that they would “merge” my accounts and all would be well. Sure enough, the next day I got an email stating that my accounts had been merged. Cool, except when I logged in, nothing had changed. I waited a two weeks and asked again. The response I received said that I only had one account, and have a nice day. So much for the 7 or 8 dvd preorders that I had expected to receive 40% discounts on. Damn!

I finally got around to creating an account at Barnes and Noble. We’ll see.

Lou Rosenfeld interviews Mark Hurst

Lou Rosenfield (author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and general architecture guru) interviews Mark Hurst of Creative Good. They discuss (rather heatedly) the differences and similarities between Information Architecture/Usability Engineering and the Customer Experience. It’s a bit long, but mostly worth the effort.

Now that I’ve met you, would object to never seeing each other again, says

the Aimee Mann song which is reported to have inspired Magnolia. P.T. Anderson’s latest, and best film. Three hours long, this thing seemed to have a pretty polarizing effect on folks. “Loved It!” or “Too long and stupid.” or “What’s with the frogs?” Put me in the first group. You should see it. Really. I hadn’t even heard of Aimee Mann before seeing the film, but I’ve been listening to her songs non-stop since. See it.

AskTog: Denial in Web Design: Elephants in the Living Room

If your development efforts are failing, it’s likely to be the fault of one of these group: Engineers, Security, Lawyers and Graphic Designers. Couldn’t be the engineers, could it?

Nurse Betty

Cool, Neil LaBute has another film on the way. I’m sure I’ll feel just as badly about laughing as I did during In the Company of Men.

Summoner Geeks

T.M. brought this film to my attention. If you’ve ever been anywhere near folks who played Dungeons and Dragons, this will crack you up. “Roll the dice and see if I’m getting drunk.”