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The Om part of GigaOm recently posted an article about the news and information we get, especially from sites like Facebook and Twitter, refering to a “river of news” metaphor. The metaphor might be accurate but the idea that “Overload isn’t a problem anymore since we have no choice but to acknowledge that we can’t wade through all this information” is just wrong.

I don’t know about you but as much as I like the people I’ve added on Facebook or Twitter (or else I wouldn’t have added them), I can’t say that the majority of what people who are actually active on those sites post is of any relevancy to me. Maybe I’m in the minority here but I can’t imagine that everyone out there gets 9 out of 10 posts that are of any interest at all to them.

Just looking at the replies and ILTs (I Like This) you usually see one or two (or none) showing any interest in a particular link, news article, video clip, what have you. Sure, once in a while, there’ll be something controversial or really funny (in a stupid way of course) but that’s like a life preserver floating down the Amazon.

That statement about overload is ultimately just highlighting a human trait that would make Freud proud: humans can adapt to information overload. But, this isn’t necessarily a positive thing. Just like the general population gets desensitized to crime when they watch the evening news report on crime constantly, we switch into ignore mode. We take that deluge of information coming at us like water from a fire hose and just divert most of it off to the side. That’s not dealing, that’s apathy. It becomes random luck that you’ll discover something interesting or it’ll be up to the Facebook junkies to be the ones to spread the word.

What we really need is something akin to that tag cloud functionality that you see everywhere. News items, etc. bubble up some how based on popularity or relevance. Instead of a big long list of noise, maybe you get a much shorter list showing the most popular (based on a threshold you set or just a relative one) or most liked (like those sites where a discussion thread falls below a threshold and disappears from the page unless you expose it) tidbits with the option to dig deeper if you care. Combine this with an algorithm based on your actions/preferences (if you tend to click on political news items those might bubble up), and you’ve got yourself a way of managing the deluge.

This sort of  “smart” information culling has been talked about for the better part of a decade or more (at least as long as the Web’s been large enough for people to realize it was needed) but few if any solutions really exist out there. Everyone’s put a piece of it together but no one’s combined it all into a single interface for information. New sites just put the most recent and maybe have a box or callout with the most popular but imagine a page where the news will look different for you versus the other guy…even better, imagine that it’s a news site you’ve never visited before. You could have a roaming profile that people tap with basic rolled up statistics that can be interpreted into a profile for that site’s content.

Now, if only this blog entry would show up in all the right places so it can happen.

kn

GigaOM’s correspondents have been on a tear about the obsolescence of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) or landlines.  Their latest snippet by Jim Courtney entitled “Area Codes are Dead — Thanks VoIP” talks about the “loosening” of the anchor of geographically locked phone numbers…specifically for the home/office. Obviously, cell phones have been doing this since the FCC forced the carriers to support number portability and more recently ensured this wasn’t something the carriers could drag on, it’s not like this is a surprise. As VoIP has gotten more widespread (Qwest was expanding its network to cover a large chunk of their residential customer base years ago…and they probably didn’t even realize it), it wasn’t going to be long. There are still hiccups (while clear, Skype calls can drop out or otherwise end up fubar if the net connection falters anywhere along the way) but with increasing bandwidth, faster cellular data connections, and a coming bump in WiMax support as adoption starts to spread, it won’t be long before you can (finally) have uninterrupted cellphone access.

Imagine being able to get 99% coverage because where cell service dips, your phone can automatically switch to WiFi without you noticing. One of the cool things that I’ve wanted to try out were those IP phones that really routed to wherever based on your location. So, you could have calls follow you if needed. Don’t roll your eyes. Think about family calls. Your son or daughter’s stuck somewhere and they need you. What if you left your cellphone somewhere or it got dropped in the toilet (yes, this happens but thankfully not to me…yet)? Walk over to a “public” phone wherever you are that you can log into and pull up your phone book or even have the phone ring for you if  someone calls.

Big Brother may be watching but there are a number of other reasons this sort of thing benefits people. I’d even go for the Minority Report-style ad/public screen that can ID you and say, “Hey, your wife’s trying to reach you…it’s important!”

In the end, though, I still feel a bit defensive when I hear about the end of POTS. Maybe it’s one of those things where you’re familiar with something…like an old friend…and you hate to see it go. One more thing from your history that disappears under the mob of progress, leveled to the ground and replaced with a new strip mall. One of those weird duality things with me. I love new tech, stylishly new architecture and the like…but I also respect and enjoy old things (okay, I don’t appreciate stuff from the 60’s or 70’s…yeesh).

Or maybe it’s because of what it implies…that we’re no longer grounded in a place that we know but are becoming digital era nomads without a home. How long before nationalism gives way to something new…technologism–your identity becomes like those Mac commercials where you’re identified by your tech platform…no more religious wars or wars for land…it’s a war for bandwidth or adoption. Ugh. And when those little green men finally show up a thousand years from now, picking through our technological bones…will they just shake their heads and mutter about misguided automotons or will they just be the Borg, showing up and collecting some more technology for their own?

kn

ffs…only The Onion…

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

A bit old and heavy handed but still a bit funny…

kn

So, I’d just merged some code into my test build to prepare a deployment to staging when I got a compilation error on a page stating that a “}” was expected and referencing a line in a temp file from the GAC that included a line like this:

[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute()]

I’m scratching my head…wtf? I searched for the above and found a reference in the strings resource I had for the site. But, there weren’t any problems with the code…in fact, the site compiled just fine! More scratching…then I searched online. Found this. Different error but the same or rather a similar stack trace.

Then I thought about it. Missing closing bracket…well, we’d just modified some code recently that involved what I’m sure Microsoft would rather we didn’t do…in the front-end aspx file we did something like this:

<% if (something == true) { %>

<myfancyhtml></myfancyhtml>

<% }//end if %>

And, lo and behold, the recent merge managed to include two copies of the opening line with a single closing line. Lovely.

Anyhow, in case you run into this wonderfully obscure error, check your <% %> tags if the code behinds still compile successfully…probably have something in there that’s causing you problems…no need to reboot and all that crap.

kn

So, thanks to TechCrunch, I’ve been following the ongoing (they’re neck and neck at 980k right now) battle between Ashton Kutcher and CNN on Twitter. Who will reach 1 million followers (and unofficially become the heads of their own nations)? Kutcher is catching up…he was down by over 15k a few hours ago but now he’s within a couple hundred. It’s bound to get crazy as word continues to spread and as the 1 million mark approaches. EA’s even put a reward out for the 1 millionth follower assuming Kutcher beats CNN where they’ll get put into The Sims 3 and get a free copy of every EA game coming out in 2009 for whatever platform they’re on. That means when 999k comes along, it’s going to go fast.

Here’s looking forward to seeing Twitter down in a few hours…

kn

Just a quick nibble…I’ve always loved Pixar’s work (and, yes, I wished I had some skillset that would’ve allowed me to work there but alas…) and followed it. I hated the idea of them being acquired by Disney even though it made some measure of sense. John Lasseter’s been heading up the creative side of Disney since the acquisition which, I think, is the reason Disney isn’t still going down in flames. I might be wrong but I think Bolt was the first animated film produced while Lassiter was “in office” so to speak (though not put together by Pixar) and it wasn’t too bad. Not the same as a Pixar movie but not the complete crap Disney used to put out. You can see some of the creativity you’d expect in a Pixar movie in Bolt (the pigeons and their movements). It’s that sophisticated attention to detail and ability to find humor in that detail which is a Pixar trademark.

Now, Pixar’s first film post-Disney Acquisition, Up is coming. And, honestly, I don’t feel the same sort of anticipation I used to feel about their previous movies. I saw the trailer and it was like…meh. Even though I knew it was a Pixar movie, I couldn’t find any excitement in it. Not sure why 100% but I think one part of it is the switch to “plain old” humans. The only Pixar movie with humans as the main characters was the Incredibles–but they were superheroes.

I guess we’ll see if the movie does well enough to put it up on Pixar’s award shelf…thing is, in general, each Pixar movie’s done better than the previous one…something tells me this one won’t do BETTER but it’ll do okay. At least Iger’s standing by them…

kn

Ugh…chalk this up to one of those relatively obscure problems where you’ve got this crazy idea (using XSLT to generate the HTML for a page based on an XML file) so you don’t have to code up a full blown server-side page that has to hand build the page (correction: you’ve got to hand build it).

Anyway, I wanted to pass HTML through from the XML element to the final output. Of course, as we’re in the uber-strict world of XML, that will either: a) cause issues or b) get escaped and output to the user as HTML. I had the latter.

Off I went to find a solution (the usual time sink that it was) and found a couple ideas:

1) CDATA the content and use the xml:output’s cdata-section-elements tag to have the template ignore it. Didn’t work.

2) Use the xml:value-of and xml:text elements’ disable-output-escaping. Worked for IE but failed miserably in FF3.

So, I bang my head on my keyboard as I’m prone to do and I then search for why FF hates me so when I do #2 above.

Turns out…it has something to do with the way FF processes the XML so they don’t support the attribute. Doh! But wait…what’s this just a few search results below the top? Switch xml:value-of to xml:copy-of and lo and behold that sucker starts outputting your element’s contents verbatim!

Ahhh…now I can go back the the tedious task of converting my basic form (not HTML) data into XML to use my newly minted solution!!!

kn

So, I’m back from SF and a weeklong adventure in Game Dev land. Maybe it’s because it was the second time through for me but it didn’t really hold the same sort of magic the first one did. Part of it might also be due to the fact that there wasn’t a lot in the way of revelations/announcements. Here are some highlights:

1) The big new announcement: OnLive miniconsole made its debut. It’s basically Slingbox for consoles except that OnLive hosts the source and you just get the video streamed down to your TV. They handle PC and consoles. Pros: No need to upgrade with each new console release; no need to buy games you’ll play for a short time. Cons: It requires a lot of bandwidth for a smooth ride; if the service dies, you’re gonna have to go and get those consoles and games anyway. Time will tell if it’ll grab enough of a slice of the console market (PC too)  to survive.

2) The economic slowdown/apocalypse had an affect on the conference as you’d expect but it wasn’t crazy. The summits and tutorials (Monday and Tuesday) were definitely quieter (seemed like a third less people there) but the main conference itself seemed as crowded as last time. A couple of spaces were empty on the expo floor (big ones). There were still mo-cap companies galore but definitely fewer than last time. Jillians was barely booked…I could actually have lunch there!

3) NeuroSky was there but been-there-done-that.

4) Scotland, Bavaria (Germany), and other regions and countries are pushing for game development investment (couldn’t miss those Scots and their booth).

5) Game development education programs are truly gaining legitimacy. Whether it was the number of wide-eyed, awkward students wandering the expo asking questions and finding the demos “awesome” or if it Peter Molyneux plugging Lionhead’s program for students and recent grads, what was once some vague excuse to make games rather than study classics or physics is now a legitimate career with a path starting in college. So much for my degree…do they take trade-ins?

6) According to Nintendo, the game industry grew ONLY because of the Wii and DS. I guess it’s good, then, that the DSi’s coming out or else we might see a mini-game industry deflation! At least we all got a free game out of Iwata’s talk!

7) Innovation in the game industry is still rampant but I think it’ll be less obvious (i.e. evolution more than revolution as cliche as that sounds). Whether it’s the sculpted cliffs of Halo Wars or improved AI emphasis or better indie games, it’ll come but slowly.

The W is still one of the (if not THE) gathering place after hours. These guys need a bigger place to meet…

All in all, it was a great experience. I doubt I’ll make it next year but I’ll definitely be back some day. One thing’s for sure, though, the game industry isn’t going to be hurt too bad…people need entertainment more than ever at a time like this. I just hope it won’t be too long before something really great comes out…

kn