the tweney review

Getting even simple things done with a slightly underpowered computer and a bunch of web-based applications means you spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting for TypePad to publish a post, waiting for Gmail to populate the screen with a list of the latest messages, waiting for an image to download so you can start editing it in Photoshop, waiting for Photoshop to launch.

Each of these delays is tiny, maybe on the order of five to twenty seconds, or a minute at the most: Delays which, taken individually, are negligible. But over the course of a day, they accumulate, not literally but psychologically, so you start thinking: What else can I do while I wait for this Ajax-ified web page to load? So you flip to another tab, or jump over to your email program, or respond to someone’s IM.

The result: A five-minute task (writing and publishing a blog post, for instance) gets spread out over half an hour, interleaved with a bunch of other micro tasks, because that five minute task contains half a dozen annoying little delays that you’d rather avoid.

Your computer has trained you to become a task-switcher. It has trained you to spread your attention out across multiple tasks simultaneously, devoting only a little time to each one in turn.

This is a major design flaw in all modern computers, because the computers are designed to provide beautiful, translucent, animated interfaces, not to respond instantaneously to human commands. And, I’m afraid, Web 2.0 style applications are only making it worse.

As Bruce Sterling writes, this would be handy if you were lost about 6,000 light years out. It’s also very cool! An Atlas of the Universe

The game looks lame, and the trailer is weak, but the phrase is awesome. I would totally buy a T-shirt that had a big, bold, Helvetica I 8 NY and a picture of Godzilla on it. In black. Dinohunters: I 8 NY Trailer

I’ll be appearing on John C. Dvorak’s internet video show, Cranky Geeks, today at 12:30pm Pacific, together with my old Ziff Davis friends Sebastian Rupley and Cade Metz. With luck, I’ll get in a good rant or two about censorship, surveillance, and Tablet PCs.

UPDATE 5/24: Video now available, at the corrected link above.

I’ve started a little tiny meme. Look, isn’t it cute? fluffy piece of Digg bait

It seems to be a law of ballpoint pens that the best ones inevitably disappear, leaving behind only inferior writing implements. Thus I have managed, over the past year, to lose three Fisher Space Pens (really the perfect all-purpose pocket pen) while the promising but ultimately disappointing Zebra Tele-scopic has somehow managed to remain in my pocket for months, obstinately not disappearing. And since it comes in a pack of two, I’ve got another one in my drawer as a backup. Argh! The Tele-scopic shrinks down to Space Pen size for pocket transport, while the dual barrel extends, telescope-like, to make a full sized pen when you’re ready to write; at the same time the point cleverly extends. Pushing it back down to shorter length makes the point retract. Neat! Unfortunately the point also seems to work its way out when the barrel is retracted and the pen is riding in my pocket. So far this hasn’t led to any embarrassing ink leaks but it’s annoying. Also the pen is just a touch too skinny and lightweight.

The Tele-scopic’s shortcomings are even more disappointing given that the Zebra F-402 is such a good writing implement — smooth writing, fine line, comfortable grip, and perfect for clipping into a notebook or organizer. Unfortunately both of my F-402s have disappeared too. At this rate I’ll be left only with Rollerballs (smeary, for lefties) and Papermates (blotchy, inconsistent lines and totally un-ergonomic).

NASA wants to pump you up: You Will Get Excited About Spending $100 Billion on a Lunar Program (yeah, I wrote that)

My coworker Kristen Philipkoski outed me as a Vogue subscriber. I only read it for the Jeffrey Steingarten columns, I swear.

I finally found an antidote to the bloated, overgrown, poorly designed mess that is iTunes. It’s a little freeware app called Floola that is just a few megabytes in size and requires no installation, so you can just put the application file on your iPod and run it from there. Floola has a straightforward interface: A simple table lists all of the MP3 files on your iPod, which you can sort by name, album, artist, genre, etc. You can drag and drop MP3 files to and from your hard drive just like you’ve always wanted to, or play music that’s on a Shuffle, which is something iTunes bizarrely refuses to let you do. Best of all, it doesn’t slow your computer to a crawl. Granted, Floola doesn’t have network playlist sharing like ITunes, documentation is almost nonexistent, and it’s buggy, but so far it hasn’t crashed my computer or hosed my music. I’d much rather spend my time with a slightly flaky app that gets the job done than a gigantic, overdesigned monster with identity issues and a not-so-subtle marketing agenda, so I’m ditching ITunes and going with Floola.

Canadian anti-global warming marketing campaign: Flicking brilliant. FLICK OFF