Seeing Your Files in Three Dimension

By | November 22, 2011
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3d1aThis kind of thing has got to be the future of files and folders so long as we have files and folders: the Innolab 3D File Manager from Adam Miezianko, Kristopher Rambish, Karen Fung, Zavnura Pingkan at Boston University. (Thanks, visualcomplexity.com)

This design is like a ferris wheel which organises contents by their relationships rather than their physical position on a hard drive. Each spiderweb thread marks the ties between folders holding contents related to the open file folder (center, in purple).

The file manager runs on Linux. It’s actually old: 2003, so something of a shame this kind of thing hasn’t caught on. The closest, I guess, is 3D Topicscape and perhaps WinFS, the storage system that was dropped from Vista back in 2004.

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Keeping Your Back to the Crowd

By | November 22, 2011
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Whizbiz1I’m surprised this is not bigger than it is: the device that lets every woman be a man. Better known as the Whiz:

“Its unique shape was tested by over 1,400 women in clinical trials and since then by thousands of women of all ages, from all walks of life. When held properly the Whiz Plus will not leak and stays completely dry on the outside.”

I’m particularly impressed by the accompanying advice, which a few of my male friends could stand to be reminded of:

When outside aim downwards, keep your back to the crowd and never ever pee into the wind!

Oh, and put the seat down after.

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Has Anyone Resigned From aSmallWorld Yet?

By | November 22, 2011
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A friend pointed me to aSmallWorld, the networking site that will only take members invited by other members (my friend wasn’t a member.) I can understand the benefits of this (I have hundreds of contacts on LinkedIn but know about two of them) but it was the service’s blurb that amused me — I can’t help imagining lots of hopeful folk sitting around patiently hoping to get an invite. I just hope I get one so I can employ Groucho’s well-worn resignation cable.

clipped from www.asmallworld.net
We have imposed certain criteria in order to keep the network exclusive. To join, you need to be invited by a trusted member.

If you have not received an invitation, you can ask your friends to invite you. If you have no friends who are members yet, please be patient.

The Violinist in the Subway

By | April 13, 2007
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Seth Godin comments on the world class violinist ignored by commuters in the subway. His conclusion (I think): we all ignore because in our world of natural suspicion we rely on marketing to flag what is and isn’t valuable.

True, I guess. What scares me too, is the possibility that we wouldn’t have even been able to distinguish between a world class violinist and a mediocre fiddler outside their appropriate setting.

It bothers us that we’re so overwhelmed by the din of our lives that we’ve created a worldview that requires us to ignore the outside world, most of the time, even when we suffer because of it. It made me feel a little smaller, knowing that something so beautiful was ignored because the marketers among us have created so much noise and so little trust.

Bot, Go Out and Do My Bidding

By | November 22, 2011
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This week’s WSJ.com column (behind a subscription wall, I’m afraid) is on how we need to get ready for the day when chatbots go out and do our bidding for us. Literally, possibly, but if nothing else to go out and do the pre-flirting bit of online dating. 
clipped from online.wsj.com

Expect a future where we don’t interact with other people. Instead, we’ll send our “cyber double” out to interact with other people’s “cyber doubles” until things get interesting. Then, and only then, will real people take over.

This is the vision of Liesl Capper, whose Sydney-based RelevanceNow! last week launched an early version of MyCyberTwin (mycybertwin.com), a service that allows you to create and hone an online version of yourself. Your cyber twin will then chat on your behalf on instant messaging, your blog or your MySpace page. Eventually much of what you do online will be left to your cyber double, indistinguishable from the real thing (you). As Ms. Capper puts it: “You can be you, even when you’re not you.”