Also...

Also great about Screenhead's post is that it reminded me of the great line from that movie Firefox:


"You must think in Russian... think in Russian... etc"

Great Hard Flash Games

HOLY CRAP. Check this little guy out.

Space Worms via Screenhead

Screenhead's got the number on this one:

The most instantly hard flash game weve ever encountered. Essentially, you dodge a you-seeking missile, which learns faster than you do. When you finally figure out how to get anywhere with this game, you feel so instantly clever that your artificially-inflated ego is bound to make you act like a complete ass towards at least one random stranger.

One generally goes through three stages in a game such as this. One, how the hell do I do this? Two, ha ha, I've figured you out, now I dominate! Three, THIS IS GODDAMN HARD, I'm going to quit and blog about it.

Obviously, I've passed all three levels, and am now on to stage four (only for the advanced): I will dominate this game in order to prove what a big man I am so that when people later ask me about it I can boast.

Local search + Maps

I had to be informed about this from someone else... I'm hardly the geek you came here for!

MSN search for Taxis in Seattle

and for comparison...

Google search for Taxis in Seattle

I wish that MSN would use the virtual earth interface instead of that fairly annoying map point one. Anyhow, though it's close, Google's the winner on this one, not only for the niceness of the search results (better table layout) but the maps flow and drag is just so much nicer, especially in how fluid it feels. MS has a very nice additional search, and parses better, but the best feature they have is the ability to click on the letter of the search returns and have it center and highlight the item in the map. Pick your poison... either is highly recommended!

Desperation Breeds Behavior

Chinese Security Guard Jumps to Death

Holy cow, that's some desperate ass shit. The worst is he probably could have afforded the treatments if he hadn't (totally selflessly) given the money to his sick mother. If we could do one ridiculously idealistic thing around the world, it'd be to focus people on delivering a way to back off the edge of Maslow's need heirarchy. In addition to being a really shitty place to live, people on the edge of life tend to do some crazy stuff. Of course, that's probably overly simplistic. I mean, some ungodly number of people are starving all the time, and this guy was not starving, just in brutal pain. Sometimes no one wins.

Quick thoughts on NYC

I'm in NYC on business... I've always loved it here, but in a few ways this visit feels like a little of the shine is off the golden apple. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I finally feel a little bit more at home in Seattle.

One thing I have noticed is that for the same level of society, the quality is a lot better in Seattle. Let me explain. I'm a lower-middle-upper-middle-/ower-upper-middle class guy... I probably spend too much money and this means I get to see a little bit of what the upper class might see. Sometimes, I'm really lucky and I get to see how they live. Like I bought an apartment that was an amazing deal and now appears to be worth all kinds of money. I'm about to buy a car, and thanks to insane lease deals, I'll probably get a nicer car than I deserve. And my work gives me access to a gym that is just ridiculous.

Let's focus on that last example. Let's say my gym costs about $150 a month. Thanks to my company, I don't see the cost, so I really have no idea. And let's say the average person in Seattle makes $50k. If the average person in NYC makes $75k, and you joined a gym that was $225 a month, I feel like the quality in NYC would never match that of Seattle's gym. It'd be smaller, dirtier, less features and so on. I know space is a premium, but that's really no excuse. In order to have a similar experience in NYC, I feel like you'd have to spend $500 a month, which is absurd. It's a rich person's city. That doesn't mean I don't love it, but that's what I've seen on my most recent trip.

Ask and ye shall...

Looks like I found my news reader for the forseeable future.

Great News

Pros:

  • Fast fast fast
  • Single button to next unread
  • Really cool newspaper format lets you see all the stories in a channel on one page
  • Ties into bloglines

Still to be worked on:

  • Allow to default to show all stories in a channel or group on a single page without having clicking the "Next>" link and/or the next one
  • Once you reach the end of a channel or group, the same key that advances you in the group should move you to the next unread channel or group (even better if it all appears on one page, see below)
  • Ability to view all the stories across the channels in a channel group in a one page newspaper format (separated by the same header you currently have at the top of the page)
  • Custom ordering of the channels or groups
UPDATE: Looks like it does #3, but I was just thrown off because of the "Next>" button. This is an area where a scenario type focus can really help... it's always annoying to have to switch keys (let alone modes of input) to continue doing the same thing you're doing, which is basically going from news story to news story. That's why having to hit a different key to go to the "Next" page, or having to use the mouse to find and click the link is such a pain.

D