PKO-Kay: April 2008

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Twining

I ventured into the world that is Twine.com today. Or I tried to anyways. I gotta tell ya I was confused and saddened by the experience.

I had been hearing a buzz about Twine and then with the recent article in WIRED, I thought this is the answer to all of our information overload whoas. Promises of revolution and pioneering of the Web 3.0 waters. I scored an invite from my old man. Logged in, followed the instructions to add a widget to my browser and then was dropped in the middle of someones PhD experiment? I tried to figure it out by poking around, which is my general (and thus far successful) way of exploring new technologies but sense, I could not make. The interface is laden with vocabulary that is unexplained (twine, collect, connect). Familiar terms become foreign (bookmark, recommend (how can you recommend this, I just got here)) Searching for a "twine" places you into a different interface than browsing for the same thing.

I turned to the help link, where the most prominent action is to send a help form. I dont want to send an email, I want to know what this is. With some focus I found my way into the help forum where the CEO directed inquirers to use the tutorials but also explained that the application was so complex that its taking a while to complete all the tutorials. Confusion turns to sadness.

So was Web 2.0 all buzz words, hype and high-profile, well-funded projects? Will Web 3.0 be? I hope not. I thought Web 2.0 was about affording social connections, opening up lines of communication, developing communities, making information more accessible to all. It was also about maturing the user interface, developing usability standards and ui patterns to provide consistent, predictable, intuitive interfaces. I do agree with Clive Thompson, and Radar Networks that the next phase in the evolution of the web will be about managing information and partnering semantic connections with our social ones and I am looking forward to being a part of that. But it might have to be another train that leads us there...

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ohhh Spring

Spring is my least favorite of the seasons. I'm just aching to get back on my bike or in the garden but its freezing cold and I'm a whimp. This spring has been especially rough with the snow flurries weighing down my tulips.

But despite the global cooling, I do appreciate Spring for it beholds some of my favorite events of the Greenwood hood. The cousin crew braved the snow this weekend with our pockets full of quarters and adventured out to find some Greenwood Garage sales. Overall the sale was pretty weak - I think the snow put a damper on things, but we did manage a good find or two. See below.

Next up: Greenwood Art Walk!

Find #2 continued

Find #2, originally uploaded by Patty OK.

Makes me wish I smoked.

Garage sale find #2

Garage sale find #2, originally uploaded by Patty OK.

They asked me if I ever watched pee-wees playhouse when I went to
purchase this one.

Greenwood garage sale find # 1

Greenwood garage sale find # 1, originally uploaded by Patty OK.

Cute owl letter or napkin holder. It actually says on the sticker that its for letters or napkins. Now that's a flexible little owl. I'm going to use him for the mail since I don't use the paper napkins.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Professor cuddles

Professor cuddles, originally uploaded by Patty OK.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Save the date, you will. May 22.

Talk like Yoda day. A few years back we decided to talk like yoda just through one meeting. Some meeting participants weren't amused so it didn't last long. But now we have an officially sanctioned day to talk like the little green man all day long no one can stop us. Wait, I cannot.

It's true on the the interweb I read it.
http://www.talklikeyodaday.tk/

Help you prepare this will.
http://www.yodaspeak.co.uk/