I’ve created a spin-off blog, Pointed.ly, for occasional essays on abstract matters. This completes the refactoring of my web presence:
Now you need only follow the aspect(s) of me that interest you most. I’ve posted one essay to Pointed.ly, The Human Trace, which should give you the flavor of it. I’d like to think of the new site as the first draft of a book I might write one day, after I’ve become less excited about making great software.
(P.S. The notion of referring to my three blogs as “The Trilogy” is taken from Jeff Atwood, who wisely split up Stack Overflow.)
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It’s been widely known for a while now that Valve was porting their smash hit Portal (among other games) to the Mac. Now here’s more: Until May 24th, it’s free. For Mac and PC alike.
Now, I’m not much of a gamer these days. But Portal may well be the greatest game of all time, a pure pleasure and a challenge. Its only flaw is that it’s too short, taking a mere four hours to play through. It’s to Valve’s credit that they didn’t add any filler just to extend the playing time, as is de rigueur in the game industry. The bar for Portal 2 has been set very, very high.
Tags: games
I had an unpleasant experience with Comcast today. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that Comcast offers its customers a world in which every precious thread in the fabric of reality is as indeterminate as Schrödinger’s Cat. My phone number is and isn’t the number my account is under. My credit card number is and isn’t valid. The Russell set exists.
But here’s the thing that really irks me: Before connecting me to a human being (after 15 minutes of menu navigation), the system asked if I’d be willing to give my feedback on my support experience. God yes, I thought, let me tell you how to fix this! 30 minutes later, an automated system called me and asked exactly three questions:
- Was your issue resolved today? (Yes or no.)
- How pleasant was your experience with the customer support representative? (1–5 scale)
- How much effort did this support call take? (1–5 scale)
And then: Thank you! *click* But… but… Comcast, you have so much you could learn from me. I volunteered to talk to you! I tweeted @ComcastCares, but receive no response. Do you really care so little? I realize that your monopoly seems cozy now, but once I have a 4G Verizon wi-fi box, will I really need to buy cable from a company that evidently relishes my suffering? And one final question: In that e-mail you sent me, asking me to call you about an unspecified account issue, was it really necessary to precede your number with So that we may provide you with exceptional customer service…? The statement is technically accurate (exceptional in the sense of “unusual; not typical,” or—also from the New Oxford American Dictionary—“mentally or physically disabled so as to require special schooling”), but you need to learn to manage expectations.
I’m not a cynical or anti-corporate person. Actually, I had a very pleasant experience with American Express yesterday. (Some fiend had gotten my card number and used it to buy a bunch of songs on iTunes; a friendly customer support person called me to report the fraud.) It’s a cliché to say that Comcast is an evil corporation, and I don’t even like the phrase “evil corporation.” But Comcast is the Dark Prince of Corporations.
Tags: autobiography business
It’s hard to believe that it was less than a year ago that I launched Quocial. I really thought it might be the Next Big Thing in social bookmarking: Twitter-like simplicity plus Delicious-like flexibility and Google-class full-text search. And you know, it might have been. (The only site doing anything similar right now is Diigo, which feels overwhelmingly complex. I’ve taken to using Google Bookmarks, which is simple but non-social. I believe that the social bookmarking space is still wide open.) But I made a choice: When the academic year began, I chose to focus on classes, and Quocial fell into a state of disrepair.
Now my focus is moving back to the web, but I’ve moved on. Social bookmarking is not on the agenda. Which means it’s time to salvage what I can from Quocial. Therefore, I’m auctioning the Quocial.com domain, as well as some related domains and the @Quocial handle on Twitter. They’re all available as a bundle on Flippa. Here’s the link.
By bidding, you’re not just getting your hands on a great domain (one of only a handful of pronounceable 2-syllable .coms left). You’re also supporting my next endeavor, a webapp that promises to make science more collaborative, more democratic, and more fun. Please spread the word.
Tags: startup web 2.0
