(Warning: This post may or may not have any real point. You have been warned.)

It's interesting how different real-life conversations are from TV. If people had conversations like television conversations, they would sound ludicrous. Try it. Whatever you're watching right now (except maybe the evening news. No, wait, *especially* the evening news), listen to two or three sentences, and picture a friend of yours saying those words to you in a normal conversation. It probably sounds too contrived, too direct, or both.

I guess the obvious reason is that TV conversations have to take place in a heartbeat, instead of the lingering talks friends, clients, or coworkers can have. The same is true for the written word, either dialog between characters, or narraritive. Take this post as an example. It's conversational as text goes, but I wouldn't explain this idea out loud the same way.

I was thinking even wordier than this, when Fred sent me an email with a really relevant .sig quote from Tom Stoppard:

"The thing that makes Shakespeare breathtaking and defines poetry [is] the simultaneous compression of language and expansion of meaning."

Basically, Shakespeare takes these ideas to the extreme, trying to pack meaning in as if he were fined by the word.

By the way, Fred's in Much Ado About Nothing opening tonight and playing through June 11th. You should go see it, even if you don't know who Fred is. He plays Benedick.

Given a limited amount of information, people tend to find an answer that fits all the data, and assumes that the data is complete. In general, when people do a little investigating and find a few answers, they extrapolate more than they should. This is the basis for stereotypes, racism, and erroneous 'scientific' views that can last for decades or centuries. Things like, "If ships disappear when they reach the horizon, then the earth is flat." or "If planes crash, then driving is safer."

I was thinking about this when I was walking by the campanile today. It was built around 1910 and, being hollow, was a useful place to store things the faculty wanted to keep, but didn't have a ready need for. Specifically, they use it to house dinosaur bones.

Now I was wondering what would happen if there was a natural disaster, war, devolution, or other event which befell Berkeley, such that, thousands or millions of years from now people (or something else) 'discovered' the UC Berkeley campus and unearthed its tallest monument, much like the Egyptian, Incan, or Peruvian pyramids, and what did they find inside but dinosaur bones?

In the absence of other evidence, would they assume the Campanile was a tomb, a holy relic, or just a big clock tower that, coincidentally, had hundred-million-year-old bones inside?

Just fodder for a short story, as if I ever got around to writing...

Got invited at the last minute to a Giants game this afternoon (thanks Evan!). It was great. The new stadium's beautiful, everyone is close to the action, and it just feels very vintage.

If you know any season-ticket holders, suck up to them and scam a few. It's a great time.

Just a quickie for the 10% who're interested. I read an interesting article comparing the various MP3 encoders by encoding speed and quality, and the question came up as to why they should have different quality at all, considering MPEG 2 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) is a standard.

The answer lies in the difference between a verb and a noun. MPEG2 is an 'encoding standard' where encoding is a noun. If it were a verb, it would mean that the process of encoding is standardized, but what it actually specifies is only the nature of the final result (the 'encoding'). the idea is that you can use whatever technique or algorithm you like to encode audio or video into an MPEG encoding, but that encoding must be decodable by a specified, standardized process, so it's 'encode once, decode anywhere.'

It's a nitpick to most, but for the MP3 and MPEG afficionados out there, it might make a little more sense of the variety of encoders out there.

Or, more specifically, "What is the role of an Information Architect?"

A lot of people have been trying to answer this question lately. Whole books have been devoted to the topic. Still, I've found one of the oldest books in the genre, the Mythical Man Month, to give the best insights of what an information architect is and isn't. One reason I prefer this book over its more recent siblings is that it addresses the role of architect alongside the other roles, without a bias towards architect, strategist, implementer, or user. Another is that, having been written 25 years ago, it isn't trapped up in the current issues of the web. While some might see this as giving the book less relevance, I find that it provides less distraction, helping separate the core of information architecture from the idiosyncrasies of web development.

I'm still working on my definition of the role of information architect, culling from these sources and my own experiences, and I'll be posting it once it's complete.

It's just boiling in my apartment today. It's only 10am and it's already about 85 degrees. Anyone know how to keep cats cool, aside from dousing them in water regularly?

Okay, so I feel bad for coming back with an advertisement after being gone for a couple days, but this is for you guys, not for me.

If you buy a TiVo before June 30th, and pay for activation, you can get $50 off if you enter my serial number as a referer code. It's 000-1349-3017-5337. (read about it here).

Anyhow, you get $50 off the subscription, and if two or more people do it, what do I get? A nifty TiVo shirt and three (3) tivo dolls, so this is really your win.

If you do it, drop me a line so I know, and enjoy!

BTW, the new Sony TiVos are in stock at Crutchfield.

If you could care less about TvVos, don't worry, this is the last time I'll gab about it for a while. New functionality coming to the site this weekend. Don't miss it!

-Kev

Here are a couple links to tell you more about words than you ever thought to ask:

• Lexical FreeNet is a sort of ultra-thesaurus.
• RhymeZone is pretty much what it says, but also goes a little farther.

The words seem so alien to someone who hasn't had a summer vacation in four years.

I walked out of my last final Tuesday night and didn't know what to do next. Between work and school I'd been keeping pretty busy, and even when work and school themselves didn't consume all of my time, procrastinating is a full-time affair (hence, this journal, amongst other things). So now that I don't have any responsibilities for the next few months, what do I do?

Well, I've got a list as long as my arm (in 24-point type, anyhow) of things I want to do with this site, and other web projects, which you'll be seeing the fruits of gradually, but soon. I've also got a lot of IKEA labor, building furniture and more furniture, remaking my apartment. (There are three stages to apartment living: "Place where I keep my stuff and sleep," "Place where I keep my nicer stuff, sleep, and keep meaning to clean" and, "Place that is a real home, where everything has its place (and is actually kept there), and is both beautiful and functional." I'm in stage two right now, working towards stage three.)

So, the current plan is to spend a few weeks at least working on these projects that have been put off during the semester, and then open up to contract interactive work again, which should keep me busy and happy 'till the end of August, when the Fall semester starts up.

In the very near term, I'll be implementing more functionality right here, starting off with making the links on the left-hand nav more useful and interesting, and finalizing my solution to those who think bright blue just doesn't cut it as a color pallete.

Why is it impossible for anyone to package powdered miso soup for sale in the U.S.?

I can't believe that every Japanese restaurant I've ever visited makes their own miso from scratch, yet the worst miso soup I've ever had in a restaurant is better than the best I've ever bought in a mix.

What's the secret? Is retailly-packaged miso soup just a ploy to get more people to go to higher-profit-margin restaurants? Do they save the good stuff for Japan? Is it some obscure form of self-flagellation?

If anyone knows the secret, or if you know of a supermarket miso that breaks the rule (or a restaurant that breaks it, the other way), let me know, and I'll share what I learn.

Thanks!