Perceived cost-benefit and (online) behavior
Often I hear these broad blanket statements on what people do or don’t do online: “people don’t read,” “people don’t scroll,” “people don’t wait.” It’s usually from those who have just enough knowledge of usability to be dangerous, but sometimes, alas, I’ve heard usability people uttering them. When I hear statements like this I’ll usually slowly count to 10 to regain self-control and then with the calmest tone of voice I can fake I’ll say: “Well, let’s talk about it.”
So, let’s talk about it.
Do people read online? - Of course people read online. Don’t you go online to get your news? Aren’t you reading this blog post online? You read content online all the times. But even a more specific statement such as “people don’t read instructions online” is incorrect. Read more »
iTunes and my lost musical memories
I spent hours last night looking for old Italian songs on iTunes. I was stunned to discover lots of albums from the 70’s and 80’s that I used to listen to and love when I was in high-school and college. And I am not talking about the main stream italian pop (although I Pooh and Al Bano are there) but the song-writers so close to our hearts that I used to sing as loud as I could with my friends–usually after an excessive amout of bad wine and late at night. iTunes had albums by Battisti, Guccini, Lucio Dalla, even Franco Battiato (but strangely not De Gregori and De Andrè). Scarily enough, I can still remember all the words of the songs. I just listened to the 30-sec snippets and sang along the entire evening.
When I moved to the US I left most of my musical past behind, except for a few tapes that I put in my suitcase. Little of the Italian music that I loved ever made it to America. Sometimes I could find some overpriced Italian CDs in the World Music section of the largest music stores (I’ve just bought a CD by Zucchero Fornaciari at Starbucks); but in the end, my music was one of the many things that I had to give up when I moved here.
Of course I still had all the American/British music, which was a big part of what we listened to. But there is something different and much more emotional about listening to (and singing) Italian songs, maybe because they describe my world, things I am familiar with and that I shared with my friends. The underlying emotional tone is different: a certain type of melancholic longing, sometimes anger and indignation with the social conditions, sometimes hope for a better future. And they are so inestricably connected with my memories.
Yesterday, I bought an album by Pino Daniele that I am listening right now. Ah, the memories… I hope iTunes has a maximum monthly spending threshold. In the meanwhile, I disabled the devilish One-Click, just in case.
The rescue continues in New Orleans while Rita is at the door
An Associated Press article on Yahoo news:
On their first day out, they found someone alive — 20 days after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans’ protective levees and flooded this fish bowl of a city.
(…) By the time the Florida team arrived on Saturday, most of New Orleans had been searched by police and National Guard troops. But many searches were cursory, at best. If someone didn’t shout out for help or respond to a knock, the rescuers marked the houses and moved on. Orders were not to force entry.
But nearly a month after the storm, anyone left alive in an attic or back room is likely too weak to cry out. And amid the stench of rotting garbage, stagnant water and rancid mud, even the dead do not immediately announce themselves.
Empathy, compassion, and revolution
Why do people do make the life decisions they make? Why somebody decides to become a revolutionary and another a dictator? Why some people become doctors and go to Haiti to cure AIDS and others become Kenneth Lay?
After watching Walter Salles‘ The Motorcycle Diaries I couldn’t stop thinking about empathy, compassion, and revolution.
The empathy continuum - One could describe empathy as a two-dimensional continuum: on one axis the distance between the subject and the objects of his or her empathy; on the other the intensity of the feeling.
A coffee shop of her own
A few weeks ago I felt quite sorry for myself (long before Katrina, when I didn’t yet feel ashamed to feel sorry for myself). It was Friday evening and I was still at work finishing a report. Usually I leave work earlier on Fridays and I enjoy some Anto quality time by myself. I love spending time in coffee shops. It reminds me of Italy. The combination of being by myself and being in a social environment–creating a sort of semipermeable boundary between me and the world–soothes my soul. I love watching people, reading a book or a magazine, and sipping a good decaf latte.
(After a long period of initial diffidence, I started enjoying Starbucks, especially when they added sandwiches to their menu. For some reason a cafe is not really a cafe for me if it doesn’t serve some salty food. But my favorite coffee place by far is the Gryphon Cafe in Wayne)
So, that Friday I was all stressed out because the report took much longer than I hoped, and I was tired after a long week, it was dark outside, and I wanted to go home. So I called Scott and I asked him: “Can you please make a coffee shop for me?” And he said, “Sure.”
When I arrived home, our dining room, which after months of slow and painful work was finally painted and organized, had been transformed in a coffee shop. Scott found two picnic tables in the basement and some white tablecloths I didn’t even know we had, organized chairs, plants, and candles to create a perfect european cafe atmosphere.
(Note: You will be surprised to learn that Scott really wanted me to write a post on this. About every couple of days he would ask me, “have you written about the cafe in your blog yet?” Yes, he can be really nice at times. Yes, I am grateful and feel fortunate, but I still reserve the right to be mad at him sometimes.)
Our dining room is still a coffee shop. This is where I blog and I spend most of my time when I am at home being myself (that is, not doing laundry, washing dishes, or paying bills). I think Virginia Woolf would be pleased.
In a land far far away…
On September 4, scientists observed the most distant explosion in the universe. The gamma-ray burst (a really bright and powerful explosion that happens when a huge star dies and collapses in a black hole) happened 12.6 billion light-years from Earth, which means 12.6 billion years ago, just 900 million years after the birth of our universe.
If you think of it, being able to detect something that happened 12.6 billion light-years from Earth is quite something. In an article published on Scientific American, Gehrels, Piro, and Leonard describe the effect of another gamma-ray burst that was detected in January 1999:
Though just barely visible through binoculars, it turned out to be the most brilliant explosion ever witnessed by humanity. We could see it nine billion light-years away, more than halfway across the observable universe. If the event had instead taken place a few thousand light-years away, it would have been as bright as the midday sun, and it would have dosed Earth with enough radiation to kill off nearly every living thing.
A few thousand light-years away, hu? Why do I suddenly feel so small?
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