Yo! Meetup! Go Bite Me! Or Why I'm Not Attending a Meeting on Howard Dean.

Yo!  Meetup!  Go Bite Me! Or Why I'm Not Attending a Meeting on Howard Dean

Sigh.  Meetup.com just seems to always piss me off.  This time I was over at Exploit Boston (I was testing Feedster's new "Smart Case" searching) and saw that there is a Howard Dean meetup event on July 2nd and I thought maybe I might rouse my indolent political arse up and attend.  But Exploit Boston lacked a place but was linked over to the Meetup event which wants me to bloody well login to find out when it is.  Sorry.  Too bad, so sad, not glad -- not worth the trouble.

Score:

• Meetup: -1 (not even 0; for user hostility, they get a -1)
• Dean: - 0 (for hitching yourself to a silly ass service)

Note: If you claim that I'm not a real Dean supporter since I won't even bother to login to see when the meeting is, that would be right.  I'm not.  I'm someone who is interested enough to attend but when a roadblock like login is thrown up in my face then its not worth it.

A Note for Developers on Why Login is a Road Block

Once upon a time, back in the dot com days, I was in charge of engineering for an educational dot com and we did real user testing since our product required login.  What we found was not that surprising but most of our developers didn't understand or "Just remember a username and password.  (Moron!)".  Specifically:

• Every user has troubles because not only do they have multiple logins but multiple passwords
• The format for logins and passwords invariable changes between systems
• Browsers routinely forget passwords.  Internet Explorer is a sterling example of this pathetic and distressing behavior.
• People ***HATE*** to have to admit they don't remember their password.  That makes them feel stupid which makes them run away when its required for something trivial (like the Meetup example above)

The 4th bullet is why this stuff pisses me off so.  I'll admit that I forget my passwords and Meetup makes me feel like a moron -- which makes me angry -- when they require it for something trivial.

[The FuzzyBlog!]

Still some bugs in the system. I wonder how popular some of these meetups are. I expect they are no problem for committed people but for casual attndees, log-ins can be an anethma.You should not have to log in to find out where the meeting is. Find another way.  10:17:13 AM    

Old Jones, New Politics.

I hate to admit that I still don't know shit about Howard Dean, even though I have lots of friends who do and are crazy about the guy. What I do know is that the Net roots movement behind him is a freaking jihad.

When I read stuff like this and this I want to play an old song.

Here's the deal with Dean: It's about the money. Follow it. Where does it come from? Not the usual suspects. There are too damn many of None of the Above. Instead, he owes The Roots.

This is a New Thing. And they don't know what it is.

I love it.

New mantra: It's The Roots, Stupid.

By the way, there are plenty of Net roots behind Dubya too. Don't discount them.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Grassroots usually really determine an election. But the next election will be the first in which Internet tools help energize the roots like never before. These tools will be used by every side. It will be one of the more interesting elections of the past 25 years because of this.  10:04:15 AM    

Windows activation: how it works and why we're glad we use Mac OS X. "Digital Goddess" Kim Komando answers computer and tech questions for USA Today in her column "CyberSpeak." The latest caught our eye:

"Q: I have Windows XP. I heard that if I upgrade my computer, Windows XP will stop working. Is this true?"

"A: Not necessarily. When installed and activated, Windows XP takes a snapshot of 10 hardware characteristics. Each characteristic has one vote, except the network card, which has three. To maintain... [MacDailyNews]

But this is all for your own protection, right? Change too much of your computer and it will simply stop working after 30 days, unless you make a phone call to MS to get their permission to run your own computer. Just who is the master?  9:49:19 AM    

Myers-Briggs test.

After reading the last post to Halley, acrobat asked if I was an alpha male. I don't think so. But I'll ask Halley. He asked me if I had take the Myers-Briggs test. I hadn't heard of it. It's very cool. I'm an ENFP. Hmm...

By Joichi Ito jito@neoteny.com. [Joi Ito's Web]

I was a little wary of the Myers-Briggs test but it nailed me pretty well. ENFP through and through. Take the online test. What I found interesting is not that everyone needs to be put into 16 different boxes. No one is a particular type all the time and there is some overlap, but it demonstrates that people use different strategies to solve problems and the best groups will contain people of different types. This tends to smooth out the deficits of each type (I DO have a problem following through and would love to work with someone who relishes that) and increates the creativity. It also helps overcome some of the "He's just a jerk" thinking when you realize that he simply has a different approach, an approach that can be worked with rather than against. I wonder if many bloggers are ENFP or whether a particular type predominates in the top blogs?  9:02:19 AM