Friday, May 10, 2002

From daypop: Web of Distraction. In the end, Moore's Law might not lead to a more efficient workplace. The time we save with faster processors will become the time we fill with work avoidance. Interesting theory on procrastination, willpower, and the distractions provided by the Internet. But if you exercise your muscles (or your willpower), doesn't that tend to make you stronger, not weaker as the article suggests? Also, it's not just about saving time through faster processors, it's about changing processes through technology. When was the last time you used Wite Out? Or made copies of an article using carbon paper (a tedious, smelly, messy task that I used to do for the English department of Carleton College)? I wouldn't trade the business efficiencies of today for the "distractionless" environment of yesteryear for anything. 4:55:15 PM

Things not to like about the new job: currently I've got the "standard desktop configuration." That means that I can't install anything on my workstation. Fine. I'm working to get local admin rights so I'll have a bit more control over my environment. But until then, I have to deal with the fact that the proxy script continues to force-feed me the internal corporate home page, bookmarks, and IE toolbar links. Even if I change 'em, the script just replaces what I've done. I can understand not allowing me (or any Joe User) to install willy-nilly on a PC. Support issues abound. But dictating my home page? Ensuring that a handful of corporate bookmarks appear in my favorites list? Seems maybe a little too controlling. 10:41:55 AM

This helps Radio immensely, by providing the ability to have multiple people post to the same weblog. Much closer, now, to a creating a kind of "knowledge log" that John Robb espouses (quick check of his site while writing this finds that he's already written an article on the new functionality. Mark documents similar functionality for Movable Type. 9:33:05 AM

There's a new, very nice, two-story Target in downtown Minneapolis. Everything that's anything in Minneapolis can be found at the Skyway level, simply because that's the main path most people use between buildings, even in the summer. Just on the inside of the skyway level of the new Target is a Starbucks. Nothing very large, but a good place to stop on my way into the office. So here's the unexpected benefit of working for Target HQ, and having that born-and-raised-in-Seattle love of Starbucks: since it's within Target (probably renting space or some such), I get the standard 10% employee discount. Amazing how saving twenty or thirty cents can start the day off right. 9:10:55 AM