Category: technology
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Douglas Coupland’s Thoughts on the Future
Throughout his most popular novels, Douglas Coupland defines terms that come to define generations and also manages to create stories that perfectly describe and connect with a certain culture at a certain time. In a series of recent articles, Coupland has done this once more, but looks toward the future, instead. One, an article covering Coupland’s prophecies for…
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Software Project Metrics and Control: They Don’t Matter (Sometimes)
Software project metrics are not as important as we have been led to believe, and the field of software engineering has evolved to such a state as to almost be almost… over. This is according to the eminent software engineer Tom DeMarco who, looking back at his 1986 book on the subject, Controlling Software Projects:…
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‘Bit Culture’ and the Benefits of Distraction
The information consumption habits of many in the younger generations–one feature of the ‘Internet information culture’–has many merits, despite its many detractors. So says Ban Casnocha in an article for The American that acts as both a review of Tyler Cowen’s Create Your Own Economy and a fairly positive and comprehensive overview of the “bit…
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The Three Design Principles and The Simplicity Myth
We are confusing usability with simplicity and capability with features. This is faulty logic, says usability and ‘cognitive design’ expert Don Norman, and our interpretation of our needs is mistaken: the goal is not simplicity; it is appropriateness, usability and enjoyability. Suggesting that what consumers really want are frustration-free, capable devices that tame our complexity-rich…
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A Beginner’s Guide to SEO
SEOmoz has done a lot for my perception of SEO companies: before I became aware of them a number of years ago, I was wary of the entire sector (with good reason, many would say). To help us all understand the world of legitimate SEO a bit better and to provide a primer on how…
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Privacy and Identity on the Internet
Jeffrey Rosen, law professor at George Washington University (GWU), has called the current incarnation of the Internet “a digital world that never forgets” in a recent piece on privacy for the The New York Times. It’s an astute article looking at the idea of segmented identities, the search for a way to safely control our…
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Sergey Brin’s Search for a Parkinson’s Cure
After discovering that he held the LRRK2 mutation on his twelfth chromosome (indicating that his lifetime risk of developing Parkinson’s disease is 30-75% rather than the typical 1%), Google co-founder Sergey Brin became one of the first philanthropists to fund research into a disease based on the results of a genetic test. In Thomas Goetz’s…
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A/B Testing Case Studies
Paras Chopra, founder of the fairly self-explanatory A/B testing company Visual Website Optimizer, provides an introduction to A/B testing that is as useful for newcomers as it is old-timers. In the article, Chopra provides a few dos and don’ts, an overview of some A/B testing tools, a fantastic list of resources and a collection of…
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Privacy and Tracking with Digital Coupons
Data collection and mining can be quite lucrative pursuits for many retailers, and technological advances are providing them with more novel and extensive methods of doing just that. Data mining is a topic I’ve been fascinated with ever since I was introduced to it in university, and this look at how digital coupons track us…
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Facebook’s ‘Like’ and Conspicuous Consumption
Wondering why we freely and often make our tastes public (specifically, our brand preferences through Facebook’s ‘Like’ mechanism), Nicolas Baumard discusses how we purchase goods to display our good taste: In a way, Facebook can be seen as a handy device to send a lot of very precise signals about your opinion and your values!…