I recently discovered Carrotmob, which is an awesome idea. I’ll explain what it is in a second, but I think their introductory video does a pretty exquisite job, without words, on its own:
I think they ruin the video a little with all that text at the end, but it’s still great work. Here’s their blurb:
Carrotmob is a method of activism that leverages consumer power to make the most socially-responsible business practices also the most profitable choices. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good, and then a big mob of consumers buys products in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world. It’s the opposite of a boycott
It’s kind of the equivalent of environmental NGOs just purchasing land so they can protect it. That is, you compel businesses to be responsible with the most powerful lobbying tool you have: your wallet. They call it a reverse-boycott or ‘joycott’. It seems like an utterly practical and pragmatic approach to enticing your local business community to behave more sustainably.
I gather this was the test run for Carrotmob, where local consumers chose a liquor store to support in exchange for their becoming more sustainable:
Carrotmob is partnering with 350.org to encourage people to run a Carrotmob on Oct. 24, a ‘Global Day of Climate Action’. Maybe we ought to try to organize one in Vancouver. Any thoughts on what sort of business we ought to work with?
In the past year or so, a number of social news, networking and community sites have implemented faux toolbars which appear at the top of your browser pane. They seek to extend the original site’s functionality to the rest of the web. They usually frame the page, so that your address bar displays a different (often shortened) URL than the page’s original one. There are plenty of examples already–Digg (here’s a screenshot of that one in action), Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, HootSuite. There’s even a WordPress plugin that enables anybody to create such a framing bar for their own blog.
I’m not a fan of these tools. There are plenty of critiques around the web (here’s one on the DiggBar), but my particular complaint is that often the first thing I want to do when I visit a page is copy the URL (to email, blog about, tweet about, and so forth). These bars prevent me from accessing the page’s actual URL. Plus, I think it’s an incredibly tacky attempt at brand extension, and they’re taking valuable real estate away from the site they’re framing. Er, okay, slight rehash.
There are code samples (that’s the first Wikipedia article I’ve ever nominated for deletion) which enable me to prevent the bar from appearing on sites I own. That’s not really the problem I’m trying to solve though.
I was complaining about this on Twitter last night, and this little discussion ensued (er, that’s in reverse order):
invoker: See ow.ly/socialbar. It's a win for all and if you don't like it… opt out.
Here’s the problem with opt-out: I need to do it on a case-by-case basis. I know I’m an outlier, but I use two computers, and run two different browsers on each computer. Assuming there are just six of these bars I have to deal with, that’s 24 opt-outs. Assuming the trend continues, that number could easily become 50 or 100.
But there’s a simple solution. Set some industry standards around these framing bars that enable me–using a Greasemonkey script, plugin or browser setting–to opt out for all the bars at once. It’s not, for example, that dissimilar from turning off javascript or the auto-completion of forms. This would prove a much more customer-oriented solution to the problem than forcing users to turn the bars off on a case by case basis.
Or maybe such a script already exists, and I just missed it in my searches?
Three years ago today, I wrote a boring post about the division of browsers that people used to access this site. I included this chart from Google Analytics:
As you can see, two-thirds of users were using Internet Explorer, and 24% were using Firefox. Here’s that same chart today (confusingly, IE is now in green and Firefox is in blue):
Things have changed. Now half of site visitors use Firefox, and only 37% are on Internet Explorer. Safari users have, in the ensuing years, climbed a whole percentage point.
Obviously this is just an anecdotal from this one site, and this site has an (ahem) rather progressive audience, but it’s indicative of trends across all of the sites to which I have access. Internet Explorer’s dominance is a thing of the past.
In case you’re wondering about those less popular browsers at the bottom of the 2009 list, I believe Travis may be responsible for many of the Camino hits. Who among you uses SeaMonkey, and why?
Yesterday, via Vero, I discovered a couple of charming videos featuring British chrildren’s choirs singing pop hits. First, there’s Lily Allen’s “Chinese”:
I thought it was all girls, but you can spot a few boys in the latter half of the video. And then something a little more old-school:
I’m in Fort Frances, Ontario for a day’s consulting work tomorrow. I got there in a rather unusual fashion: Victoria to Seattle, Seattle to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to International Falls, Minnesota. From there I caught a cab across the border to Fort Frances (here’s a map showing their relative positions). I’m not sure why I’m so pleased by crossing a border in a taxi, but I think it’s the first time I’ve ever done it.
I was also amused by this sign at the International Falls Airport:
According to Wikipedia, they make a rather fraught claim to be the coldest city in the US:
International Falls long promoted itself as the “Icebox of the Nation”, however the trademark for the slogan has been challenged on several occasions by the small town of Fraser, Colorado. Officials from Fraser claimed usage since 1956, International Falls since 1948. The two towns came to an agreement in 1986, when International Falls paid Fraser $2,000 to relinquish its “official” claim. However, in 1996, International Falls inadvertently failed to renew its federal trademark, although it had kept its state trademark up to date. Fraser then filed to gain the federal trademark. International Falls submitted photographic proof that its 1955 Pee Wee hockey team traveled to Boston, Massachusetts with the slogan. After several years of legal battles, the United States Patent and Trademark Office officially registered the slogan with International Falls on January 29, 2008, Registration Number 3375139. Only a few days after announcing its success in the trademark battle, International Falls had a record low temperature of −40°F (−40°C), beating a previous record of −37°F (−38.3°C) in 1967.
As I write this, it’s about midnight local time, and a balmy 11°C.
Last week I was in the Giant Ant Media offices. In a passing conversation, Giant Anter Leah taught me the movie-actor-movie game, where one person names a movie, the other person responds with an actor from that movie, and the first person has to name another movie the actors has appeared in. It instantly appealed to the cinephile in me.
A couple of days later James and I were having dinner after an event, and I told him about the game. This conversation ensued:
JAMES: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
DARREN: George Clooney.
JAMES: Out of Sight.
DARREN: Jennifer Lopez.
JAMES: Nice. You know, that was her at her hottest.
DARREN: Agreed. The zenith of her hotness.
And thus, a website was borne. A week later, we present Zenith of Hotness:
A website with a humble purpose: to scientifically ascertain the peak of a given actor or actress’s hotness.
Vote on when your favourite stars achieved maximum hotness. If you think they haven’t reached their Zenith of Hotness, choose ‘Still Ascending’.
Lately I’ve been inundated with advocacy for the single transferable vote (STV) referendum that’s part of next month’s provincial election. Everybody wants me to vote in favour of it. And I will, because it seems like an excellent idea (as does Beth, as it happens). If you’re unclear on how the STV works, read the Wikipedia entry, check out STV.ca (why they didn’t go with “upgrade your vote” as a slogan, I’ll never know) or watch this rather dour animation.
As you know, there was a similar referendum in 2005, but it failed to achieve the 60% threshold necessary to pass. If I recall correctly, it was basically a PR problem–the issue didn’t receive sufficient attention.
Which brings me to my question: what are the arguments against the STV? The only one I could find was that it’s more complicated than first-past-the-post. That is, people can choose to rank multiple candidates instead of just picking one. I suppose this is marginally more challenging, but voters can still just opt to select their favourite candidate and leave it at that.
I’d also imagine that the established parties might feel threatened, in that a new system will unpredictably affect their futures. What other criticisms have you heard?
Jules recently posted about her web stats. They tell her, among many other things, that she still has one or more readers who are still on Windows 3.1 (originally released on March 18, 1992). I thought I’d check the stats for this site for the same very, very late adopter. No such luck–the oldest visitors that my Google Analytics account shows are on Windows 95 (two of them in the last month, as it happens).
Then I thought to check what percentage of Windows users are using Vista, and what fraction is still on Windows XP. Windows Vista was released a little over two years ago, on January 30, 2007. It has, as I’m sure you’re well aware, been plagued by criticism. I know many XP users who will skip Vista entirely, moving straight to Windows 7 (as of yet, it has no slicker name).
I checked this site, as well as a client’s site (they’re in the software industry). I compared Windows XP and Vista usage for January, 2008 and January, 2009. Here’s what I found:
For this site, as a percentage of all visitors on Windows:
XP
Vista
January, 2008
80%
15%
January, 2009
66%
31%
For a client site, as a percentage of all visitors on Windows:
XP
Vista
January, 2008
81%
13%
January, 2009
74%
21%
Those numbers don’t add up to 100% because there’s a fraction of users on Windows 2000, NT, CE, 98, 95, ME and so forth.
I checked a couple of other sites, and the numbers look more like my client’s site than my own. Vista usage floats around the 25% mark for January, 2009. What should the adoption rate look like? I really have no idea. Microsoft surely hoped that a majority of their users would be on Windows Vista by the time they released Windows 7.
My movie viewing has been pretty spotty in 2009 thus far. I’ve only seen five films. Here are the latest two to add to the list.
Defiance - 6.5/10 - One of Daniel Craig’s better performances–he’s at his seething, snarling best. This is the second film in which he plays a vengeful Jew (the other, Munich, is superior). Defiance offers everything you’d expect, and there are very few surprises. I was struck by how little of the Jewish religion the film depicted. I’d expected (and hoped, in truth) to see more.
Gran Torino - 6/10 - Clint Eastwood has become a great director in his later years, so this film is very watchable. Eastwood (also seething and snarling) is an effective actor in a familiar role–elder guide and guardian to wayward youths. The movie’s subject and themes–the dreadfulness of America’s race relations–feel pretty done to death as well. Without giving too much away, the actor/director indulges in some serious self-deification by the end of the movie. I was left wondering if he was actually having us on a bit. The other glaring issue is that most of the supporting cast has no acting experience, and it shows. They’re inexperience onscreen was, for me, a major distraction.
Is that odd? It’s a totally unobtrusive Pulsar that Julie gave me years ago. I’ve probably changed the black leather strap on it at least five times, and the battery at least twice. The face is a bit dinged up, I guess, but it works perfectly.
All it does is tell time. It has no fancy digital functions (which have, not surprisingly, fallen out of fashion), nor is it good to 200 feet underwater. It has none of the silver and gold bulkiness that I frequently see in men’s magazines on the wrists of brooding male models and an even broodier Clive Owen. I cannot wind it by shaking my wrist.
I have friends who have lots of watches. Travis has, as last count, well, I’m not really sure, but I think it was north of 40. He’s a collector, though, so that seems like a different league altogether.
I have no urge to buy another watch until this one breaks. Is that a common or unusual perspective? How often do you buy watches? How do you decide that it’s time for a new one?
Last week I was in the 
