According to Joel Spolsky (JoelOnSoftware.com), the “single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make” is deciding to rewrite their code from scratch.

Joel was talking about Netscape/Mozilla. Now another of AOL/Timewarner’s children has shot themselves in the foot.

Winamp used to be small, tight, fast, and nimble. It used to whip the llamas ass. Now, in the latest release, version 3.0, which was completely re-written from scratch, it is awkward and unrefined.

Winamp3 doesn’t use standard Windows controls. You can’t Tab through form fields. Over a year ago, I ranted about non-standard user-interface elements, skins, and how these decisions to build proprietary cross-platform interface controls make sense for programmers, but not for users. I could go on and on about this (look at this skin – what the hell is that!?).

Winamp, the program that pioneered the “Stop bugging me!” checkbox in their installation/registration wizard now puts AOL icons all over the place.

They also win my Most Meaningless Icon of the Week award for their ‘shuffle’ control button. The button looks at times exactly like a ‘volume’ control, and at times exactly like an ‘equalizer’ control. What was wrong with the word shuffle.

I realize that Winamp is owned by AOL/Timewarner, but if their parent company fails to realize what it was that made Winamp popular in the first place, they will have wasted their $400 million.

The real winner here is Microsoft. Their Windows Media Player has always been bulky and slow. Winamp used to be the light alternative. The other alternatives aren’t looking good either. QuickTime on Windows is a bad port from the Mac version and RealPlayer fell prey to the worst advertising saturation of any application in the history of software to the point where many refuse to even install it.

Having said all of this, it has been pointed out to me that Winamp2 was not very refined when it was initially released either. I’m sure Winamp3 will improve over time as well, but that’s the whole point – they shouldn’t have to improve.

A Slashdot article about a somewhat deceptive advertising campaign coins an excellent term:

Astroturf (As·tro·Turf)

1. A campaign artificially made to appear as though it is a “grassroots” movement;
   Usage: “Sony has hired actors in effort to build an astroturf campaign for their latest product.”

Brilliant.

This reminds me of the time Canada’s New Democratic Party did a survey to find out what its members where looking for in a party. It turned out they were looking for honest moral leadership. I wonder if they decided to act on the results.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Mike Knott. He’s been writing and performing in various bands and on his own for at least twenty years. I would include several of his albums in my Desert Island Discs list.

I’ve written before about seeing him live – an amazing experience.

His latest disc has yet to be officially released and distributed with a label. However, he has produced 500 copies for his performance at this year’s Cornerstone Festival. I didn’t make the festival, but he’s selling off the remaining discs on his site and I was able to buy a copy.

It arrived today and I’ve never felt so cool. The disc was obviously made in a CD burner and was labelled/signed by Mike Knott himself. Then, to complete the indie-rock experience, I put the disc into my CD drive – WinAmp opens up and tells me I’m the first Gracenote/CDDB user to use the disc and I have the honour and privilege of entering the track-listing for all the wannabes and late-comers who jump on the bandwagon long after I did.

I am cool.

“…success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty…”

Salon.com has always been a great site. I’ve enjoyed their Tech section in particular partly due to the writing of Scott Rosenberg – managing editor of Salon.

In the past year, Salon has slowly slipped from my regular morning routine, generally in favour of independently published weblogs. My routine currently includes, among others, Slashdot, Wired, News.com, Scripting.com, Reinvented.net, Zeldman.com, The Register, MetaFilter, Signal vs. Noise, and Kottke.org.

I’m glad to see Salon jumping into the personal publishing world with both feet with their new Radio Userland-based Salon Blogs service. I’m particularly pleased that Scott Rosenberg himself is leading by example with a weblog of his own.

Inspired by others taking credit for vague inventions, I would like to go on record with a vague invention of my own that I suspect will someday be very valuable. First, in case it’s not already obvious, let me be clear that I have no idea what I’m talking about.

The idea is much like noise-cancelling headphones, but rather than sound waves cancelling sound waves, you use various types of radiation to cancel out other radiation. For example, you could create a reverse-microware that would measure the vibration of the molecules in the food, and create an inverse microwave pattern that would cancel the vibration, therefore freezing the product. Perhaps there could be other applications in protecting ourselves from the gigawatts of energy we pump into ourselves every day.

Again – absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. If you know why this might be a stupid idea, I’d rather not hear from you. I’m only soliciting positive feedback.

After a heated debate, one which I was positive I was correct and felt silly defending myself, on the topic of “are lobsters insects” (they have like eight legs without counting the claws, that should have been enough!) I found myself researching big bugs on the internet. I learned about the biggest bug (aptly named the Titanus Giganteus) and somehow I found Bug in a Box.

You can buy all kinds of dead bugs in boxes here. Cool leaf monsters to beetles that look like works of art. I was amazed as I went through this at how neat the idea was. They even have couple of very ugly ones.

I want a Death Bug.

Is this like wearing fur? You can get a butterfly to match your couch!

In a very wired move Wired magazine continues to publish the entire editorial contents of the print magazine online each month. It’s all there – no delay, no catch. Smart move – particularly for situations like this, where I want to discuss a story from the print magazine on a site like this.

There’s an interesting article about the role of ubiquitous broadband on the social structures in the worlds most wired city, Seoul. The Bandwidth Capital of the World, explores how being online is a social activity in Korea rather than an isolated activity, as it often is elsewhere.

The article is particularly interesting if prefaced with Derek Powazek’s book, Design for Community – the art of connecting people in virtual places and Ben Brown’s excellent article (based on a panel at the 2002 SxSW Conference), Taking Online Interactivity Offline.

Also, listening to keyboard-night on CBC Radio Two’s Radiosonic with Grant Laurence. It’s all good. I hope they play Joy Electric.