Having an about page is an obvious piece of content for most sites. It is amazing how often it doesn’t get the treatment it deserves, but this post isn’t about that (check out Your About Page Is a Robot). This is about what I’ve been thinking lately, that I want more in less.

More information in less locations. More interactions in less transactions. More value and less waste.

Recently I was thinking about putting together the requisites for a website for a new company. It turns out it is a webpage. It has four main things on it: the name, the about blurb, the contact info, and something to grab connect with (like a story or plea). If I were to do it with this site, it would read like this:

standing alone in complexity

This is the brain-space for maiki interi, a creator of fiction, meaning conversations, and web things.

maiki wants to talk to you, because you are important. Your life is interesting, and your story is worth sharing.

Will you share it? Send it to maiki@interi.org.

That isn’t a complete site, of course, though it contains everything that I think is important at the moment. Also, I would use that if I seriously needed a website yesterday.

This is the web, so things change and grow and hopefully get better. People are also becoming used to curated experiences, and we are on the cusp of an era of copy-writing, where people who are using their voice are going to be heard better than their robot colleagues.

So there.

I am sure there is a poem in there somewhere.

I like data. As a web person, site analytics is useful in a variety of ways. It helps me focus content for the people searching it (for community orgs). It lets me know what people are searching for, and how their reading it (important for community news sites). And now it allows people to spam me (bummer).

Lately, I’ve been getting profanity coming up in the my search terms. Its funny, I am not particularly against typing what the words are, but if I do then I can’t discern if people are searching for them, anymore. *raises fist*

Anyhow, these odd re-branded search engines are pinging my site with search terms that obviously don’t make any sense. I simply don’t cuss that much here. When I search for the words on the sites they came from, I can’t find my site on the first five pages of results; I’m not going to search for more than that.

It seems creepy to me. Obviously it isn’t going to affect many people. But it is automated, no doubt, and the numbers are with them. Now we get to deal with spam-ish techniques that hamper analysis.

Bleh.

Allows me to leap like Keroro Gunso.

I am not particularly excited about my new shoes (though they are very cool, and goes with my green stuff), but I wanted to document that I bought them now. I feel like my last shoes wore out quickly, but I can’t be sure. I blow out heels like no one’s business (because, really, how do you make a sustainable income by breaking shoes?), so if I can find a shoe that last longer than others, that would be great.

I wonder if it is because I buy vegan shoes that they were out. I figured rubber and hemp are tough materials. Of course, it is the seam that is coming undone…

That is one of those long-necked lighters for starting grills or deep candles. It belongs to our house-mate in the front. It just exploded. I thought someone was messing around, I heard this deep pop and then I saw something fall from the sky. It was just the body of this thing arcing explosively across the yard.

So, yeah, it is pretty warm in Berkeley, today. ^_^

I just signed up for Rackspace’s affiliate program, I was thinking it would be cool to have a way for people to donate to the projects I build. I had in mind DreamHost’s program, where one could pay for hosting directly, without any money going to the person. That was useful for me, because I host a lot of sites for friends to keep costs down for all of us.

So, now I have this affiliate link, but I don’t know what context to use it. I don’t want to make money off of signing people up for Rackspace. I am not endorsing them. I will be the first one to complain about them. What I want is an e-commerce framework where people can contribute money to specific projects that I am working on. I think my brain may be in permanent non-profit solutions mode. ^_^

So, what do I do with this link, now? Perhaps I will make an affiliates page that lists all the links for all the sites I use, and and explanation of what I will use the funds for. My rational mind tells me that it doesn’t matter, but I cringe at the thought of someone visiting my site and reading the URL and seeing that I am trying to make money off of them.

Silly, maiki.

Who is that in the background?

Susan has been there twice before!

That is probably the best way for me to learn something, especially technical. How about you?

So, the first app, which is probably the first one a lot of people will want to check out is k9mail.

K9 is an opensource email client based on the Email application shipped with the initial release of Android.

K9 is focused on making it easy to chew through large volumes of email. It’s our hope that K9 leads to improvements in the core Android mail client.

Using Drupal-speech, “I wish this were in core.” It has so many improvements over the default mail client, it is nuts. When I first got the N1 I was tripped out by how clean everything was, compared to the mail client. Then I kept reading about K9 on developer fora, and finally figured out what they were talking about (not police dogs, it turns out).

The most useful features for me are setting notifications. I set each account a different color, and have it light up the nub. When I am out somewhere and have my phone ringer off, I can just look to see which account received messages. Very useful.

Open source, and actively developed. Search for K9 in the store, or scan the barcode:

Also, its about a big ring around the planet!

Far in the future, humankind has evacuated the Earth in order to preserve it. Humans now reside in a gigantic structure that forms a ring around the Earth, thirty–five kilometers up in the sky. The society of the Ring is highly stratified: the higher the floor, the greater the status. Mitsu, the lowly son of a window washer, has just graduated junior high. When his father disappears and is assumed dead, Mitsu must take on his father’s occupation. As he struggles with the transition to working life, Mitsu’s job treats him to an outsider’s view into the various living–room dioramas of the Saturn Apartments.

The stories are great, and the artwork is adorable. While there seems to be an arcing plot, it also comes off as just a series of slice of life stories. It is very relaxing to read, even in the tense parts. I am constantly amazed at the different contexts mangaka come up with to tell these stories of connection and belonging.

I recommend it. ^_^

Round 1: MP3!

Despite my dislike for MP3, as well as big companies selling music in general, I figured that my principles in the matter weren’t a simple hierarchy, and in this case two conflicting beliefs had a clear winner. I was able to accept that I would purchase music as MP3s, rather than lease the physical object, and its assorted responsibilities. Those include storage and eventual disposal.

And even though Amazon makes stupid corporate decisions, I don’t have that much of a problem with them… or so I thought.

Winner: maiki

Round 2: Downloader!

Amazon has an MP3 downloader. That is as stupid as it sounds. While you can buy and download individual songs without using it, it is required if you buy an entire album. Considering that it is around $40 to buy the SPvTW score as individual tracks, of course I would rather pick up the $10 album. But installing an application just for that sole purpose? A closed source bundle just for a single score?

Well, considering round one, maybe I have come to a crossroads in my life where I will start buying music online, and will actually start using the Amazon store more than once… sure, let’s try that. Music is a solid part of me, I can make this compromise.

Winner: maiki(?)

Round 3: Amazon, your crap doesn’t work!

I didn’t read this before trying the link, because I was in the middle of the transaction and was trying to get my music on. However, had I been paying attention, I would have been defeated immediately, instead of gradually:

64-bit Linux distributions are currently not supported. We continue to work at expanding supported distributions and will update this page when a new Amazon MP3 Downloader version is available for additional distributions.

Of course I went through the trouble of downloading it and getting an “architecture error”. Fortunately, on the website it suggested that I buy individual tracks, if I weren’t going to use the downloader. Of course, what was I thinking?

K.O.
Winner: The World

Bonus Round: Epilogue

Now, to follow with the theme, I should turn into coins. The irony here is that the opposite happened. Amazon isn’t getting my money, nor is anyone else up the ladder. Their dumb policy, enforced with their dumb technology, prevented a sale. I wanted to give them money for music, and they put to many compromises in the way of our transaction completing.

They might as well just have a torrent link next to their downloader app.