Just got back from Fahrenheit 9/11. Pretty good movie. Probably on the same level as Bowling for Columbine. The first half of the film seemed to be really inflammatory and without any clear logic or arguments. It got better when it focused more on the tragedy and the "why??" And the ending was brilliant. I won't say any more. But I will quote kepler! kepler42: it really lowers my faith in society when I see people supporting Bush kepler42: there is so much wrong with him... simultaneously, he seems stupid, incompetent, and evil Update: I wish I had more people to talk with about these sorts of things. Seen F 9/11 yet, Mike? :P I'm also in the process of reading Alan Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Cooper's thesis is that computers haven't gotten much easier to use in the last twenty years. They still "behave like computers", with their idiosyncracies, impoliteness, and frustration. When computers meet other well-designed devices, the previously well-designed devices begin to act like computers. As examples, he uses some Porsche (whose computer shut the engine off in a high-speed turn if the fuel sensor returned a certain value) and the US Navy's Aegis Cruiser (that sat dead in the water for days while Windows NT was broken). Why did this happen? Due to the way the industry elvoved, the engineers ended up in charge of the overall design of the project. Engineers design functionality, not interaction, by their very nature. Thus, an additional ingredient must be added to the mix: interaction designer. Notice I said interaction designer instead of interface designer. Computers are becoming more and more of our lives; we don't just "interface" through a thin glass window with them. We interact with them all of the time. Programmers and engineers inherently aren't suited to be interaction designers for two reasons: 1) they are trained to deal with abstract, complex systems and pay attention to details (that's why they're good programmers) and 2) they have a real stake in the implementation, so they tend towards solutions that are easier to implement. Easier to implement, but not better for the user. In fact, often much worse. Anyway, that's about where I am in the book. Sometimes Cooper says some things that I totally don't agree with, but the less you agree with something, the more you're inclined to think about it. ;) So the book is good in that way. I start physical therapy for my elbows tomorrow morning. I'm also on a new anti-inflammatory. Bleh, typing sucks.