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November 19, 2005
Missed SLC Apple opening
Can't believe it. I don't know where I would have seen it (I guess I could have noticed this), but I missed the announcement that the Apple Store opened in Salt Lake today. Last I heard, it was going to be day after Thanksgiving.
What a disappointment. This kind of opportunity doesn't happen very often. Oh well. I would have had to take my kids along with me (I'm a single parent this weekend), I doubt they would have been as enthusiastic (or patient).
Looks like there will be more on the news tonight and in the paper tomorrow.
Maybe I will go to the IKEA opening in Salt Lake in a couple of years.
Well, I know where I'll be going for lunch break Monday.
Posted by pete at 9:47 PM
November 12, 2005
Drucker passes
Peter Drucker passed away yesterday. I never got to meet him, but I've read enough of his thinking to feel like I know him (and I have a lot more to read to get to know him better). He will influence me and countless others for a long time.
Posted by pete at 9:52 AM
Salt Lake arrives (thanks, Apple)
In this morning's paper (and others):
Gateway mall confirms juicy Apple rumor
iDrama: The savvy computer maker plans its secret Salt Lake debut within two weeks
My favorite line: "When stores like this come to town it means that Salt Lake City, in a sense, has arrived."
I was just at Gateway yesterday for a meeting. Would have poked around if I had known. Will have to get down there next week to verify the secrecy.
May have to change my Thanksgiving weekend plans. Will have to start thinking about my first Apple Store purchase in Salt Lake.
Posted by pete at 8:32 AM
November 11, 2005
Improving Mechanical Turk (with GreaseMonkey, etc)
Here's a money-making opportunity for an enterprising developer. Help people who want to make money, make more money by being more efficient.
Been playing around with Mechnical Turk.
(I assume there's some idiomatic reference I'm unaware of that would explain the name.) After going through a bunch, looks to me like Amazon is trying to mix in brick&mortar to their on-line store and/or search.
Even though the servers are overloaded, it's still fairly quick, as far as server performance is concerned.
However, after doing about 20 or so HITs, I could see that if I was trying to do it full-time (like if I wanted to make it my job, as Phil Windley mentions), there are plenty of ways to make it a lot more efficient.
Scrolling down through 5 pictures while trying to remember the business name, address (and not get confused with the business name and address I just completed a minute ago) takes a lot more time than it has to. Plus, the Accept HIT process slows me down, I'd like to be able to go into "HIT queue mode" and get a steady stream of HITs until I am done.
I thought a good first stab would be using GreaseMonkey to reformat the page. At a minimum, then I could move the pictures around in a more useful way, and keep the business name/address visible as I scroll through them.
This looks even more applicable for a (Web-enabled) desktop app(let), doing things that go beyond just reformatting. The Genie Effect of the OS X Dock would be perfect, where all 5 pics show up in a small format and you can quickly scroll over them to enlarge them. I'd also want the ability to zoom in, a lot of the pictures are really hard to see details in their native size. The app could take care of all the Request HIT/Submit HIT clicks to queue up the next HIT quickly. And, would be nice to have some info displayed like pieces/hour, effective hourly wage, etc.
An app like this would probably increase productivity significantly, not to mention accuracy. Probably enough to encourage people to spend $30+ after trying it out and seeing the benefits.
Posted by pete at 11:18 PM