McKinney, charged with kidnapping and rape over thirty years ago, has recently emerged. Time Magazine tells us that in the winter of 1977, McKinney and a friend kidnapped a Mormon missionary by the name of Anderson, whom McKinney had been stalking since their relationship ended in 1975. Anderson was chained to a bed for three days and raped repeatedly by McKinney.
In an odd - if not shocking - choice of words, Time Magazine describes the details as "sexy and surreal". Instead of calling it rape, Time calls it "forcibly having sex." It's also called a "sex scandal."
So how could Time possibly describe an abduction and rape this way? The rapist was a woman and the victim was a man.
Rape is not sex and it is never, ever, sexy.
A Creationist Explains the Male Sex Drive
A creationist explains why men have higher sex drives than women:
Somehow, I find the evolutionary explanation a lot easier to follow...
If the (alleged) difference in men's and women's sex drives is just God achieving population control, couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent God achieve this in other ways? Compared with creating the earth and the sun, tweaking fertility rates should be relatively easy.I believe God, in order to make certain that the human race would continue on, made sex one of most powerful desires known to mankind. But here’s the problem. If a guy created a baby every time he had sex and he had to take care of each and every baby and it’s mother for the next 20 years of his life and… THERE WAS NO PLEASURE IN THE ACT… how many guys would have sex? None! You think God didn’t know that? Of course he did. So, he had to make the desire for sex so pleasurable that most guys would do just about anything to have sex, baby or no baby. That way the generations would go on and on.
But the problem is, what if he made both men and women with the same desire? What if all men and women had the same intensity sexually as men? What would happen to our society? We’d never get anything done. We’d have so many babies it would overrun the Earths capacity. It would be terrible.
But on the other hand, what if both men and women had the same sexual intensity as most women? What would happen to our society then? We’d die out in one generation.
Somehow, I find the evolutionary explanation a lot easier to follow...
BRADvite - Another Evite Alternative
Several months ago, I evaluated a number of evite alternatives out there. It's a crowded space, and lots of new sites have popped up since. Here's a new one that contacted me via a blog comment: BRADvite. Without looking at the comment again, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say his name was Brad.
First Glance
BRADvite.com pops up with a loading screening. Literally - the background says "loading" all over it. It's sort of distracting. And then in the center, there's a picture of a guy talking on his cell phone. Brad, is that you? Why are you hanging out in the middle of the screen?
Invitation Themes
The various background images load relatively quickly in the background. Options include waterfalls, oceans, leafs, classical music sheet, etc. But my party is a toga party. On a boat. With a DJ. And drinking. As beautiful as a waterfall is, it has absolutely nothing to do with my party, nor does it express the "fun party" vibe. A picture of a keg would be more appropriate.
Tucked away in a corner is a little button to change the main image: a rose, secret service cartoon drawing, asian-style flowers, a man fighting off an elephant, aliens, etc. And, of course, a picture of our new friend Brad on a cell phone. Again, none of these match "toga party". Or even, say, a birthday / Christmas / Halloween party.
Registration
At least registration is fairly painless. It just asks me name and email address. The registration email didn't actually work, but they fixed that for me pretty quickly.
Event Details & Sending Invitation
I can't specify the time for the party. 'Nuff said.
Email Invitation
At least the email invitation is clean, elegant and provides useful information: host name, email address, date, location, and invitation details. To open the invitation, I see three links: View Comments | Click here to RSVP | Click for Map.
Yikes. I just want to open it. Shouldn't I be able to view comments and RSVP at the same time? And why not put "Click for map" next to the address, where it's most relevant and out of the way?
After the Invitation Is Sent
Host options are limited. I can edit the text of the invitation after I've sent the invitation, but not the background or main image. I can't export the guest list. I can't see when people RSVPd. There's no integration with Google Calendar or Outlook. I can't message guests.
Summary
The limitations of BRADvite are fairly significant, so I won't reiterate them. There is a more interesting point to be made.
Brad of BRADvite is clearly focusing on high quality images. Good. Far too many websites underestimate the importance of their user interface. The issue is that while the images are high quality, they don't very well match what the user wants to do. Brad needs to create user scenarios, such as the following:
Issues like this aren't limited to BRADvite, of course. Websites of all kinds need to stop thinking in the abstract "I am a website which provides [invitations, job listing, etc]" and start thinking concretely about exactly what problems they're trying to solve.
First Glance
BRADvite.com pops up with a loading screening. Literally - the background says "loading" all over it. It's sort of distracting. And then in the center, there's a picture of a guy talking on his cell phone. Brad, is that you? Why are you hanging out in the middle of the screen?Invitation Themes
The various background images load relatively quickly in the background. Options include waterfalls, oceans, leafs, classical music sheet, etc. But my party is a toga party. On a boat. With a DJ. And drinking. As beautiful as a waterfall is, it has absolutely nothing to do with my party, nor does it express the "fun party" vibe. A picture of a keg would be more appropriate.
Tucked away in a corner is a little button to change the main image: a rose, secret service cartoon drawing, asian-style flowers, a man fighting off an elephant, aliens, etc. And, of course, a picture of our new friend Brad on a cell phone. Again, none of these match "toga party". Or even, say, a birthday / Christmas / Halloween party.
Registration
At least registration is fairly painless. It just asks me name and email address. The registration email didn't actually work, but they fixed that for me pretty quickly.
Event Details & Sending Invitation
I can't specify the time for the party. 'Nuff said.
Email Invitation
At least the email invitation is clean, elegant and provides useful information: host name, email address, date, location, and invitation details. To open the invitation, I see three links: View Comments | Click here to RSVP | Click for Map.
Yikes. I just want to open it. Shouldn't I be able to view comments and RSVP at the same time? And why not put "Click for map" next to the address, where it's most relevant and out of the way?
After the Invitation Is Sent
Host options are limited. I can edit the text of the invitation after I've sent the invitation, but not the background or main image. I can't export the guest list. I can't see when people RSVPd. There's no integration with Google Calendar or Outlook. I can't message guests.
Summary
The limitations of BRADvite are fairly significant, so I won't reiterate them. There is a more interesting point to be made.
Brad of BRADvite is clearly focusing on high quality images. Good. Far too many websites underestimate the importance of their user interface. The issue is that while the images are high quality, they don't very well match what the user wants to do. Brad needs to create user scenarios, such as the following:
- Mary: 50 year old mother who is creating an invitation for her husband's 50th birthday party. It's a dinner party for 20 guests at their house.
- AEPi: Fraternity which is inviting a sorority to their winter formal
- Jake: 20 year old boy, soon to be 21. He's throwing a party for his 21st birthday in Las Vegas.
- Gayle: throws large monthly parties with thousands of invited guests. (Hey, I had to throw myself in there.)
Issues like this aren't limited to BRADvite, of course. Websites of all kinds need to stop thinking in the abstract "I am a website which provides [invitations, job listing, etc]" and start thinking concretely about exactly what problems they're trying to solve.
Cuil - The Next "Google Killer"?
With the recent 
press about Cuil, the latest "Google-Killer Search Engine", it seems that we've forgotten the lessons from the late 90s. Cuil's claim to fame appears to be:
How Do You Know That?
Google doesn't release the size of its index.
What Does That Mean?
How did they count the size of Google's index? If two urls have identical content, are those the same page? What if the content is merely very similar? Suppose the only difference is that Google isn't indexing the duplicate pages (or, say, the spammy pages), does it matter that Cuil's index is bigger?
So?
Bigger isn't better. I thought we'd learned that back in the late 90s. For most queries, it doesn't matter if the search engine returns 30 results or 1000. You' generally don't go past the 3rd page. What really matters is the ranking of the pages. If the page you wanted is on the 15th page, it might as well not be there at all.
How Cuil Actually Stacks Up:
Interface:
While Cuil may claim to have a larger search index, the number of "no result" searches certainly suggest lesser web coverage. The flashy interface is mostly just that - flashy. It's pretty, but the three column layout leave your eyes wandering all over the page unsure of which result is meant to be the most relevant. A more cynical person might even suggest that the three column layout helps mask the fact that Cuil may not know an appropriate ranking.
If you want to get real traction as yet-another-search-engine, you'd better attack a different market from Google (or Baidu in China, or Yahoo in Japan, etc) or you'd better be substantially better than Google. Just being better isn't good enough, and Cuil has a long way to go even on that end.
press about Cuil, the latest "Google-Killer Search Engine", it seems that we've forgotten the lessons from the late 90s. Cuil's claim to fame appears to be:- It was founded by Ex-Googlers
- They claim to have a larger web-page index than Google
How Do You Know That?
Google doesn't release the size of its index.
What Does That Mean?
How did they count the size of Google's index? If two urls have identical content, are those the same page? What if the content is merely very similar? Suppose the only difference is that Google isn't indexing the duplicate pages (or, say, the spammy pages), does it matter that Cuil's index is bigger?
So?
Bigger isn't better. I thought we'd learned that back in the late 90s. For most queries, it doesn't matter if the search engine returns 30 results or 1000. You' generally don't go past the 3rd page. What really matters is the ranking of the pages. If the page you wanted is on the 15th page, it might as well not be there at all.
How Cuil Actually Stacks Up:
Interface:
- Pros: Slick and pretty. The content drill down is nice - although it doesn't always display relevant things. I also like having the page numbers locked at the bottom so that I don't have to scroll.
- Cons: Ranking of results is unclear. There's 3 columns and the rows don't line up with each other. When I'm trying to actually find a good page, I'm not sure where to read.
- Pros: Speedy
- Cons: Searches frequently fail. I got "no results" when I tried searching for "Google Talk". I tried the same search a second time and it worked.
- Selection Criteria for Sample Queries: All queries were selected from my Google Web History, and were queries in which I was attempting to answer a question.
- Query #1 (an error I am getting with Google App Engine): error 403 cpu quota exceeded
- Cuil: No Results
- Yahoo: #1 Result is Google App Engine article about it
- Google: #1 Result is a Google Group question about this. #3 (or #5) is the Google App Engine article
Winner: with Google as a close second.
Answer: Common Error. Try using python's profiling. - Query #2: send pdf to kindle
- Cuil: Show articles mentioning that you can do this, but not telling me how.
- Yahoo: #1 Result is a discussion about it.
- Google: #1 Result is a link to Amazon explaining how to do this.
Winner: Google
Answer: Your Kindle has an email address that you email the pdf to. - Query #3: 99 luftballoons translation
- Cuil: #1 Result is a translation
- Yahoo: #1 Result is someone asking for a translation
- Google: #1 Result is a translation
Winner: Cuil & Google (tie).
Answer: It's about war. And red balloons. :-) - Query #4: "imagine no religion" billboard seattle
- Cuil: No results
- Yahoo: #1 Result is blog post mentioning it. #2 Result is press release about it.
- Google: #1 Result is press release about it. #2 Result is blog post mentioning it.
Winner: Google, with Yahoo as a close second
Answer: This billboard was put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. - Query #5: percent female math majors in US
- Cuil: No results
- Yahoo: #1 is a seemingly-relevant but dead link. #2 also seems relevant, but not a direct answer. #3 is about carbon monoxide levels at death. Hmm...
- Google: #1 is related article that contains an answer to the question. #2 is a very relevant study, and the summary (which is as far as I read) indirectly answers the question. #3 is about a particular school's gender ratio.
Winner: Google.
Answer: 48% of math majors in the US are female. - Bonus Query: cuil
While Cuil may claim to have a larger search index, the number of "no result" searches certainly suggest lesser web coverage. The flashy interface is mostly just that - flashy. It's pretty, but the three column layout leave your eyes wandering all over the page unsure of which result is meant to be the most relevant. A more cynical person might even suggest that the three column layout helps mask the fact that Cuil may not know an appropriate ranking.
If you want to get real traction as yet-another-search-engine, you'd better attack a different market from Google (or Baidu in China, or Yahoo in Japan, etc) or you'd better be substantially better than Google. Just being better isn't good enough, and Cuil has a long way to go even on that end.
Joel Spolsky: "Don't Hide or Disable Menu Items"
Today Joel Spolsky had an odd recommendation: "don't hide or disable menu items." His reasoning is that user see disabled menu items and are confused as to why they can't click on them. So, rather than disabling the menu item, he suggests the following:Instead, leave the menu item enabled. If there's some reason you can't complete the action, the menu item can display a message telling the user why.Yikes. It's really better to leave all the menu items enabled and pop up annoying error messages (which people probably won't read) about why y
ou can't click it? No, no, no. There's nothing more annoying when you're trying to figure out how to do something than to click on one menu item after another only to be told you can't do that. I'd much rather have my options narrowed down to the ones I can use.My recommendation: If the user can't use a menu item, disable it and, if possible, add hover text explaining why it's disabled. Avoid error messages, as users get angry and confused at them. If being able to use a MenuItemA is dependent on enabling SettingB, keep MenuItemA enabled and tell the user "In order to do A you have to enable B. Would you like to do that now? Yes | No."
Interestingly, he doesn't even follow his own advice with his product FogBugz:
- Screenshot #1 - Disabling Menu Items: The "Status" field is disabled because I'm in "edit" mode. Right. I don't know why I would have expected to be able to edit the status while editing the bug .
- Screenshot #2 - Hiding Menu Items: When you go into "Resolve" mode, you can now edit Status. Oh goody. Wait, how come my only options are "Responded", "Won't respond", "SPAM", etc? What ever happened to good ol' fashioned "Fixed" and "Working on"? Ah, of course. I have to go back to Edit Bug, change Category from "Inquiry" to "Bug", Save, then go to Resolve. Now I can see other options for Status. Makes perfect sense...
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