marc28443

well, this seems to be a fairly balanced summary of the research (available if you explore the link you mention):

http://blog.fawny.org/2005/09/21/measures/

In essence, most studies indicate longer line length leads to faster reading. But also, people on average seem to prefer having a moderate line length over a longer one.

In my view the latter measure is more important. I'd rather have a layout which is more pleasing than one which is faster to read.

(Of course ideally you have a variable-width layout so the reader can choose himself)

This might be the most annoying TED speaker ever (come to think of it, the only one).

He might have something valuable to say but his voice and attitude are just too aggravatating to keep listening.

This information should not need to reside on the net and be owned by a private corporation. One of the problems mentioned in the article is that every individual should own his/her data.

I think to adress the issues correctly all this info should be stored locally and/or on your phone.

I think you are conflating a call for action with an idea for a startup. To be more effective you should focus on one of these only.

As for your proposed solution, such services already exists, i.e. webfinger which Google may be supporting in the future.

So the challenge is really, how to enable widespread adoption for webfinger or something similar. If you have an ingenious idea how to support that, lets hear it. Because you are right, it would mean a lot of progress for the web.

It is a pity the author thinks 6-8 weeks is the ideal duration for such a trip.. yes that is about when the inital novelty wears off and it doesnt feel much like a regular "vacation" any longer. As much as the tourist/traveler characterization is a cliche, this is where you stop being the former and start being the latter...

I can recommend going at least 6 months abroad, if you can make the time.

Right. However I think the article is valid insofar as that the environmental problems caused by those 78% of corporations cannot be adequately addressed through end-consumer behavior. And that the impact of being "green" in your consumer behavior is quite negligble in the big picture.

Unfortunately the solution suggested by the article is the destruction of "intellectual, moral, economic, and physical infrastructures". How unoriginal. I was waiting for some scheme of energy/resource taxes which, if harsh enough, would surely influence the behavior of the 78% evil scary corporations.

"Say a hacker who's suddenly become wealthy from a Linux-related IPO approaches you and says, 'Here's a million dollars. Let's make a full-blown, graphics-rich version of Nethack to rival Diablo. Interested?'"

That would really kick ass. Anyone having a spare million dolars?

I like the concept.. suggestions:

- the URL of the dropbox and the admin page should be human-readable

- some way to find my dropbox if I have lost the URL (see suggestions by noodle)

- some way to integrate it as a widget in my own site

Thanks for the link, there were some helpful pointers in there. In particular, the WikiDrama model seems a good approximation to what we are trying to do: http://www.communitywiki.org/de/WikiDrama

Actually the rule "facts only" would not really work for this as the reviews will necessarily be opinionated. So it would be more like, in the positive review "The chainsaw effect is really cool" and in the negative review someone else would write "The chainsaw effect gets really boring after a while".

As for vandalism, I agree that this could be a huge problem, however Wikipedia has similar problems for contentious topics. I guess whats needed are 1) a passionate community 2) clear rules what is acceptable and what isnt.