weill aspects

originally posted august 15, 2003

information addiction

Several major cities today suffered the most widespread power outage everywhere, but the big news story was that people didn't go crazy. What could have been a tragedy will instead be a bizarre footnote from some lazy August day.

So why was it so compelling?

My name is Jason W., and I'm an information addict.

when instant messages attack

For the last few years, I decided to sign myself off of AOL Instant Messenger when I would go away for a long time. AIM doesn't forward messages or cache them off-line, so many of my friends would stay logged in all the time in order to capture incoming messages. That system falls apart when a user signs in using another computer; the first computer's session is terminated, but all the messages stay on that first computer. To avoid this cycle, I would sign off when not at a computer.

Flash forward to 2003: I established a private AIM account for use at work, to keep business and pleasure separate. This means that on most days, I only sign on to AIM for an hour or two. AOL started offering a new feature called "IM Forwarding," which retrieves incoming messages and forwards them to a mobile phone via SMS, in a recent version. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide any feedback to users to indicate that the service is send-only; I can't respond without calling the person back or using an Internet-capable phone and calling plan.

Imagine the fun of one's phone receiving messages that can't be answered:

beep beep! "hey"
beep beep! "you there?"
beep beep! "guess not"
beep beep! "i'll talk to you later"
beep beep! "oh i guess this is going to your phone"
beep beep! "sorry"
beep beep! "later"

This has happened to me entirely too much, at all hours of the day, as a result of IM forwarding. Since I pay a small charge for each message I receive after the first 50 per month, I wouldn't be surprised if IM forwarding contributes a small amount to my phone bill.

those ever-present browser temptations

Next-generation web browsers and applications like FeedDemon help to fuel the information addition. Even the simple links toolbar, present in some form since the very first graphical web browser debuted more than 10 years ago, provides one-click access to any site of interest. It's become second nature for me to idly click the links, from news sites to auction updates, to find any new content that has come up in the last few minutes. These temptations become irresistable when I'm doing some processing on my workstation that takes several minutes to finish: I can leave my workstation to do its thing while I check out some new cartoon or news story.

Of course, many companies have taken action against these idle worker actions: a lot of larger organizations have started filtering web-based mail, stock trading web sites, and anything that can't be justified as work-related. I'm fortunate to work at a place (a web-based software shop, of all places) where employees are free to use the web as they see fit. Many times, we gain insight about pragmatic web design just by examining our favorite sites.

e-mail this, e-mail that

It seems like there's never an excuse to stop reading your e-mail. At school, e-mail was used so extensively that many conversations took place nearly in real time. In a working environment, e-mail conversations take on another dimension with the addition of managers, client contacts, and a strict ordering of blind and non-blind carbon copies to connect everyone. For example, it is accepted that only managers should contact a client directly, and that a manager should be CCed on any internal message about an ongoing project in which he is involved. This leads to dozens upon dozens of messages in everyone's inbox that don't belong there: messages of only peripheral interest to their copied recipients. There are easy ways to file and prioritize e-mail (including the oft-abused "high priority" flag from the sender) but they quickly sap time.

I've been known to rapid-fire many messages to a manager in the hopes that each will be handled, but I've also seen an Outlook folder base so huge that it took several minutes for Outlook to parse it all. Files, appointments, personal mail, client mail... it all goes into one application, and for many users it never comes back out. The application used doesn't matter. It's the philosophy of "copy everyone and see who cares" that's harmful to productivity.

the cure for information: vermont

So in a few days, I leave town and head 600 miles northeast to Killington, Vermont for a vacation with my family. I'd be lying if I said it was a total escape from technology; the camera, laptop, and gaming gear will all be packed and used throughout the week. On the other hand, T-Mobile shows one giant dead spot across the whole state of Vermont. At the very least, I won't have to worry about being hit with calls and messages all the time.

This also marks our last family vacation before my younger brother Adam goes away to college in Rochester, only a few hours from here. It'll be a good week.

Back to August 2003, or to the year 2003.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.