Day: October 1, 2002

Great Onion this week: “Temp Hides Fun, Fulfilling Life From Rest of Office,” and, best of all, Capt. Ron “Mongoose” Haller declares himself “The ‘Top Gun’ of Commercial Airline Pilots.”

In pressing for an invasion of Iraq–despite protests from virtually all of our allies, the U.N., and much of Congress–is the Bush Administration attempting to implement “Pax Americana”? Is Bush’s coterie trying to achieve world domination? (I guess “Coca-Colonization” hasn’t worked.)

Jakob Nielsen, a renowned Web usability expert, has just published an informative new column: “Email Newsletters Pick Up Where Websites Leave Off.” The most important point he makes is that people have emotional connections to email communications, while Web sites are static and impassive. As Nielsen says, “Newsletters feel personal because they arrive in your inbox; you have an ongoing relationship with them. In contrast, websites are things you glance at when you need to get something done or find the answer to a specific question.”