As usual, too many open browser tabs with interesting stories that don't deserve to languish in the del.icio.us obscurity:
Anti-social bot invades Second Lifers' personal space (Nov 2007)
"A software bot that masquerades as an ill-mannered human user within the popular virtual world Second Life is being used by UK researchers to investigate the psychology of its inhabitants. The bot starts a conversation with human users and deliberately invades their personal space to see how they will react."
A trip down spam memory laneCommemorating spam's 30th anniversary, New Scientist rounds up a bunch of interesting links, such as
this archive that's been aggregating spam for the past 10 years.
NY Times on fictional fiction:"'Charm' was released in the fictional small town of Pine Valley, Pa., as part of the [ABC's soap "All My Children"] story line. [...] It has sold more than 100,000 copies and made its debut in February at No. 13 on the New York Times best-seller list."
The Psychology of Waiting Lines (1985):
- Uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits.
- Occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time.
- People want to get started
- Unfair waits are longer than equitable waits
- Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits
- The wore valuable the service, the longer the customer will wait
- Solo waits feel longer than group waits
iPhone Usability Evaluation Report:
"One feature of the popup keyboard on the iPhone is the drag and lift feature which is said to reduce errors. Unfortunately not one user discovered this feature."
Campaign Monitor is built for designers who can create great looking emails for themselves and their clients, but need software to send each campaign, track the results and manage their subscribers.
