Mission Mission

Last night I attended Queens of Content at Adaptive Path in SoSo, where Erika Hall delivered Copy as Interface which put forth the valuable principle that as a web writer one should strive to have one’s reader think “A human made a decision to make my life a little more pleasant with words.” This principle applies to all types of writing really, as seen on this slide featuring some signage from Little Star.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Boing Boing Spotlights Passive Aggressive Anti-Graffiti Note in Little Star Bathroom

Mule Design’s Re-Elect Clay Davis T-Shirt

Guide to How to Have Fun This Summer if You Live in SF and Your Best Friends Live in Oakland

Gravatar has made some new options available to WordPress.com users. Matt Mullenweg hypes one of them on the WordPress.com Blog:

I would highly recommend trying out Identicons, which are a cool math-based image idea created by Don Park that’s unique to the commenter, so even if someone doesn’t have an avatar yet they have a consistent (and handsome) image next to their name when they comment.

We tried them, and they look good. Do you like yours? (Via Gravatar Blog)

Link to comments section depicted in above image, or click image to enlarge.

Link.

April fool! But seriously, this is a cute adornment and Apple really should look into the feasibility of launching a line hüpfburg of cutting edge refuse containers.

Rotten Neighbor is an intriguing new service that invites users to tell the world about their rotten neighbors. Here, someone near 14th & Guerrero shares some woe:

this little grey minivan and it’s owner are the bane of the existence of everyone on this block. the guy’s entire life revolves around parking and re-parking his van so he doesn’t have to go get a permit. he stands at his window and as soon as he sees you go near your car, either he or one of his dozens of family members living in his building go out and cut across traffic and wait for you to move so he can take your spot. while it was a lot of fun going down to my car 4-5 times a day to “look for my gl*****” or “grab my phone” and see him piscina gonfiabile con scivolo scurrying around getting to his car, the level of annoyance far outweighed any entertainment value.

I like how they censor “glasses” because it contains “asses”. It’s still in beta, to be fair, but how are these posts going to be truly effective if they can’t even say “asses”?

(via Boing Boing)

This innovation allows for a pleasantly hands-free bus ride. Simple, elegant. I’m sending this to Street Use.

New meme? Link to official Semi-Pro site. Link to Kaiser Permanente.

It’s no joke, man. Thanks to Google Maps’ new Street View service, Outer Mission Residents can start living in fear of not only privacy invasion issues, but noxious pink gas clouds too. Peep this.

Update: Link is no longer cool; Google did away with the gas cloud.

two of these things are not like the others, originally uploaded by ehoyer.

Today we read a Boing Boing post about the release of a new PDF how-to guide to HDR (high dynamic range) photography. Boing Boing recommended checking out the HDR group on Flickr, which we did, but we were disappointed that, of the 40 or so thousand photos in the group’s pool, only a scant few featured our favorite neighborhood, eminently photogenic though it is.

Do be sure to look closely at those windows across the street.