Acetio | Blogma

Ever since Avatar became a success, 3D has been buzzed about almost as much as the iPad.

And like with the iPad, most of the discussion seems to be about pointless ideas, such as the need for 3D videoconferencing. I have no interest in videoconferencing at all, let alone in 3D. Yet, as a proof-of-concept, this is kind of cool.

I need to get in on this 3D thing

from Mike C.

Despite all the modern conveniences (and increasingly often because of them) of life and work there are many times when we have to waste time because of an inefficient system. One example is scheduling a meeting with multiple people. With two people it's pretty easy to figure out the intersect of schedules to see when both parties are free. With three people there may be a little back-and-forth, but it usually works out. Once you get to five people, it can be difficult or impossible. Doodle takes care of that. It's good.

Doodle is one of those sites that I kick myself for not having thought of. The back-end must be pretty straightforward. I can imagine re-creating the basic functionality in PHP or ColdFusion in an afternoon. But they thought of it and implemented it first. Good for them.

Paul Graham puts into words thoughts that I've had for years, about why it's so difficult for me to work in an office.

"Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it."

Read the full essay here