A recent post at Seth Godin’s blog reminded me of an idea we had discussed a few weeks ago. Zoos and aquariums often have signs that give some basic information on the species of the animals they house, but almost never any information the actual animals themselves. You will only see it done now for major attractions like pandas, and I wouldn’t expect it for every prarie dog or lobster, but I think it could be done much more often.

In this day of easy and on-demand printing, it seems like it would not be a big effort to put up a little placard for each one. The names, birthdates, and birthplace of the animals, with a picture and perhaps some notes on the lineage or personality of the animals would make the whole experience much more engaging, and I might even say that it would boost donations or visitor involvement. This information exists, and you can get it if you opt to bother the staff, but they are always very busy and do most of their work before and after visitor hours.

This could even be taken to a new level if the information is online, editable by volunteers in a wiki-esque format and available as news feeds or email alerts when something happens involving your favorite/sponsored critters.

I often, as most people do, think up things that products/services that I use “should” do. Sometimes I even send these ideas in, if the company has made it easy to do so. I think from now on I will still send them in, but will also post them here, because ideas beget ideas and maybe someone will see mine and come up with an even better one.

So, as any reasonably regular reader can tell, I’m a fan of Flickr. I don’t really use the social features much, I find them a bit unweildy, but I do like it’s organization tools, overall UI, storage of full-size images, unlimited upload quota, and many other features. I don’t derive any direct value from the general public having access to my photos, but maybe the public does, or will someday, get some value. There are two features that I’d like to see added:

1. Virtual Cropping - I lack the time, patience, and/or skill to go through every photo and adjust levels and crop it properly before I upload. Flickr resizes photos to fit the various templates. I’d like to be able to draw a box (like they do with notes) that will be what people see, with the sole exception of the “original” size. This way I can keep the original intact but crop things on the fly as I’m organizing online.

2. Cross-User Sets - I recently went on a couple of trips and took alot of photos. A friend of mine, also a Flickr user, also took alot of photos. Some of his photos are ones I didn’t take, or better than ones I took. When I send someone a link to my collection/set of the trip, I’d like to include some of his photos inline, rather than telling people to look in multiple places. Technically this could be accomplished with groups, but these are typically one-off things and more geared towards collaboration than curation. Basically “Add to set” should be enabled for anyone’s (public) photos, especially those by contacts/friends.

Firstly, happy thanksgiving everyone.

Tomorrow is the biggest shopping day of the year, and all I ask is that you consider not giving gift cards. Over $8 billion per year in gift cards are given, and not used. If cards offered some kind of built-in discount ($45 for a $50 card) then they might be excusable, but they are essentially a crippled form of cash. Think about it, would you give someone stamps?

To me, gift cards say the following to your recipient:

“I’d like to give you money but I’m afraid you’ll spend it on drugs”

“I don’t know you well enough to even attempt to pick something out, but I’m absolutely sure what store you’d like to go to”

“I’m too lazy to go through the store and actually find something for you”

“I forgot about getting you a gift, so just be glad I had to stop for gas”

“You have bad taste and shop a crappy stores, so I’m forcing you to shop at a good one”

If you’re happy saying those things (sometimes I am), then gift cards are perfect. Otherwise, take a moment to try and think of something original, or just go with good old-fashioned cash.

All of the awards have been announced now, so let’s recap:

Rookie of the Year

American League

My Pick: Pedroia
Winner: Pedroia, by a large margin.

I’d change my vote for runner-up here to Joakim Soria, who had a fantastic year on a team nobody watches, and as a closer for a team that rarely wins.

National League

My Pick: Tulowitzki
Winner: Braun, by two points.

I still stick by my Tulowitzki pick, but Braun’s numbers were apparently too good. I think this comes down to whether the award goes to the player that performed the best (Braun) or the one that showed the most potential/promise (Tulowitzki).

Cy Young

American League

My Pick: Sabathia
Winner: Sabathia, by a fair margin

I was actually surprised that the voting wasn’t closer. Perhaps there’s a little Boston backlash or maybe the voters are starting to realize that wins are a garbage statistic.

National League

My Pick: Peavy
Winner: Peavy (unanimous)

Most Valuable Player

American League

My Pick: Rodriguez
Winner: Rodriguez, all but two votes

National League

My Pick: Holliday
Winner: Rollins, by a small margin

This was the biggest surprise. Rollins had a great year, but Holliday had a monster year. Playing on an east coast team, at a more important position, and being more “exciting” (i.e. faster), as well as the Coors Field effect, must have been the deciding factors here. In hindsight, I probably should have picked Rollins as the runner-up.

A couple weekends ago we took a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvannia (i.e. Amish Country). One of the days we decided to go to Hershey, PA (technically Derry Township). The touristy stuff there obviously revolves around the Hershey company or its namesake and founder.

Hershey’s Chocolate World is a very clean, excessively corporate, attraction. Most of it is obviously targeted at kids. It features a “simulated factory tour,” which is a ride where animatronic cows sing to you how they make chocolate, a gigantic gift shop, and is the home base for a town-wide trolley ride.

The trolley ride was led by what I’d have to guess is one of the biggest Milton Snavely Hershey fanboys out there, but in between his fawning we got to see the town and the school which the Hershey’s founded in lieu of having children (Mrs. Hershey had MS). The school is simply amazing for a high school, especially one that charges no tuition.

The gift shop, tour, and trolley ride probably took about 2.5 hours, so while it wasn’t the highlight of the trip, it was entertaining and concise. I’d highly recommend it if you are bringing kids. More photos can be found here.

One of my favorite days of the year, even when it’s only a dusting. Happy winter everyone!

So I’ve been a bit absent from writing lately, and missed the 1 year anniversary of this blog. Posting will resume tomorrow, but for now, here’s a little zeitgeist for year one:

There were 48 posts and 39 comments (5 by me), contained within 51 categories. 9,496 spam comments were blocked.

Most popular posts (by page views)

Nice to see that these were spread across the main topics.

Most popular categories (by number of posts)

Most popular search keywords (by visits)

Most popular traffic sources (by visits)

Longest Post: An Open Letter to Recruiters

Shortest Post: Shrinkage

This year’s goal: 100 posts. (1 down!)