Why Anthropology Matters

Rich, Black, and Flunking tells the story of UC Berkeley anthropology professor John Ogbu‘s research into why upper-middle class black students were performing so much worse than other upper-middle class students. While acknowledging that there were external societal factors that seemed to contribute (i.e., racism), he concluded that, essentially, the problem came from within the [...]

Relationships and Compromise

Meg writes, “People will tell you the key to any successful relationship is compromise.” This is illustrated by alternating who chooses the movie, which is perhaps the most common example of relationship compromise. This common belief disheartens me. Let me address the minor aspect, the movie thing. Should couples feel compelled to see every movie [...]

MMMM! MmmMmMM!

So, in the continuing story about the cease and desist notice with respect to my linking directly to a publicly available store of journal articles, a lawyer told me to “revise your website as your publication of the means by which you illegally obtained access to our website is a violation of the Digital Millennium [...]

Ceasing and Desisting.

Peterme.com received it’s first-ever cease-and-desist letter today. The folks at Proquest were none too happy that I pointed out a backdoor to their database. I’ve decided to take that link down, but I’m also going to tell you how I found it through rather innocent clicking around on the publicly available Web. UC Berkeley features [...]

Way more about paths at UC Berkeley than you’d ever want to read.

Walking on the UC Berkeley Campus, I saw this: Hrm. That seems like an odd place to put a barrier. It’s not like there’s a cliff to fall over. Another angle makes things a little more apparent: Still don’t quite get it? How about this bird’s eye view, taken 3 years ago, from Kevin Fox’s [...]

Newsletters worth subscribing to

Ramana Rao’s Information Flow. Ramana was at Xerox PARC, and is now at Inxight, and thinks a lot of smart thoughts about information, information visualization, etc. He’s begun a list of “49 Classics of Information Flow” which promises to be a tasty set of pointers. Complexity Digest. A mix of super-academic and layperson-accessible links to [...]

User Experience Themes, Part I: Craft and Engineering

This past weekend I was asked to speak to a group of graphic designers and art directors about user experience in general, and my work in particular. This opportunity for reflection brought up four recurring themes in my work, themes that pose more questions than offer answers. Of late, the theme most on my mind [...]

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Links, thoughts, and essays from Peter Merholz