It’s long (500 or so pages), and depressing (all about how US-influenced monetary policy has wreaked havoc throughout the world), but don’t let that thwart you. Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine is an important book about forces that manipulate the world.

Now, I am not an anti-globalization state socialist. I support free trade and the free movement of people. But, I definitely have concerns with the winner-takes-all reality of laissez-faire capitalism, and when such practices end up ruining the lives of millions, nay, potentially billions of people, you have to take notice. And Klein’s book does that.

It’s not flawless, but it’s definitely eye-opening, and also a satisfying primer on economic historical developments in Chile and Bolivia in the 70s, Poland in the 80s, Russia in the 90s, and much more.

You probably won’t agree with everything she writes, but you owe it to yourself to disagree meaningfully. Unfortunately, I can’t find substantive criticisms of the book. The most prevalent is Tyler Cowen’s surprisingly shrill screed that opts to not critique the fundamental principles of the book in favor of potshots at rhetorical flourishes.

Tripit!

Now, I’m guessing most folks, reading the post title, would have thought I’d say “Dopplr.” And don’t get me wrong — I dig Dopplr, and occasionally play with it.

But, man, Tripit is *useful*. Now, it’s interface/interaction design is woefully mediocre — it’s often not clear how to engage in an action, the pages are laid out clunkily, the home page doesn’t know who you are when you’re logged in. Dopplr definitely scores many more points on such matters.

But Tripit is the tool I use again and again. I love forwarding confirmation emails to Tripit, and having it auto-populate my itinerary. I love coordinating with my coworkers for business travel. I love being able to check one place for all my travel information, instead of rooting around my inbox.

I guess if I had a Christmas Wish for the Web, it would be for Tripit and Dopplr to merge into one truly beautiful and useful tool for coordinating travel between me and my friends and colleagues.

Two weeks ago I was interviewed by a producer from NPR about coining the word blog. It was for a piece on the 10th anniversary of the word “weblog,” which they ran today. (When you get to the page, click “Listen Now” — I can’t seem to find a direct link to the audio file itself.) You can hear me in there — they used about, oh, 20 seconds of my stuff. You hear me explain how I derived “blog,” and you hear me “link” to Justin Hall.

I’m using this holiday time to clear through some old links I set aside and never visited. One of them pointed me to the 1982 short film Arcade Attack. It starts off as a documentary about the rise of video games and the glory of classic pinball, and then, well, it gets weirder. Much much weirder. You can watch it online: Part I, Part II.

I don’t want to give too much away… Give yourself the 20 minutes or so it takes to complete. Don’t let the clunkiness and slowness of the filmmaking deter you — STICK WITH IT.

Resoundingly mediocre. The movie was made because we now have the technology for a convincing and interesting abandoned Manhattan. Such shots in the trailer draw you into the film, which, sadly, isn’t able to deliver much more than that.

Driving home, I shared with Stacy my frustration that, because this was a big budget Hollywood film, it sadly couldn’t be darker, and thus more interesting. I’ve never read the original novel, but this film review (which spoils the novel, but not the movie), showed me that the novel’s author recognized the importance of a truly dark and twisted scenario in order to make the story honestly compelling. Instead, the writers play it safe with cliched monsters, mindless battles, and an ending with redemption and hope.

By far, the best post-apocalyptic film about a loner and his hound is the 1975 cult classic A Boy and His Dog, starring a pre-famous Don Johnson. It’s a remarkably twisted story, and definitely worth seeing on DVD and listening to the director’s commentary track.

…how Stacy will spend the holidays. Visiting the Paleo-Future!

Has anyone followed up with Steve Ballmer?

I had the distinct fortune and pleasure to spend an hour chatting with Don Norman, which you can listen to (mp3). Don has come up a lot in the posts on peterme.com, going all the way back to my first months of writing, in 1998, when I asked, “Whither ‘User Experience’?” (this comes up in my talk with Don). As such, I’m thrilled that he’s joining us for Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2008 conference, where I’ll get a chance to talk to him more on stage.

Speaking of our events, we’re holding an end-of-the-year sale. Next year, we’ve got three events coming to San Francisco, and all three feature special pricing through December 31st.

There’s our tried-and-true UX Intensive, February 19-22, four days of hands-on activities on the core subjects of user experience.

That’s followed by the return of MX San Francisco (April 21-22), our conference devoted to managing experience and what it takes to get great design out into the world. Though the site doesn’t yet say it, we’ve already lined up Peter Coughlan from IDEO, and we’ve got discussions going on with some great folks.

And next up we’ll have the aforementioned UX Week. The program is still firming up, but we’ve already got Don Norman, Scott Griffith (CEO of Zipcar), Adaptive Path alums Jeffrey Veen and Mike Kuniavsky, and a host of Adaptive Path staff members already lined up. This will easily be our biggest and best event yet.

follow up with client about procurement

approve venue for Boston event

coordinate meeting with client

write captions for illustrations in book

find/create images for illustrations in book

lunch with potential clients

prepare for company meeting

plan hiring

book travel for a 4-hour stint in Los Angeles

sketch designs for complex online forms

plan event programming

invite speakers to event

write copy for web site

review proposal

edit transcript of interview

edit audio file of interview

write lots of email

read lots and lots of email

I just visited the SFMOMA for the first time in about a year, and walked out drunk on art goodness. I only made it through two of the four exhibit floors… Good thing I re-upped my membership for unlimited visits in a year!

The Olafur Eliasson exhibit was revelatory — someone I knew nothing about producing fun and strange pieces that immerse you. The Jeff Wall retrospective is fine — he’s a great photographer and seeing so much work in one place is visual gluttony. I considered dipping into the Joseph Cornell exhibit before I realized I should simply give that it’s own day.

Anyway, if you’re in, or visiting, SF any time soon, do yourself a favor and head to SFMOMA. And if you know me, have me take you there and you can get in free!