Amishrobot

Happy anniversary amishrobot!

Nice work gentleman. Are you expecting double-digit sales growth from the “Currently Listening To” feature, in the upcoming fiscal year? Since a single sale is year would constitute at least a 100000% increase from zero. I was going to tell Josh about a web developer position here with my company, but, to count some proverbial chickens, it looks like you are soon to be set finically with profits from AR. I only hope you’re inevitable dynasty world domination will be a benevolent one.

Two Comments/Questions:

1. Are you at last offering a dividend?

2. What is in your pipeline? I, as are all of your shareholders, am concerned about future content. What will peak the interest of the Amishrobot buying public? Three words: Goth Boy Band!

Think about—have your product development people run the numbers and get back to me.

This is too public a forum to discuss these issues in detail.

I can tell you we are currently doing some intensive marketing segmentation and the Goth Boy Band is an idea who’s time has come.

Examining the trend of growth I couldn’t help but notice the extremely disturbing June numbers (traditionally AmishCorp’s strongest month). This leaves me wondering if there were any financial/accounting shenanigans going on to artificially inflate July’s numbers, and if so, how we repeat those shenanigans to ensure the rest of the calendar year is as strong? Lastly, I would like to suggest for the pipeline: Chinese Hackers Faux Hawks — Sure to be a strong seller this christmas season

Actually June’s poor showing was due to my domain name registrar accidentally canceling my domain name registration for most of the month.

We are still working on financial/accounting shenanigans. It is hard to come up with anything original along those lines these days.

I am pleased to announce that I bought a photography book off of the wish list, the National Geographic book on portraits. I didn’t buy it online, but at a used book store, but it still counts, and I believe that you may plug this into your numbers, beefing up the books etc. Perhaps this should be spoken of behind closed doors. Accounting for the good numbers in July, I thank Martin for our little conversation on the site. I also need to thank my wife for going away for two and a half weeks in Utah in July, leaving me alone in small town Texas with nothing to do and no coherently safe place to express myself. Here’s what the TV ad may look like:

(Close up of my face with a dark neutral background and pleasant piano in the background) My wife left to visit with family and friends for two weeks in Utah and all of a sudden I found my self a little lonely. I couldn’t talk to the people around me for fear of being beat up. I tried to express myself on some of the more popular blogs on the web and none seemed to jive with my demented left field ironicly cosmic way of thinking. That’s when I found Amishrobot. They heard my arcane banter and vocally rejected most of it when other websites ignored me. (voiceover) For all of your left field yammerings, try amishrobot…they hear your most intelligently constructed nonsense, and promise not to ignore it’s stupidity. Amishrobot, more than just a weblogs, it’s webLIVES.

(Image of me from behind with bed head typing at my computer fades to black.)

Left wing? I thought you got the joke. ANY left wing sentiment is made with tongue-in-cheek earnestness. I cannot ignore your mistake, but then that is what you enjoy about this site. (p.s. my wife points out the mistakes in my posts now - but she isn’t sure if they are truly intentional, I’ll let you decide)

I am thinking of producing that commercial.

Are any of you interested in spellchecking for your comments? I think I could implement something that does it when you click the preview. BUT, it looks like a big pain, so unless there is a lot of demand…

With spell check features so widespread, the practice of using alternative spellings is nearly dead. I am single-handedly keeping the torch alive. Down with spell checking on weblogs I say! As Mark Twain is famous for saying:

“I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.” - Mark Twain’s Autobiography

I like the spell checking - tried to get the CMS guys I worked for to integrate it. The alternative is for my spelling to be considered as correct, and adoptive by everyone else — can you make that happen?

note - ‘adoptive’ is an alternate spelling for adopted — in my world of non-spell checking

In a country where spelling and words are descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive, (real smart people going out and listening to what people say and then agreeing that this is what the word is, as opposed to a society that sits down over tea designating propriety) we should celebrate the notion by never ever again using spellcheck; even by seeking out and destroying those who actively propogate such a thing.

Refusing to spell check is the first step in my radical attack on prose. The next step is to bar proofreading and corrections. The final measure is to remove the backspace key from ALL keyboards.

The revolution will not be spell-checked or proofread.

I’ve always wondered about the future of Information Architects and Usability Experts. I have worked as a designer for a few years, both freelance and as a wage slave, and just like Grettir’s experience (above) most everything I have done gets so watered down by beurocracy and corporate big-wigs (money does not guarantee taste) that the end product barely resembles the originally approved project. The usability is shot, the color scheme is bland, and the fonts resemble Trapper Keeper covers from the 1980’s (in a painfully un-hip way).

So for IAs and Usability folk, their work has to get filtered through all of the usual layers, plus the designers. I’m sure they sow a masterful idea and reap an interface from hell.

How do you build a portfolio with that? How do you get a new job with examples like Josh’s intranet? Designers can at least show that their interfaces are slick and flashy, but what does an IA person have at the end of the day? How can people survive in that kind of field?

I defineitely know what Grettir is talking about.

Really though, It hasn’t been as bleak as I probably make it sound. It is a big challenge, but so far it has gone pretty well for me. I generally have pretty good buy-in with Development, paritally because I used to be a web developer i think. So most of them don’t fight me much.

The other part of it is that I got lucky. The first couple projects I worked on didn’t get tweaked much by anybody, and they immediately delivered some serious $ to the company. Which makes it a lot harder for people to argue or overrule things.

My portfolio mostly consists of numbers. I.e “Redesigned home page leading to a 30% increase in revenue per impression.” Things like that. I also keep some video clips from usability evaluations I moderated, and reports I have written.

But yeah, it can be incredibly frustrating at times. Overall though, I have lead a pretty charmed usability life.

Smoke and Mirrors?

Hi Josh. I for one like the obscure music you listen to but since I am cronically broke I cannot purchase anything. But I am tall. And a tall-person dating service could help me. But I’m only 6’2” so I’m not up there yet. Hopefully some day though.

I demand shares in this whole dating service escapade, as it was my brainchild. Hardy harhar. No, Josh… on second thought, I think you can take aaaallll the credit for yourself. I’m okay with that.