Greetings from the chilly interior of my attic, where I finished diagnosing some network issues (Springheel Jack and I seem to be having computer woes at the same time!) I am sitting here, cross-legged, Kobe watching me curiously, as I bang out a post that has a couple of purposes.
The first purpose is to say that I might be utterly occupied now that the Big Day is here. (Of course, every time I say this, I wind up doing postings anyway, but my blogger’s guilt compels me to state that I might be unusually quiet until after the close).
The second purpose is to tell you that Slope’s comment system, which is already more awesome than anyone else’s, is now even awesome-r. Yes, this little tin-foil hat blog has, on a part-part-part time basis, created a comments system that runs circles around those created by firms with tens of millions of dollars in venture funding. So: nyah.
The idea came to me in a vivid dream when I noticed a particular usage pattern among you good people: you would try to get another person’s attention by using the @ sign, just like they do on Twitter. (e.g. “@Tim Knight, how do you, at your age, have such a luxurious head of hair?“) I felt that this was a clumsy was to get someone’s attention, so I’ve upped the ante.
Now, when you type @, the system will present to you, in autofill style, suggestions as to who you are trying to talk with; as you type more, the guess will get more and more accurate. When you see the person you’re trying to reach, just click on it.
After you click on the person you want to say something to, just start typing away. The cursor is already where it needs to be.
The cool thing is, that for that person and that person only, the comment will be boldly tinted to get their attention. For instance, our friend BDI wrote me something, it got my attention, and I started to type him a reply.
Once I actually submit the reply, the colorful tint disappears, because this comment no longer requires my attention (since, presumably, I answered it to BDI’s delight and satisfaction).
Pretty spiffy, eh?
So I’m going to hunker down and prepare for the Bernanke/Yellen double-beast. Good luck to everyone, and godspeed.
