peterme.com		Thoughts, links, and essays from Peter Merholz
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Home Archives Archives before June 13, 2001 RSS Feed Adaptive Path (my company!) About peterme Coordinates Most of the Time Oakland, CA Interests Current American history around the time of the Revolution, figuring out how to marry top-down task-based information architecture processes with bottom-up document-based ones, finding a good dentist in San Francisco Oakland Perennial Designing the user experience (interaction design, information architecture, user research, etc.), cognitive science, ice cream, films and film theory, girls, commuter bicycling, coffee, travel, theoretical physics for laypeople, single malt scotch, fresh salmon nigiri, hanging out, comics formalism, applied complexity theory, Krispy Kreme donuts. surf Click to see where I wander. Wish list Show me you love me by buying me things. Spyonme Track updates of this page with Spyonit. Clickee here. Essays [Editor's note: peterme.com began as a site of self-published essays, a la Stating The Obvious. This evolved (or devolved) towards link lists and shorter thoughtpieces. These essays are getting a tad old, but have some good ideas.] Reader Favorites Interface Design Recommended Reading List Whose "My" Is It Anyway? Frames: Information Vs. Application Subjects Interface Design Web Development Movie Reviews Travel		Carly Fiorina - The Graduate? Posted on 05/16/2002. BusinessWeek points out that, for all the sturm und drang of the HP/Compaq merger tribulations, the real difficulties are only yet to come. Referring to the two companies as "The Happy Couple", spurred me to think of the end of The Graduate, both the film and the book. What many don't realize is that the story doesn't really have a happy ending. Sure, Benjamin "gets the girl", which, in a typical story, would be the joyous close. However, (if memory serves) in the original book, as Ben and Elaine sit on the back of the bus, Elaine turns to Ben, "Ben?" and he responds, "Yes?" In the movie, the final shot lingers long enough so that we see the elation on their faces turn to uncertainty as to the future that lies ahead. 3 comments so far. Add a comment. Previous entry: "Links inspired by the Emerging Technology Conference, part I: Steven Johnson's Keynote." Next entry: "Pointer to the future?" Comments: COMMENT #1 http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0061722 On Inside The Actor's Studio, Director Nichols claims that the final "sobering" emotion that Benjamin and Elaine go through was due to the fact that he had just been shouting at the two of them to laugh in the scene. The actors were so scared that after laughing they stopped, scared. Nichols liked it so much, he kept it. ... Where's Nichols now? Posted by Andrew @ 05/22/2002 02:48 PM PST [link to this comment] COMMENT #2 Michael Dell will just laugh all the way to the bank. Posted by MadMan @ 05/29/2002 08:54 AM PST [link to this comment] COMMENT #3 Michael Dell is laughing all the way to the bank. Posted by MadMan @ 05/29/2002 09:16 AM PST [link to this comment] Add A New Comment: Name E-Mail (optional) Homepage (optional) Comments Now with a bigger box for text entry! Whee! All contents of peterme.com are © 1998 - 2002 Peter Merholz.