The Phantom City

Apparently The Gap, along with subsidiaries such as Old Navy, shut down their online stores for two weeks to launch a much-improved ecommerce solution.

Their site is kind of slow right now, and I didn’t use it in the first place, so I can’t really give much of a critique of how the shopping experience improved.

…Oops, I guess they’re not selling short-sleeve casual shirts right now: “We’re sorry, but the page you are looking for is no longer available.”

…I do notice that the touted QuickLook feature doesn’t appear to be working with my Firefox 1.0.6 setup. It’s not even showing that a popup window has been blocked.

…Never mind. I think their site crashed.

Anyway, I find the idea interesting, because I know in my various workplaces over the years that we would have been filleted for completely shutting down the online store for two weeks. I don’t understand that development process, but they must have had one heck of a conversion process going on with the backend system.

Strange Horizons comments on utopian/dystopian ideas through the centuries:

The Ten Stupidest Utopias!

The Industrial Revolution gave the world a new idea of the ideal society. “Try sniffing the abominable stench behind the piles of books,” wrote Japanese Futurist Hirato Renkichi in 1921. “How many times superior is the fresh scent of gasoline!”

The Ten Sexiest Dystopias!

Roll down your window: see the metaphors go by. There’s Zhora the replicant, smashing through plate glass windows; there’s Jake lost in Chinatown, and Tod Hackett running through Hollywood, bloody faced, chased by a mob. “Los Angeles is probably the most mediated town in America,” writes Michael Sorkin, “nearly unviewable save through the fictive scrim of its mythologizers.”

Link courtesy of Boing Boing

So, I guess there’s a level closer to Kevin Bacon than one degree, and Colin Firth is heading right for it.