Author: Victor

Interesting story in Wired this month on Oakley. Corresponding with lane, a transplant from Austin, makes me realize this in-your-face technology culture doesn’t really exist much on the east coast, at least not in the private sector. There’s some fantastic design and media companies here with alternative styles, but nothing I know of approaching that over-the-top, fly-a-pirate-flag-in-front-of-your-office, proudly-wear-technology-on-your-person, not-just-kill-but-kill-and-eat your competition mentality.

As an east coast, US native I naturally assumed that anyplace with a winter climate is overcast more often than not. It wasn’t until visiting Chicago with a friend who had lived there that I learned all those clouds in the winter is an east coast thing.

I remembered this as I walked to work this morning, shivering in the wind, and seeing the rare, gorgeous blue sky overhead. You can see for yourself at Pratt’s controllable cam.

I finally fixed my search engine, so all of you querying on “max”, “Swedish”, and “Google” can just stop worrying your pretty little selves.

I had the feeling I was ranting a bit too much on the bitter and angry side of life recently, especially considering I’m normally an upbeat guy. Then I saw Anil Dash’s site. Wow, his “Peeve of the Moment” blows me away. I wonder if peeves (shorter and more trivial than rants I think) encourage others to make the world a better place, or if it’s just releasing steam?

It’s amazing that arguments for sound in the web browser are now presented in mainstream press like this before it’s actually happening.

The prejudice against sound is so strong people will not even consider it as a serious idea for branding on the web; I’ve recently had designers and developers who bend over backwards every day to implement crazy visual designs suddenly roll their eyes at the idea of using sound in the user interface, as if I just suggested a new use for the blink tag.

It will take the integration (convergence in the current lingo) of video to make people say, “Ya know, it’s missing something…”

Prediction: the weblog trend of early year 2000 will be to deliver posts not via RSS but via WAP or other mobile device protocols.

I now I’m thinking about doin’ it.

It’s only 13k !! That’s because it’s only a bunch of colored lines flashing on the screen!

It’s funny that we never cease to be amazed at what Alan Cooper calls “dancing bears” – technology that isn’t useful or new or interesting but we’re fascinated that someone has managed to accomplish this within the dumbed down environment of a web browser (i.e. bears don’t dance well, but we’re amazing when they do).

An exciting series of comments about Mozilla. As an open source project it’s fascinating because it’s both the most popular project (perhaps fewer developers but a greater total audience than Linux) and a project in it’s second generation, rebuilding the program from scratch based on years of learning and experience.

I just saw “Being John Malkovich” and agree with lanebecker:

I am unprepared to explain why this movie is so terribly,
terribly brilliant, but you must rush out and see it regardless
because movies this impressive only come along once in a
blue moon. Also, it has puppets.

I’ll add that the puppets are stunning.

A work log (as opposed to a weblog). A comforting concept; imagine if all college professors collaborated within their dept to test new ideas, record notes, and use the resulting record to improve courses and research.

I just went looking to buy a pair of eyeglasses online and was depressed not to find anyone doing a decent job of e-commerce in this market.

I just created an epinion of Blogger then blogged it using Blogger.

:-)

Perhaps the stupidist interface mistake I’ve seen recently involved the escalators at the Port Authority bus station in New York City. At one end of the station there are two escalators side-by-side that lead to the top level of gates. The left escalator ran down and the right escalator ran up (can you see where I’m going with this?). The one on the left was closed for repairs for about a month and when it opened they were reversed – the escalator on the left now runs up and vice versa.

Do I think this is bad or do I know this is bad? When I discovered this change I was walking casually toward the escalators, being early for my bus, and noticed the change. Another man was walking very quickly ahead of me, presumably running to catch a bus and, out of habit, started to climb the steps of the escalator on the right. Now imagine a man in a hurry who is not examining his already-familiar environment and possibly thinking about his daughter’s soccer match that he doesn’t want to miss and his asshole boss that won’t give him any peace and how horrible the situation in Kosovo is and then climbs up an escalator that is running down.

Test audience reactions to “The Messenger”

By LOUIS B. HOBSON — Calgary Sun

HOLLYWOOD — It would seem American movie audiences need a few history lessons.

At early test-screenings of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, audiences expressed concerns that the heroine dies at the end of the movie.

“People wrote on their comment cards that we should not have burned Joan. They felt that someone should have rescued her,” recalls the film’s director, Luc Besson.

“Many people were also puzzled as to where the story was taking place and they would have like us to have a love story for Joan.”

If making ads look like editorial is annoying and misleading, Go32.com’s practice of making their features look like tile ads is just plain stupid.