Month: November 1999

You are where you live! Wisdom from Claritas, who accurately told me my hometown consists of Surburban Sprawl and the town where I live now has a Bohemian Mix. I knew this could be done, but it’s still both impressive and disturbing when I see it with my own eyes. Link courtesy of lemonyellow.

Hey, my old boss is updating his weblog. He gets the award for most cleverly integrating his last name with the name of the site: Web-Seitz (yuck yuck). Check it out for uncommon links with biting sarcasm from the perspective of an intelligent IT manager.

Bill responded to my “what’s the most beautiful thing you’ve experienced today?” question to your right–>

See the CHiPs arrive at an accident scene were I was doing my feable best to
help.

I’ve been in that unfortunately position. Trying your best is damn good.

A research manuscript about measuring flow of online environments. Unfortunately it’s so complicated I don’t feel flow when I read it.

Flow is this great concept I read about years ago in the New York Times. It describes how you feel when engaged in an activity that is stimulating enough to keep you interested and difficult enough to keep you challenged (but not overstimulated or full of stress). The above paper looks for flow in the online user experience. It can also be thought of as an elaboration of Cooper’s slogan of power + pleasure

Help with designing sites for mobile devices:

AvantGo’s Authoring Hypertext Content
for Mobile Devices

Webmonkey’s Designing Web Sites for PDAs
and
Intro to HDML. The last link courtesy of metagrrrl.

The Web Log Scoop Index. At first I thought, “Great, another popularity contest. But the Scoop Index is interesting in that it illustrates which blogs try to create memes (sites at the top of the list) and which blogs try to generate new ideas (sites at the bottom).

Needless to say I’m toward the bottom ;-)

Modern Ruins, a photography exhibit by Phillip Buehler. He looks at some 20th century structures and places that have been deserted. A particularly nice touch is the juxaposition of old and new photos, such as the three photos of Ellis Island’s main hall: one from the height of immigration, another taken after 20 years of neglect, and another post-restoration.

More gender ranting – this time it’s Camille Paglia ranting about Susan Faludi’s ranting. Somehow I don’t mind when Paglia does it, her enormous intelligence combined with piercing common sense always sounds right to me.

Heuristic is one of those words that can sound impressive and yet, funny enough, turns out to be a synonym for “fuckin’ around.”


Heuristic


Pronunciation: hyu-‘ris-tik

Function: adjective

Involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods…


Possibly the best name for a tea ever: grandma’s tummy mint

I just found the Patterns Home Page, a compilation of resources for and about pattern languages. It’s amazing that these patterns have exploded in the object-oriented programming community and have barely affected architecture, their domain of origin. What’s also amazing is the degree of agreement regarding pattern use, there doesn’t seem to be any rifts in the community’s philosophy of theory or practice. Makes me wanna get into it and shake things up.

It’s rare when I find myself opposed to something the religious right is opposed to, but that’s the case with Pocket Canons. They’re basically pocket-sized books, each containing one of the more popular books of the bible. Each has a trendy design with an introduction by someone famous. I guess the religous right is pissed that the presentation is sacrilegious. I’m pissed that they chose the King James translation. The King James is neither the most accessible, the most historically accurate, the most widely used, or the most beautiful of the available English translations. I assume it’s among the least expensive: the translation being hundreds of years old I assume no one owns a copyright on it.

This is not a religious issue with me; the book is just as much a piece of literature and history as it is religion and spirituality.

This reminds me to put the most beautiful translation on my wish list.

I’m kinda sick of hearing about what’s wrong with men. From the complaints about alpha males to Susan Faludi’s defense of American men, I think the overgeneralization is harmful. Wouldn’t a more productive discussion focus on things people do that are good or bad instead of labeling people? What’s the difference between generalizing on a behavioral level about males and say, Mexicans, or gays, or any other large group of people?

I hopped on my bike today for the first time in weeks and had a fantastic ride through the perfect Autumn day. I maxed over 35 mph and averaged over 13 mph including the toughest hills in town. At one point I stopped to watch a neighborhood football game while munching a yummy Clif bar and looked up at the staggeringly clear blue sky, expecting to see stars at 3 o’clock pm. I kept riding until my odometer passed 700 miles for the year. Not as many as I would have liked, but it’s a surpassable figure for next season.

Later I went to Dunkin Donuts and bought a half dozen donuts. I’m finishing the last one as I type this :-)

I’ve rolled my professional eyes at Jakob Nielson before, regarding his hallucinogenic predictions (5.27.1999), his over-reliance on empirical knowledge as evidence (3.25.1999), and worst of all his conformist philosophy (10.18.1999). Now the CHI-WEB list chimes in regarding this “reactionist Nazi column” (in the words of my boss).