I am inspired again to do some design. I think I may simply redesign some company sites to practice - and don't be surprised if you see a new Alt Text sometime soon.
I have a new information design for Amazon's product pages I am about ready to share, ala 37 Signals.
Sites like this one take an idea that I have wanted to make reality for so long - selling design templates - but go further and cheaper than I could. At least the inspiration is free.
If you feel so inclined contact your senator and tell them that the Edwards amendment is worthy of acceptance tomorrow as part of the new the energy bill. This would give states the option of setting stricter clean-air requirements than the federal government (which as we all know are much lower now that big business has its power back).
...our house is begining to feel like a home. No, we do not have front stairs yet, and our yard is still a big mound of dirt, but we do have our home network up and running, and even though our internet connection is only 56k we cannot complain. Here's to life settling down again, more frequent posts, and the beginning of house warming party season.
My sister has asked my wife and I to be the god parents to the child she is going to have next month. This poses quite a few paradoxes for me. First - it conflicts directly with my stated desire not to have children of my own. It would be rather ironic if I were to then have to raise another person's offspring. The second "sticky wicket" (I am not sure where than came from) is that I don't believe in god, per se.
I told my sister my decision hinges upon her always wearing her seatbelt and stopping smoking ASAP.
The Minnesota Timberwolves should increase their win total and their emotional energy level with a couple key moves they have made this off-season.
With a starting 5 of:
Sam Cassell (17 points per game)
Latrell Sprewell (16 points per game)
Wally Szczerbiak (15 points per game)
Kevin Garnett (23 points per game)
Michael Olowokandi (12 points per game)
...they are pretty potent offensively and much better defensively. I think these moves put them as the favorite in their division and possibly a bit better than Dream Team V. Here's to me not being disappointed come playoff time again.
Still lovin' I'm with Busey - Gary Busey is a quote-a-minute and there is some wisodom in there if you rinse off all the craziness.
In other media consumption news: Hedwig and the Angry inch (the movie) was actually pretty damn good. I really like the songs and the characters had me caring about what was happening to them. Now I cannot get those songs out of my head.
A precurser to my upcoming writing of why the Internet is not shit:
Jesse James Garrett's recent short essay: The 9 Pillars of Successful Web Teams complement nicely the book I am currently reading: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. (yeah that is a bit overdue). Garrett suggests there are 9 basic competencies that come into play on successful projects: 1. User Research, 2. Site Strategy, 3. Technology Strategy, 4. Content Strategy, 5. Abstract Design, 6. Technology Implementation, 7. Content Production, 8. Concrete Design, 9. Project Management.
What follows if you read the extended text of this entry is a rambling piece of writing that attempts to describe how I am generally involved in each of these 9 "pillars" and then some attempts to pull all the ramblings together. When I started this post yesterday I am almost certain I had a point. I am just sure there was some underlying, message that I wanted to convey. I warn you now, however, you won't find it in the extended entry.
Continue reading "Succsessful Web Teams"It should come as no surprise that I am very interested in how web logging and the web in general will shape the future. Yesterday's post at Will Femia's Weblog at MSNBC was about weblogs as potentially being the CB Radio of the late 90's and today. While I had heard this analogy before - it was always in conjunction with an explicit negative connotation. Femia brings up the point that many CB Radio enthusiasts adhere to the belief that it was their beloved technology that served as a jumping off point for bigger and better technological breakthroughs. That got me to thinking again about what weblogs will lead to.
I hope to post about some of the great things (and not so great things that weblogs can lead to in the coming days. And while I have a much less cynical view of the present web than this guy, I think we both could agree that there is much room for improvement and a bright future ahead for weblogs and the web in general if we collectively address some of the mediums main shortcomings.
While the author of the above site may feel he "can walk into any public library, no matter how tiny and underfunded, and find facts, stories, amazing information I would never touch in a month of webcrawling" or "go into a bar and hear stories Usenet hasn't come close to in its 22 years of waffle" I would claim the reverse is true as well. The wealth of information available on the web is truly astounding. I think the author hits on the main strength of the web by trying to label it is as self-perpetuating, machine churning our lies and misinformation. The web and all of its content is valuable because it is not simply an encyclopedia of knowledge, reporting facts as truth. Truth, it has been argues is only relevant when perspective is taken into account anyways - and what the web definitely is - is millions of perspectives on our world.
This point leads nicely into something Anil posted on July 2nd about the atomic nature of individual entries of a weblog. Essentially a weblog, if broken down to its most basic elements, the post or single entry or idea would be the base component. Essentially then the web is simply made up of numerous ideas held together (in some cases loosely) in weblogs or groups of weblogs.
I just booked airfare to Paris this spring. $241 round trip! I couldn't afford not to go. I will be hitting some folks I know (Jason that means you) for any suggestions of what to see and do. If you have any suggestions for me please email them or leave a comment.
Here are some new Lonely Planet books I have added to my wishlist: France, Paris, Belgium & Luxembourg
A new MIT project called Open Government Information Awareness is off to a fast start in its mission to aggregate information about the U.S. government and it's "going on" - to help "citizens understand the complexities of their government."
I plan on keeping tabs on this site to see how it works out. It would great to "turn the tables" on government and keep tabs on them - and if it can all be done while my lazy ass sits at a computer, all the better.
[Source: CNN]
Erik Benson has become some of my favorite writers on the web. With essays such as There Ain't Nothin' On TV and posts like Good Ideas. He is beginning to rank right up there with Todd Levin, of Tremble.com as one of my favorite web writers.
It would be great to combine the thoughtfulness of Benson with the humor of Levin - and of course the link mining of Ben at Magnetbox. I guess the most I can hope for presently is to make a post at all. I really need to get my computer setup at home - not to mention any sort of internet connection there.
Right now I am not holding out much hope for this to happen soon. I have a pending order outstanding with Qwest (i.e. the worst telephone company in the world) and this is the order status I get after loggin in:
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