A Whole Lotta Nothing

Bush team plans policy to

Bush team plans policy to prevent power supply crises

Here's the keeper, a quote from Cheney:

"The federal government's main role should be to facilitate more energy production, he said."

I suppose conservation, increasing efficiency, and continuing to protect the environment are beside the point. Build more plants, yeah right, that's always the answer.

This is why I

This is why I like working on Blogger. A fellow professor at Kay's work had twins, her husband bought a digital camera, and rationalized it by promising that he'd keep a journal with photographs to document their growth. And they're in it for the long haul, if you look down the sidebar at the "events" listing.

A million people could complain about Blogger being slow and their ftp or archives not working, and I just keep thinking of sites like this, and how amazing the stuff we're doing is, and it makes it all worth it.

I was going through some

I was going through some old files, and noticed a screenshot of this very site, when my design was stolen by another site. I revisited that site tonight, to see if it was still up and noticed the top post: "I'm getting really tired of the boring design of this site. Does anyone have an inspiration for a cool new look?"

Just a friendly public service warning that you might be next.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Pointless Statistical Projects for

Pointless Statistical Projects for a Sunday Afternoon: create a graph of magazine thickness vs. time, for Business 2.0, Fast Company, Industry Standard, and Wired. Then overlay NASDAQ index levels, and finally give a r² value to determine how those things are correlated. If they don't correlate, is there a time shift due to publishing delays?

If I had enough magazines, I would have completed such a project, but for now it's just a pointless wish.

Look Ma, I got mentioned

Look Ma, I got mentioned in Slate! (scroll down to the bit about Peter Maass' new site)

Those wacky greenpeace kids are

Those wacky greenpeace kids are at it again. I think we all know that "protest" is going to be a big word over the next four years. It'll be interesting to see if all these calls to action bear fruit, and bring some understanding and unity on the part of the new president, or if they polarize the country more.

I do hope the Alaskan Wilderness survives unscathed, it seems to be the will of most Alaskans I know, though a real or perceived energy crunch could turn it into an oil field overnight.

I realized today that Maxim

I realized today that Maxim is a beer commercial, expanded into magazine format.

I wonder what the appeal of the beer-commercial-as-lifestyle is for most men. Is real life too unappealing? Is it a daydream world they wish for, or do they believe it represents reality?

Ideas thought of while goofing

Ideas thought of while goofing around at lunch (part of a long series):

We noticed an empty office space got converted into a restaurant, and with the current climate in SOMA, why not run with the idea?

Mindshare, the internet startup-themed restaurant. Menus would appear as flash-based powerpoint-esque presentations on Ergos. Menu items: Appetizers = Angel Investments, Burgers = Integrated eBurger Solutions, Dessert Cart = Collaborative Deliverables. Restaurant furniture consists of IKEA tables and Aeron chairs. Waiters and Waitresses would be referred to as P-to-P infrastructure supply chains. They would all be clothed in business-casual, new media blue shirts and khakis. All meals could be paid for by one-clicking the bill. There would be no tipping, to entice new customers, ensure that shipping food to their table was free, and all menu items would be sold at a loss. After gaining a sufficient number of eyeballs and becoming market leader, the restaurant would then figure out a sustainable business plan.

Living Memory.

Living Memory.

There's going to be an

There's going to be an American Pie 2?! Oh god no. It was slightly funny for a few seconds when it came out, but a sequel? Please...

Based on the raving reviews

Based on the raving reviews of a few friends, I signed up for Netflix today. Unlimited DVD rentals, keep up to 3 as long as you like, mail them back in their pre-addressed and postaged containers, and they have almost every DVD made, for $19.95/mo. So for the price of buying one DVD per month, I can instead rent and see everything I ever wanted to. Kay and I spent about an hour off and on trying to think of every movie we missed in the past few years. The Netflix interface isn't perfect, so having a second window open to the IMDB helped us pick. We now have over 30 movies in our queue, with Timecode, Cradle Will Rock, and Run Lola Run in the mail and on the way (3 movies I wanted to catch, but missed over the last year or so). Many of the things on our list are foreign and indie films we can never remember to look for, or have a hard time finding.

I can already tell this is going to be an awesome service.

Blogger is scorching fast for

Blogger is scorching fast for me now, and I couldn't be happier about the success of the server fund. I learned more about networking features in Windows 2000 than I wanted to know, but with the new server "farm" (2 servers is hardly a farm) in place, we'll be able to plop in servers as needed. I also learned that when you ask your users and friends to chip in, the results can be astounding.

Once again, the future for Blogger is a bright one.

An updated Microbus from VW.

An updated Microbus from VW. Wow.

While enjoying tonight's syndicated simpsons

While enjoying tonight's syndicated simpsons episode, I couldn't stop laughing at the repeated use of the word "embiggen." I plopped it into google, and it turns out linguists loved the episode too.

Jazz, the series, starts tonight

Jazz, the series, starts tonight on PBS, and if it's anything like Ken Burns' previous works, it should be incredible.

During the new years in

During the new years in Idaho, I relaxed by consuming media. I read two books and watched a handful of movies, the following are short reviews of each.

Books
Survivor - I read Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club before the movie came out, and was impressed by the originality and the dark humor. I remember many people saying Fight Club (the movie and/or book) was troubling, but I felt Survivor affected me much more. In the first part of the book, the narrator is pretty much a Tyler Durden type. The second part satirizes the road to fame, and the last bit deals with death. Overall, I liked it even more than Fight Club, but came away with a feeling of despair about death.

Don't Make Me Think - I heard good things about this book, but was skeptical after reading other books and websites on usability. I hated Jakob's book. It was overpriced and filled with hard rules of how to design according to Jakob, with little talk of intended audience, and very little data to support his bold claims. Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug was refreshing in comparison. I highly recommend it to anyone building sites that isn't strictly in the IA (information architecture) area (I could see IAs thinking the book covers beginner stuff), and especially to designers wanting to build sites anyone can use. Krug presents reasons for certain layouts and some basic style guidelines, and most of it is backed by empirical evidence of past sites and usability tests. He also presents a range of solutions for several common elements of page design. Instead of saying "all instances of X need to look like Y" he explains how users would interact with different options, and how they can range from being obvious to being obscure to users. It's a short book, and the author states why, so anyone can get through it in just a few hours. Even though I've been designing for a long time and thinking about all the issues raised in the book, I still came away with quite a few useful tips and ways to think about layouts.

DVDs
Galaxy Quest - making fun of star trek is still quite funny.

Ronin - watched only for enjoying the car chases on the surround sound system, I forgot how badly the spy-thriller storyline fell flat.

Toy Story 2 - 3D rendering and animation has come so far. Funnier than the first movie and with plenty of eye candy to look at.

The Conversation - supposedly a classic, it just felt slow, aimless, and altogether pointless. If it were done today, the film's 113 minutes could probably fit within a half hour. Nice to see early 70's San Francisco though.

Rushmore - still one of the funniest movies of the 90's for me.

Wallace and Gromit - great claymation, though I forgot to bring the remote so we were stuck with Grand Day Out, probably Nick Park's weakest outing.

The Player - I've always loved this one. Watching it this time, I was taken with the camera work. There were some great long shots (going several minutes without a cut), and interesting use of variable focus/perspective shots.

Usual Suspects - great writing and acting, I'm still amazed this one cost only about six million to make. It looks so much better.

W, shown busting rhymes, backed

W, shown busting rhymes, backed up by his rich-white-guy posse. Another display of his mad skills.

Idaho was relaxing, calming, and

Idaho was relaxing, calming, and fun. Here are some images from the past few days.