and another useful one, a web development reference clip.

more useful links for those into games, the game cabinet.

i find myself giving people advice lately in which i'm speaking as if i'm a psychologist. i analyze the person they're having trouble with, come up with some reasoning behind their actions, and base my advice on this. since i'm usually making it up, i don't really expect them to believe me, i'm just enjoying the psycho-analysis, what's creepy is i'm starting to think i'm right.

in fact i'm having serious concerns about my over-inflated ego, especially after getting clip2 feedback like this:

"This is one of the best designed sites that I have EVER seen!!! I have designed several sites and am always looking at site design for graphical look, ease of use, ease of navigation, etc. I have yet to find a site that can hold a candle to your site! NONE of the major sites can come close to this site, not even microsoft, netscape, hotmail, or any other! I love the configurability and ease of use (especially the clipper!). Keep up the awesome work!!!"

*spark-online professes to be "exploring electronic consciousness". the few articles i read i enjoyed, especially this one which goes into the the effect of ecommerce on society.

"In other words, have we lost control of our lives so much that we can't go out? Or has our world become so crowded and our physical infrastructures so inadequate that we just don't want to?"

it's the little things that make life fun.

ah, peter always seems to be able to put into words what i'm thinking but haven't figured out how to say yet. his discussion of hierarchy and the problems it entails are why i created the openblogportal. i wanted to stop forcing my classification system on everyone and allow them to slice the data in ways that make sense to them. also to add data that they think is valuable or useful. what's missing, i think, is the desire for people to actually do that work themselves. i also have other ulterior motives, like thinking clip2 is a really cool tool that people haven't discovered the potential of yet, but you know that already otherwise i wouldn't keep harping on about it, right?

the kryptos sculpture sits in a courtyard at cia headquarters and is not only a fountain and sculpture but also a coded message.

junkbusters offers useful information on how to stop junk email, junk mail, telemarketing calls etc. i didn't know that you could simply fill out a form and prohibit people from sending you mail.

lawrence tipped me off on this interview with netslaves author bill lessard.

i'm disappointed, i got out of my car just as talk of the nation announced they were going to be talking to william gibson and david brin.

bob pointed out to me that the openblogportal is not as usable because it doesn't allow collapsing the outline or sorting, you just have to scroll through the whole thing. so i wanted to point out to everyone that if you subscribe to the clip (it's free) then it gets added to your account and you can play with it all you want. obviously, since i'm explaining this, it needs serious improvement, but what can i say.

more weblog metrics, this time it's a scoop index. from what i can gather, i'm not very original.

i just spent about 15 minutes adding a categorized section to the openblogportal. i used the same categories as i had in my blog portal, but since it's open, people are no longer limited to those categories, and can create sub-categories.

after all my complaining about some of nielsen's more recent alertboxes, he goes and writes one that i agree with whole-heartedly. i just wish i could convince everybody here of the importance of immediate gratification.

maybe i'm much too literal, but i really can't see the comparison between a person who doesn't know how to drive killing another driver in an accident and the harm that can occur on the web, "potentially dangerous place" that it is. calling the web an "information superhighway" was inaccurate and lame when it was first coined, do we have to carry that on by talking about licensing users as if they were drivers? should we start calling browsers "cars" and imposing speed limits? you must spend at least 10 minutes on this site or you'll get a ticket. via webword.

i'm curious about the guru phenomenon. most people, usually at the beginning of their career in a certain field will find a guru and, assuming the guru makes sense, avidly listen to every word they say. gradually, the person gains more knowledge and experience and begins to question the guru's "facts". even later, they will laugh at the guru's assumptions. now is this because the person has gained more knowledge and confidence in their field or because the guru has gotten used to people believing everything he says even if it's idiotic? thanks victor for reminding me.

i finally feel like i've got my life back together. i'm actually getting things done that have been neglected. i finished the book on the bookshelf and information design yesterday. i've only been reading both of them for over a month. the book on the bookshelf was a fascinating history, but it got really tedious in the middle (put me to sleep several times). the appendix, however, contained an interesting list of different ways to organize books, it may even have inspired me to rearrange my shelves. information design, being a series of short essays, was much easier to finish. the essays range from really valuable to mildly interesting and is a valuable addition to any ia's bookshelf. it's not the be all and end all of information design, more like an introduction to the concepts, the methods of application and some real world examples to keep it interesting.

an interesting, but long and sometimes tedious, series on the dark side of silicon valley.

i read in the beginning... was the command line on the way up to lincoln on thursday. a very enjoyable read which really made me think about the disneyfication of the world, and why people would want it so much.

this morning i was jarred from sleep by the phone ringing. when i answered, a condescending voice asked me if my mom or dad was there. i pointed out that i was the owner of the house and was immediately subjected to a sales pitch, for the mercury news. i managed to hang up the phone after pointing out that i read it online, but realized afterwards what a crazy concept that is. actually paying for a paper that i can read for free. what are they thinking?

jorn did a look up of all the different spellings of "brigitte" (on 11/25). surprisingly the french spelling had the most hits. looking at all the different spellings reminds me of the reason why my mum spelled it the french way: she didn't want me to be nicknamed bridie. so instead my nickname is bridge, go figure.

do weblog ads scare anybody else like they scare me? i can understand someone saying "hey i need to support my server, i've gotta put up banners". i wouldn't like it, but i can understand it. but someone putting up banners to promote other peoples' weblogs, not getting paid for it other than in reciprocal banners just creeps me out. i can much less obtrusively put a link to another weblog in my text and not subject my readers to annoying banners. am i missing a key point here?

i guess i wasn't the only one throwing my hands up in disgust at the cyber-slacking article earlier this week, mark gimein writes about the stupidity of it in salon.

i was starting to get worried about my popularity, what with dropping from 9 to 14 in the metalog rankings and not being featured in the bloat top ten. but i feel that my luck is changing, not only did i make the 9th slot on the bloat list, but i got recognized for my crowning accomplishment: popularizing the word blog! and i thought no one noticed. now i just have to tell everyone who's listed in the blog portal that they have to link to me or i'll pull their listing, then i'll be sure to oust cam from the #1 spot. i *will* be popular whatever it takes, coercion, paying people, i'll even run banner ads on robotwisdom and scripting news. they will come in droves and worship me and make me millions and... oops wrong fantasy. sorry.

the latest rcfoc has a plethora of new technologies seen at comdex. convergence appears to be upon us. i for one can't wait for the bluetooth enabled devices, especially the ear jewelery.

i've added another folder in the openblogportal so that bloggers can add more information about themselves, what they're favorite blogs are etc. i also used the shortcuts at the bottom for the top ten from metalog's rankings.

while everything sean carton says in his article interactive media is different makes sense and should be read by the hordes of marketing folk who just don't get it, this quote really hit home:

"Finally, it's a Metamedium. A what? Sorry to have to fling words like that around, but its true - to call the web a medium is wrong: It's a medium of media, a place where all forms of electronic media can meet and interact and become more than the sum of their parts."

the web is illegal???? now i know why religions scare me so much, that and the little episode of slave labor for scientology back when i was 10, but i won't go into that.

redcart is offering an all in one shopping cart and wishlist service covering stores from amazon to wholefoods.com, in internetnews.

are mortgages on domain names a precursor to virtual real estate?

scientists have managed to photograph the brain learning a memory.

how come we don't see more articles on the long hours and lack of coffee breaks or lunch breaks that workers are enduring? we just get accused of cyber-slacking. thanks john.

analog 4.0 is out.

diablo ii, is it a movie or a game? in salon.

another experiment in group activities. i've created an account on clip2 with a username: openblogportal and a password: blogs. i've imported my entire blog portal into the account and created a clip which can be viewed. this enables anyone with a blog to go in and edit their blog, it also enables people with lots of free time to categorize the blogs, create folders, comments, whatever.

since i finally feel like clip2 is decent enough to send people to, i can now start putting clips up. (that and the fact that we now have a preview page, so you don't have to be a member) here's my daily browse.

guru paradox: user-centered or self-centered?

my latest ui is finally up! go check it out: clip2.com.

sure fire way to increase traffic: write a controversial, mildly insulting, piece about weblogs, and don't forget to include the permanent url. i'm finding all the conversations about weblogs being the next big thing, an art form, a new business model, something we should all be able to make money off of in varying different ways, etc. etc. ad nauseum, extremely amusing. i'm only speaking for myself of course, but we're in it because we enjoy it, it's a form of self-expression. period. why is it that every six months everyone has to get on a "weblogs are the next big money making thing" bandwagon??? maybe i should just write my own rant, it'll be sure to increase traffic...

an article from late october, while an interesting read, i don't see the author suggesting the new form that software and interfaces should take. just what they should not be.

a brief but interesting article covering css and tables.

i also finished william gibson's new book all tomorrow's parties. i really enjoyed it, but am left with the impression that i just read a short story that was setting me up for a future, larger novel.

i actually went to a movie last night. the last movie i saw was austin powers ii. sad. i got dragged to see the new bond film, and all i can say is, watch out for all the bad puns, they're excessive.

michael has put together two useful, or at least interesting, pages. one is a ranking of all weblogs, the other is a list of most frequently selected links.

i feel so good, mentally that is. i took the whole weekend off and only went near a computer to help my sister set hers up. sometimes i'm amazed by how resilient the human mind is.

just finished net slaves. it was quite amusing and scary but already dated.

well, the release date got pushed out 'til monday morning. just because no one wants to spend another weekend here. and we've all been ordered to take the weekend off. it's always nice to know that they care about your sanity.

how to write unmaintainable code. i wish i'd had this handy guide a month ago.

phew. nader really makes it clear who alan greenspan is working for, and it's obviously not the people.

heh. according to jorn's stats, epinions is swamped with lots of writers but not enough readers. at least not enough to be profitable for anyone.

why does this read more like a complex math problem than a guide to web design. and does anyone else remember a certain design for the sun website that had tabs across the top for navigation? or am i misinterpreting the definition of tabs?

"Tabs are supposed to be used for rapid switching between alternative views of the same information object.

i just went to lake effect using my work/ie browser. all along i'd thought the serif text was intentional, but now i see that dan just didn't bother to put font tags in his table cells. i like the new cornflowerblue background.

i think i want one of these, but i wouldn't know until i got it whether i could really use it. and 4k is a lot to spend on something you might not like. seen in dan bricklin's comdex journal.

i think truste may just have killed themselves, what good is it to be a monitoring agency that doesn't do anything when licensees break the rules?

i've been seeing (and ignoring) links to neal stephenson's in the beginning... was the command line. i've finally gotten interested enough to buy it, but you can download it.

here's something that i missed, which everybody else has probably linked to already, brains4zombies.com. please bear with me i'm about a week behind.

would you be so honest? an atm spits out $5k, do you keep it or give it back?

*everybody* wants web programmers right now, no wonder i'm getting so many solicitations.

sniff! i don't know whether i should feel left out because i haven't made bloat's rankings or to be happy that 'sally tenpenny' hasn't noticed my own huge ego yet.

i've been fixing bugs all day. restraining myself from asking people why they are such complete idiots, and in general being proud of myself that i hadn't lost it. until they sprung the "we have to have this new feature before we go live" line on me. then i wanted to seriously kill someone.

steve was kind enough to give me a link to the videos of the camden conference. watch them, it was a good conference.

here i'd thought that i'd re-entered society, and i spend all day wanting to kill someone. clearly i'm not mentally stable yet.

you know there's nothing worse than incorrect info on a product, amazon just updated diablo ii to say it won't be out until march 31, 2000.

when i went to pop!tech, i mentioned a talk by john sculley about how profits are no longer a good measure of a company's success. this article delves into that concept a little. thanks lawrence.

a new moving webword about managing user expectations.

amazon finally took the leap into software, something beyond.com has been dreading for years. funnily enough, they did it right. things i was trying to get implemented at beyond are done exactly how i suggested at amazon. sigh. i also realized that you can preorder diablo ii, supposedly it's due on dec. 10. i'm not holding my breath, it's been 'due' for over 2 years now.

a while back i mentioned sony's memory stick as a cool but too expensive technology that probably wouldn't go anywhere. but now they've partnered with palm, their chances of adoption have skyrocketed.

i've been getting a huge number of job offers lately, so many that i had felt i had to change my resume to emphasize that i'm happily employed. why didn't i get so many when i was actually looking for a job?

i just finished reading Shadow Syndromes last night. it was an amazingly easy and enjoyable read, and really said some mindblowing things about our mental health and how much biology rather than upbringing can affect it. it also made me see people in a whole new light.

i feel like i've checked out of society for the past week. but i think i'm sufficiently recovered to actually be a functioning member again. i *never* want to see the sunrise and the sunset on the same day again, at least not when i'm going to bed at sunrise and going to work at sunset.

31 hours of music on one little device? pjb's will give it to you, in the latest rcfoc.

it just occurred to me that lawrence of tomalak's realm rarely gets enough public appreciation. he consistently digs up new stories and relevant old stories. if you don't visit him regularly, or at least get his email, you're missing out on a lot.

Another article about blogs, this time the spin is "community".

so after working 2 weeks straight to get this site up, i found out last night that we've been given a 2 day extension. great, right? unfortunately, the reason for the extension is a terminology change. terminology that we spent weeks agonizing over, months implementing, and is thoroughly imbedded in the logic of the code and the ui, now has to be changed. but they were nice enough to give us an extra 2 days to do that in. oh, and by the way, the reason why we had such a tight deadline no longer exists. did i happen to mention that i'm pissed.

have you ever worked for so long without a break that time just has no meaning anymore? i think i've hit that wall. i forgot to give public thanks to Charles Goodier for tweaking my css so that i no longer need to use javascript to reload my netscape window. it was a wonderful, simple, elegant fix that i would never have figured out myself.

funny, the more burned out i get the more i enjoy cruel humor. like the jakob nielsen drinking game. thank you cam this made my day.

interesting, well thought out anti-jakob nielsen point of view. via robotwisdom.

bloat presents weblogger rankings and commentary. roflmao.

michal who already had a wonderful feature to show which blogs were updated recently, has now implemented a blog search engine. we are all bowing down in awe of his skills.

ugh. not only do we have to have the site up by monday, but we had to move buildings today. i swear the whole day is shot.

NowThis is back and steve discusses some issues he has with epinions. yes, they're different from all the one's i've linked to before. and yes, i know the whole topic is getting old. last one, i promise.

cam had this link last friday, but i've been too busy to do the regular rounds. normally, i'd just leave it off, but my mind is just too blown away by the image of dogs dragging elk through a bedroom window.

dan gillmor's decision to start a weblog has inspired more weblog press. via tomalak.

the much hyped boo.com shopping site is now live. while it looks real nice, it takes way too long to load and uses more flash that most art sites. they also make the site challenging to use, which seems counterintuitive for a shopping site. oh yeah, it doesn't work on the mac.

my deadline is looming. so updates will be sporadic for the rest of the week.

it's always good to see a review of a site you worked on and be able to say "yup, i did that" about the good stuff and "i tried to change that" about the bad.

i was skeptical that this would save me from my boredom as the email claimed, but extragratis.com lived up to it. the poop-o-nizer truly made my morning.

copyright 1997-2000, by brig.