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New user? Tuesday, July 25, 2000
epiphany
I've noticed I'm most creative when I'm super-tired. Late last night I was surfing on my laptop upstairs (yay!) when a cool idea hit me. I seem to remember reading reports about this phenomenon but now I can't find them. Maybe I'll find them late tonight. :-)
Another thing I had thought of last night was a rebuttal to Michael Sippey's rebuttal to Jakob Nielsen's new Alertbox, End of Web Design. And now I can't remember that either. I'll re-read it just before bed tonight and make sure to write it down this time.
wasting money on a mass scale
RC3.ORG: "The recent G7 meeting that President Clinton attended for about half a day cost 750 million bucks to put on. As the author of the article points out, you could end famine in some parts of the world with that kind of money. What a joke."
A joke indeed. A pretty sad joke.
There's a link to the article on rc3.org -- if you'd like to read the article, please visit Rafe's site to get it.
In theory, a plasma could deflect a particle beam or laser attack
Force Fields and 'Plasma' Shields Get Closer to Reality -- this is very cool stuff. Check out this caption of a picture of the plasma:
"Side view of a cold plasma inside a Pyrex glass container. Cold plasmas can cloak satellites and spacecraft from radar view and shield against attack from certain kinds of energy weapons."
And this is reality? Yikes.
Monday, July 24, 2000
Weight Loss at 3 months
Evidence of long-term success in a weight-loss program. There are links at the bottom of this article to the program.
My weight loss is going well. Unofficially I've lost about 34 pounds since I started. My goal is to lose at least 70 pounds by April 25, 2001. I started on April 25 of this year.
The last month has been a little rocky. While I'm still eating healthy meals and exercising quite a bit, I've been snacking, which isn't good. Nothing really horrible, but I shouldn't be doing it. I need to get myself back on track, so that I'm losing weight at my full potential.
My Microsoft optical USB mouse is acting up :(
The Register: Numeric domain name system launched. A very interesting idea indeed. (via Swaine's World)
Nothing surprises me anymore
Wow, look at all these domains UserLand owns. (Those are just the first 50, it doesn't show the rest)
UserLand has domains using trademarks including Ford, Pokemon, Pikachu, Intel, Delta, American Air[lines], Third Voice, and Napster.
UserLand theatened legal action against a group of dedicated Frontier users in 1998 for putting up a pro-Frontier community website called FrontierUsers.Net, citing trademark abuse. That of course, was total bullshit, because UserLand doesn't even have a trademark on the word Frontier -- Frontier Corporation, a century-old telecommuncations company does. They knew this, but for unknown reasons they decided to exert their ability to pay legal fees and get their way, setting back the efforts of a group of very enthusiastic volunteers.
For the record, I am still an advocate of Frontier, despite everything that's happened.
Thanks for the link Dori!
What timing! :)
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, July 23, 2000: End of Web Design
"Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways"
Well, okay then!
Link via Faisal.com, a site that proves that less is more. On of my favourite web sites.
Deutsche
There are so many great and interesting looking German weblogs on editthispage.com. (An example). I really wish I knew German. My father is German, but I never picked up the language. I can pick up certain words, almost picking up meaning on occasion, but not enough to really comprehend.
It's a small world after all
My favourite feature of the weblog favourites browser is that I get to connect with the people who read my site (though, only other webloggers, which is a very unfortunate side-effect of the data feed I'm using).
Just a while ago I was looking at the list of webloggers who have added my site to their list of favourite sites, and I found some very excellent sites I hadn't read before. This German site which I can't read, Der Schockwellenreiter, is one of them.
Another is Greg Restall's weblog. From Greg's beautifully designed site I found a link to a very recent Newton FAQ, which mentions that a project to create an MP3 player for the Newton is underway. I've been using my MessagePad 2100 more lately, and with 2 PC Card slots, it could be a great MP3 player.
I find I have a little something in common with many of the people on that list, not the least of which is the willingness to share daily discoveries and experiences with everyone.
If you haven't registered your favourite weblogs yet, please do. If you need help, check out this documentation I wrote about how that works. You'll help other people who share interests connect with you -- who knows where that could lead.
Thanks. :-)
Jobs on Cube
Wes found a Newsweek interview with Steve Jobs about the new PowerMac Cube.
Enough has been said here about the Cube so I'll just leave it at that.
There's a big blue snake slithering through the dining room!
Last year I bought a Lombard PowerBook, the last laptop Apple made without AirPort support . Since the iBook came out I've yearned to be able to surf the net from my living room or bedroom -- after all, what's the point of a portable computer if it's tied to your desk? Everything I do on computers is tied to the 'net in one way or another, so using a disconnected computer is pretty impractical.
Well, tonight I solved my problem, sort of. I bought a 100' ethernet cable that can reach my living room, bedroom, and the patio in the back yard from my office.
It's not pretty, but it works. :-) Finally I'm getting my money's worth for this laptop!
Napsterkids
Found on Scripting News:
News.com: "We have a generation of computer jockeys that we've raised on Napster and MP3 who have gotten the idea, the mistaken idea, that everything in the store is free," King said. "And I'd like to see if we can't reeducate these people to the idea that the fruits of talent cost you money." (King == Stephen King)
I made a similar point a couple of weeks ago during the Napster discussion here. I also daydreamed about the kind of Napster service I want to use -- one that compensates users for making songs available online, a commission funded by a nominal per-song fee.
I don't know that Stephen King charging for his new book a chapter at a time on the honour system has much to do with the Napster-syndrome, but I find it interesting that he makes the point.
Addendum: Jeff Kandt wrote an amazing proposal for secure MP3 distribution on Hack the Planet. As Wes said, very well-thought out.
It's late right now, after midnight, so I'm not thinking clearly enough any more to figure out whether or not Jeff is describing a "p2p" distribution network or a "b2c" distribution network. (My guess is the latter)
I like the idea of a p2p network that compensates end-users for their hard-drive space and bandwidth, but hey that's just me. :-) I bet Jeff's proposal could accomodate that.
Glossary:
p2p: person to person
b2c: business to client (or customer)
Sunday, July 23, 2000
Just in the nick of time
Ironically, the web server that hosts just the images for this site went down overnight due to another storm. The new home page template doesn't have images. But if you go to the other pages in the site, you'll notice a lot of broken images.
Update: I've updated the rest of the site to match the home page's template.
The first web browser was written in Objective-C
Yesterday, while playing an online game (WarBirds), a person wouldn't believe me when I said the first web browser and web server were developed on a NeXT computer. (we were debating the merits of closed vs. open protocols, I'm not sure why I brought up TBL's NeXT box). We were promptly flamed for "talking shop" in the game, and rightly so! :-)
W3C: The History of the World Wide Web. from 1945 to 1995.
Opera and MDI - again
cnews: Look out Microsoft, the fat lady's singing
Opera is offered in 10 languages, including Afrikaans.
"We feel the software should be adapted to the user and not the other way around," Tetzchner said.
Okay... then: Opera Software, please adapt Opera so that I don't have to use the awful MDI ("several windows within one browser frame") user interface. I promise to purchase a copy as soon as that is a released feature. In the mean time, my 30 day trial license of Opera 4.0 hasn't expired yet.
