From the Harvard bookstore, Howard Zinn's reading list. His A People's History of the United States should be read by anyone who still believes that those in power actually care about the common man. If you choose, you can get the abridged version which includes exercises at the end of each chapter.
Visualize the Internet and Web with the maps and diagrams at the Atlas of Cyberspaces site. Tons of maps here on all sorts of things, from Web site maps to topology maps of the entire Internet.
I switched the type on my menu from Sevenet to Silkscreen. I'll be doing the same on 0sil8 shortly.
Went to the Minnesota State Fair yesterday. I ate lots of unhealthy food and saw a lumberjack that was on MTV's Real World. An apt and succinct summary of what the State Fair is.
The DVD version of a Clockwork Orange includes the original movie trailer shown in theatres. I think it's the best trailer I've ever seen. The musical arrangement of that 30 seconds of film is better than anything I've seen anywhere in any media this year (excepting certain VW commercials of which I am enamored). I'm now convinced the best element of Kubrick's movies (and movie trailers) is the music.
New episode of 0sil8. It's basically an announcement for the new font I made (see below), but with a little more design. Check it out now (funk soul brother).
Ooohh! Someone did something delightful with openlog and Silkscreen. Go look, go look!
Something about this looks awfully familiar. ;)
It's beta-test time, kids. I need people to test Silkscreen, a new font I made. If you could go download it, install it on your machine and play around with it some in your favorite graphics program (works best at 8pt. multiples), that would be great. And just so I don't get deluged, email me *only if you have problems* with the font (although general feedback is certainly welcome...I just don't want 200 "It works" messages). I'm especially interested in how it functions on the Mac.
Babe: Pig in the City is a very dark, well-crafted movie that tanked at the box office. Hollywood seems not to be able to effectively market movies like this. I mean, how was I to know that an orangutan gave a *much* better performance in this movie than that of the entire cast of American Pie put together. And I'm not joking.
Speaking of good movies that do poorly at the box office, I would love to see the Iron Giant get another crack at trying to find an audience. The idea is that they re-release the movie around the holidays, hopefully learning from their promotional mistakes the first time around.
"I'd like this comb, one of those nail clippers, a TV Guide, some of those batteries, and that deck of playing cards. Oh yeah, and these maxipads and tampons."
Bliss is interesting design work for which you get paid.
I've heard some stuff by Basement Jaxx since my last entry. Damn, that's some catchy stuff. Especially good are the cuts of Rendez-Vu and Yo-Yo off of their Remedy album. Rendez-Vu in particular is extremely infectious, reminiscent of Daft Punk's Around the World and The Orb's Toxygene.
Artists Komar & Melamid present The Most Wanted Paintings. They polled people in several different countries about their likes and dislikes with regard to art and then painted the results. Highly humorous. Even better is The People's Choice Music, two songs based upon a similar poll for music. The composer notes are great. Something to think about the next time you are designing a Web site by committee.
Basement Jaxx are playing in Mpls. at the Quest on September 21. I've only heard bits and pieces of their stuff, but we get so few electronica artists here in town that I'll probably go.
The Lawn Wranglers is a fan site dedicated to the films of Wes Anderson, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson. I've not seen Bottle Rocket in a while, but Rushmore was one of my five favorite movies of the year and resides in my DVD collection.
Wedding bells for Fatboy Slim.
File this under "results-oriented hacking". Rather than just hack into a teevee production company's computer system just to say he did it, Abe hacked into it to get onto MTV's Road Rules and score with one of his fellow cast members. Very interesting.
I just saw a guy taking a whiz and talking on his cell phone at the same time. I didn't think anything was that important.
And I'm wondering how he managed to get his pants unzipped and such with one hand on the phone. The man is obviously very talented.
Some new music in the house (or in my house, to be more specific): Micro Tech Mix 2.0 by DJ Micro. It's fluffy, groovy, dancy music...and it's great. It's got BT on it, for Peter's sake! If you like any of the other stuff by the Moonshine cats (Keoki, John Kelley, Carl Cox), you'll like this as well.
As I've written here before, I'm not a big fan of Woody Allen the actor but I like Woody Allen the director. Therefore, I had high hopes for Celebrity. It turns out that while Woody isn't in the movie, Kenneth Branagh plays Woody Allen playing the lead role. I'm not joking; see it yourself if you think I'm kidding. Also, Winona Ryder must have had her breasts done since her last film...they were quite conspicuous. Either that or she was wearing one of those water bras from Fredrick's of Hollywood.
States of Control looks like an interesting movie.
$35 later, 0sil8 is mine for another year. Now if I could only get up the energy to update the damn thing. Actually, the font I've been working on is done. All I need to do is pound out a design, take care of a few other things, and BAM! new episode.
Reminder: openlog is a collaborative weblog/journal thingie (i.e. a pita). If you'd like, you may contribute a link or redesign the whole thing. Go nuts.
Reminder #2: People are getting tired of hearing me say this, but go and see The Iron Giant. And just so I have something new to say on the topic, there are some Iron Giant action figures up for auction on eBay.
One of my girlfriend's good friends died earlier this week. He was only 24 years old. Motorcycle accident. Freakish kickstand malfunction. The funeral is tomorrow.
If you could, take a minute to think of the people you care about. Think about what you'd do if they were suddenly gone. Remember all the good times and adventures and moments you shared with them. Think of them as if they were gone and then remember that they're still here. Grab that feeling and keep it with you.
Simply Porn gets some more press on Wired News.
God is a masturbator. No comment.
Back Orifice 2000 allows people to gain remote access to other people's computers. While not an ideal use for the program, this certainly is the most humorous.
I'm going to bug you until you go see The Iron Giant. Just giving you fair warning.
CSL GmbH in Germany is offering two year domain name registrations for about US$45, almost half of what Network Solutions sells them for. This is great...prices are finally going down. Hopefully, Network Solutions will be undercut by some competitive pricing and go out of business. Couldn't happen to nicer folks.
Some of you may not know it (because it is tanking at the box office and the promotion has been minimal), but there's a movie out right now called The Iron Giant. You really need to go see this movie. If you've got kids, take them to the Iron Giant instead of the claptrap that Disney makes everyone see. If no one wants to go with you to see it, go by yourself (like I did). Hell, if you live in Mpls., send me an email and I'll go with you and spring for the popcorn. If you go, let me know what you think.
A lot of what Harry Knowles says about the Iron Giant echoes my own thoughts. An excellent review written from the heart. Two great bits from the review:
"Tonight I heard a child tell their mother, 'Mom, killing is bad.'"
"After the film I ran into Glen and his kid Lil' David. As always David came running up to hit me in my belly, and I shook my finger and told him, 'Don't be a gun David.' He lowered his arm and looked at me. He smiled and went to run in circles screeching out, 'I'm Superman!'"
I cried like a baby at the end of this film...it was that good for me.
I bet if I link to a bunch of people here, that most of them will link back to me. They'll look at their logs and say, "hmmm....this Jason guy linked to me" and then they'll write about it in their journal or weblog. Let's see what happens. And if I linked to you and you're reading this, there's no harm in playing along, is there?
Talk about your meta headaches...Jennifer is running metapita, a weblog of weblogs.
Get a professionally designed pre-fab homepage over at Hoopla.
0sil8 is featured on Netscape's What's Cool page for the third time in about 9 months. I thought you could only get on there once. Looks like someone over there likes me.
Someone posted a German version of 0sil8 on Metababy. Cool.
The movie going public needs a way to distinguish bad Hollywood movies from good, well-made films. The Sixth Sense had all the trappings of a bad movie: typical hype-filled previews, Bruce Willis, a precocious kid in the lead role, etc. Imagine my surprise that the movie was actually quite good. The story, the dialogue, the acting, and the cinematography were all solid, even great in parts. And no cheese to be found anywhere.
A favorite line from The Sixth Sense: "they don't have meetings about rainbows".
In case you were wondering how to sign abortion in sign language. A little unsettling when you think about it. And the sign for sex is a little boring...one could imagine more colorful possibilities.
The Modern Cafe in Minneapolis is delightful. Check it out if you're in the area.
McDonald's might be offering hamburgers out of a kiosk/ATM type of thing. The world didn't end yesterday, but isn't this one of the signs of an approaching apocalypse?
The world did not end yesterday. I guess that's a good thing.
Click here for Christina Ricci's bosom. Boobs sell movie tickets, kids.
The Matrix is out on DVD! I just pre-ordered my copy. Buy! Buy like the wind!
Somebody made a collaborative weblog called "openlog" over at pitas.com. Anyone can update it (including you! yes, you!) by going to the login screen and using openlog/openlog as the username/password. Go now!
I've been wearing an old pair of pants this weekend...I've had them since my senior year in college. They used to be my favorite pair, but not anymore. Several shiny, new pairs purchased since have taken their place. I wonder if they feel neglected. Perhaps I should wear them more often...it might make them feel good.
Time to update the archives: this page is over 40K...and that doesn't include the images. If I had my pipedream XML/Perl/database publishing system in place, that wouldn't be a problem. Sorry for the long download.
While I'm on the topic of traffic flow, there's some yummy content on this site: Physics for Bored Commuters. Mr. Beaty confirms some of my suspicions about how to make traffic run more smoothly, most notably the idea of leaving a large space in front of your vehicle for merging traffic. Beaty also links to a slick Java applet that simulates a small area of in-town stoplight traffic that you can manipulate. (thanks Aaron and Peter)
One thing that he didn't mention is the proper speed of a merging car. In order to merge successfully into moderate-to-heavy traffic, you need to be moving at least as fast as said traffic. Failure to do so results in a traffic pileup both on the on-ramp and on the highway.
I might go see this movie just so I can say: "Two for Dick, please."
The iBrator. Why didn't I think of that?
It seems like I've been reading Mike Sugarbaker's List of the Top 50 Things for as long as I can remember.
I don't quite know why, but I'm pretty interested in how traffic moves on the freeway. The Washington Post had a nice article yesterday on the attempts to model traffic flow using physics and computers and such. When I drive on the freeway, I like to observe the flow of traffic...I guess you could call it a small hobby of mine. It never ceases to amaze me when I see a car speed past me only to pass the same car in the slow lane miles down the road. Slow and steady wins the race? Or nobody wins the race?
People buy $25 Tommy Hilfiger clothing items for their toddlers. There's something fundamentally wrong with that.
All of a sudden, everyone (Maxi, Smug, Glassdog, Obvious) is using these message boards. It makes me think I should be doing so as well.
Computers suck. It took me an hour and 20 minutes to do something this morning that should have taken less than five.
Happiness is being called an internet pimp.
An interesting read from Tog about designing GUIs vs. designing for Web browsers. Basically he says that designing applications using the existing HTML standard is difficult and the results are less than spectacular. He also mentions a couple reasons why users and developers alike should discard Netscape's browser in favor of Microsoft's (I agree).
New site designs: CamWorld and Stating the Obvious.
The new CamWorld design is going to take some getting used to; the old design had more personality. Also, the movement of the often used sidebar links from the right side to the left side means more back and forth mouse travel. Content is still king on CamWorld though...it's still very readable and easy to use.
The Stating the Obvious redesign is much sharper, IMHO. It's clean, consistant, and simple without being boring. I just wish Michael would keep it more up to date.
Cars, along with lots of other things, are built with parts. If one part wears out, you can replace it without having to replace the whole car. Web sites, more often than not, are not built in this fashion. Data and structure are integrated...there aren't any parts. So when something on such a Web site wears out (i.e. the site needs an upgrade), you basically have to trash the whole thing and start from scratch. I need to start building my sites with more parts.