:Archive Of February 2001:
Wednesday, February 28, 2001
- 11:23 AM -
I guess I'm a geek. We just had a good tremor. I put one hand on the monitor, used the other to hit Send so I wouldn't lose the email, and then I went and put my boots on.
Tuesday, February 27, 2001
- 10:18 PM -
Getting down... One of the nice things about cassettes is who plays them anymore? Like 8-tracks and vinyl, you end up with a collection of semi-forgotten music in your closet, waiting to re-envelop you like the fragrance of old love letters. Alphaville -- The Singles Collection. Headphones set on "stun", captain.
- 12:00 PM -
Hee-hee! Like a suburban grow operation versus the cartels, Vincent becomes a radical street-corner dealer in the Image Economy. Read your Bruce Mau and dive in. Get yourself some of the good stuff: All Your Brand Are Belong To Us.
Friday, February 23, 2001
- 10:57 PM -
"Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web."
From the Google Fact Sheet, via Rory. No mention of Peanuts. Given the age of the Google founders, I was just wondering. By cute coincidence, Milton was eight years old when his uncle Edward asked what name to give to a really large number.
- 10:35 PM -
Aw fudge. The WaSP's iframe trick to send older browsers in for an upgrade has a hole in it. IE5.1 understands enough css to breeze in the door, but it doesn't recognize 'white-space: nowrap', which is a necessary tool if I'm not going to use tables for layout in my pages.
This is not good.
- 12:09 PM -
(I'd scan it, but Sparky's gone, and his estate lawyers would sue me...)
I bumped into this old sixties Peanuts strip, one of the classics with the love-lorn Lucy and Schroeder at the piano:
Lucy: Schroeder, What do you think the odds are that you and I will get married someday?
Schroeder: Oh, I'd say about "Googol" to one.
Lucy: How much is a "Googol"?
Schroeder: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Hmmm.... Anything to do with the name of a certain massively popular search engine?
Thursday, February 22, 2001
- 11:03 AM -
Oh...wow. Did somebody hack Apple's site or is this for real? That's what I remember from the 70s -- really tacky wallpaper. Man... Is there a wood trim model?
- 1:19 AM -
I feel like Bart Simpson having to write on the chalkboard 100 times, "Tables are not a visual layout tool. Tables are not a visual layout tool. Tables are not a visual layout tool..."
Wednesday, February 21, 2001
- 11:16 PM -
Er... wait a minute. In the Iliad the heros enter Troy and history in the Trojan Horse. It's possibly the most famous part of the epic. People who know none of the other stories know that one. But I just now realized how strange it is. I mean, for a bronze age tribal war, that's a pretty inventive stunt. I can't think of anything like it in antiquity. Even if it's utter fiction it's unique. Am I wrong? Has anyone studied this anomaly?
(Side note. On the net I find many references that say the Trojan Horse is in the Iliad, just as many that say it's not, a few that say it's in Virgil's Aeneid, and one that says it's in the Odyssey. I remember Odysseus having to strangle a cohort to keep him silent within the horse ... perhaps he spoke of this in the Odyssey as a memory. I haven't got the books handy.)
Tuesday, February 20, 2001
- 1:20 AM -
Can't breathe. Laughing. Too hard.
- 12:56 AM -
I ... I ... I have no idea how I've missed this. Comic Fusion at Waferbaby. Not for everyone. Me, I'm laughing my ass off. Oh my. Too good.
Monday, February 19, 2001
- 1:45 PM -
Good lord. The media is finally waking up to the internet. BBC on P2P.
Friday, February 16, 2001
- 3:30 PM -
Jeffrey's gone and done it. I've been anticipating his secret project, and while it's not startling (more like, it's about time), it is a new beginning. I know what I'm going to be working on this weekend.
Viva the (r)evolution.
Tuesday, February 13, 2001
- 12:33 AM -
Not only is there fresh brilliance at Modern Living, but the news section links to more at SmallZine. Yay.
Saturday, February 10, 2001
- 12:43 PM -
Oh man... over on /. the discussion is Ask Slashdot: Adapting Existing Federal Web Sites For The Disabled?; a gov't contractor wants advice on bringing the company's extensive web site into compliance within six months.
Nothing mentioned so far that's news to designers, but you might want to read it for an education on how many feel this "burden" is a "waste of taxes" that should be given a strategic minimum lipservice, not taken seriously. You could get a client like this. Rehearse your answers now so you don't end up with your jaw on the ground in a meeting.
Friday, February 02, 2001
- 1:27 PM -
Bruce Sterling over at Disinformation,
"A 'futurist' is an increasingly old-fashioned thing to be. I don't think this has much to do with weariness of subjects or genres, though. I think the culture's sense of historical continuity has broken down. There's no Progress myth, there's no Titanic Manichean Death Struggle."
Thursday, February 01, 2001
- 12:50 PM -
Vincent says it better.
And No, it is not going to end like this. People don't stop being beautiful when one of their touching gifts ends in a way it was not meant to.
Right now I guess I'm just really unhappy at the core because the separation of geography means we can't all converge and give them a hell of a going-out party. We want to.
Hey, Pyra. Thank you. You people are amazing.
Owen Briggs ©2000, 2006
