August 2003

New U-T Blog
The San Diego Union Tribune has yet another new blog: the hungry i: A Weblog dedicated to food, wine and the good life—you can see others here at San Diego U-T Blogs.

Go Union Trib!

I’ve talked about the U-T blogging since they started.

Zappa News Alert
Gail Zappa is also running for Governor (Gail is Frank’s widow)

I can’t think of a good title today.
Weekend is over.

Almost done importing music. Today listening to lots of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music at work. Spoils of that manual labor importing mp3s into iTunes.

Only one link today: Jessie “The Body” Ventura” gives advice to Arnold Schwartzenegger

Brief Political Musing: I was against the recall (we have ELECTIONS to do what’s happening now); but is it possible this recall is more like democracy than our usual elections? People are confused and it’s all entirely chaotic. The field seems wide open, and with the person with the best name recognition leading the pack.

In this environment, perhaps political power is all about the Q Score.

Blogger.com Help is up. I tell you, since its’ acquisition by Google, the service is better, faster, and more reliable.

I set up a demo blog for a colleague a few weeks ago, and with Blogger it was trivially easy. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked, and how quickly they could get in and participate in the blog, without any previous knowledge.

That said, TypePad seems like the service-to-beat. But then, they don’t have free accounts anyway. If you have no money for your blog, Blogger.com is still the way to go.

When I started my San Diego Blog I considered waiting for something better, or doing the Movable Type thing, but, feh, it still bugs me how it’s the default answer for setting up a complex blog. Here’s where I again wonder why there isn’t anything as slick as MT which is open source. Blog software is not hard to write, but making it as intuitive as possible, easy to learn, is an interaction design and UI challenge. And I suppose open source stuff still stinks at that.

eliyon CorporateAlumni
This is interesting. A lookup for people (I think executives?) in business here’s me – I squeak by with two mentions for The Web Standards Project, and one from a conference I attended in 2000. But not for other companies I was a part of. It looks like it’s not using resumes, but rather using public statements found variously on the web.

(via evhead)

Oh, so this is how we lose touch with reality about how women actually look
Check out these shots of a bikini woman—you see the “final” image when you first visit. Then put your cursor over the image to see what it looked like before digital processing: Bikini Girl.

If one is wondering how we develop impossible standards of beauty that give girls and women neurosis about how they look, perhaps it’s because we quite literally have imagery that is inhuman. Anorexia, botox, liposuction and many other ills seem to me quite intuitively linked to producing expectations in females that are not possible to obtain.

via kottke.org

The outer edges of my music collection
Still importing tonight. Latest imports include Digable Planets, Neneh Cherry, Motorhead, Mono Puff, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, more Tom Waits, and a lot of Mighty Might Bosstones.

Good day today. Productive work. I went to a used bookstore today and appreciated some old books on typography. Wandering and enjoying the phenomenon of downtown San Diego.

I’m thinking about a post for San Diego Blog – a nostalgia piece. Still not sure what shape that blog is taking. But that’s cool. What’s the hurry?

Next week: moving starts and continues through the end of the month.

Next week, websandiego.org is glomming onto the webdesign meetup. It’s gaining a lot of members. We’re (San Diego is)#5 worldwide. I want to do something interesting. Ideas percolating for something interesting. We’ll see if the idea germinates or remains a seed.

Things aren’t bad all in all.

More later this weekend.

Doclinked
Hey! Unsolicited link from Doc Searls—I talked to Doc briefly at the blogosphere thing and shook his hand. I particularly like his informal voice, and how he’s passionate without being a person who flames others. There are people it would be infinitely FUN for me to flame, but it’s not my style.

Typographical Humor and History
Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black

That Textamerica is something!
Raped At The Pump – people use phonecams to show terrible gas prices. (via bb)