It's funny, since getting my TiVo, I can't recall the last time I've watched the news on TV. Actually, it's kind of sad how I miss out on finding random cool stuff, but then it's nice never missing an episode of Bab5 without having to get up at 6am.

Although I always feel a little cheap when the closing credits roll and there's a preview of the episode of CHiPs immediately following. Am I realy one of those people?

Everywhere I go it's 'art first, spec second.' The brand is always the starting point, then the functionality, then the implementation. Well, I'm running this site a little differently. I've been spec-ing out functionality for a long time, and I'm putting it in piecemeal, but rather than change graphics to accomodate each functional addition (like building a house that already has furniture on the floor and art on the walls) I'm building out the functionality, and once I'm happy with it, I'll set to decorating it.

Thanks to a back-end prototype-based templating system sitting on top of PHP and mySQL, I can change the whole look at a moment's notice and not have to touch anything but prototype template files.

So sit back and enjoy the minimalism and lack of graphics. I'd be very interested to hear your opinion on the look and feel (or lack thereof).

Of course, a new color pallete is also on its way at some point.

It's long irritated me that some links open in new windows, some open in the same window, and others are actually javascripts that create a specifically-sized window. the problem is you don't usually know what's going to happen, and then it's too late.

This is especially irritating when you try to open a javascript link in a new window and just get a blank window.

So here's how it works on my site, and now I recommend other people do it:

• If a link opens in this page, it's bold.
• If a link opens to a new window, it's bold and underlined.

It just seems to make things more intuitive. After all, most of the non-underlined elements are site navigation elements, which have the affordance of clickability by virtue of their position within a navigation bar.

What do you think?

The banner ad index page at weblogs.com shows all 500-odd microbanners for participating weblogs, including the number of views so far, the number of clickthroughs so far, and the clickthrough rate.

If you're at all interested in this sort of thing, it's fascinating to take a look at these banners and seeing what kinds of art, content, and animation, correspond to high (>1.5%) clickthrough rates and which correspnd to low (<0.2%) rates.

This is a great case study, the kind that's usually very hard to find in the real world. If anyone knows of any more, please let me know so I can share (and learn)!

There should be a word for those stupid donothing pages you're left with when a site decides to launch itself into a 'rightsized' window for their flash or javascripted-goodness.

I was thinking of investing in Samsung, but it seems they're unclear on the concept of ASP files.

I've been seeing these fold-up scooters everywhere for the last month.

They're probably just the next fad, and will be gone soon after Christmas, but they're pretty cool and at under $100, they're not overpriced. It might be just the thing to get me from Cory Hall to the RSF in under 6 minutes. The new models even come with a nifty shoulder strap. Ooh.

Oh well. Turns out Palm had a typo on their site. Someone used the Palm Vx page as the template for making the m100 page, and fneglected to update the dimensions. Well, they're updated now, and the m100 is just about the same size as a Palm III.

So much for the dream.

This is funny. Joe Firmage, ex CEO and founder of USWeb (aka marchFIRST), left the company during its merger with CKS (where I was working at the time), to pursue his own interests, pushing his own theory that UFOs have been visiting Earth for decades, and that major accomplishments, like the microchip, were actually leaked to us from the aliens.

Okay, old news, right? Well, now he's made a generous donation to the SETI@home project, to continue its operation for at least another year.

On one level it makes sense: Rich megalomaniacal UFO believer spends millions to discover alien intelligence. We've all seen that before. The quirky part (you mean there's only one?) is that Joe has long been vocal in his belief that aliens have been guiding our development, and that he has been visited himself.

He's established his belief that aliens take an active role in the human race, so it all begs the question: Why pour money into what effectively equates to wiretapping the galactic telephone line to find the girl you gave your phone number to at party once, but who never called you back? Stalking aliens is never a good idea.

I'm toying with the possibility of setting up a webcam... I've got all the equipment. It just means I'll have to temper my naked-time. Then again, it'd give me (and Emily) a chance to see Kisa remotely.