After a year of waiting, fans of She Hates My Futon will be treated to another chapter today (or so Craig's site promises).

"Futon" Is a great story, one of the best I've seen on the web. It's about 150 pages long so far, and if you haven't read it yet, it'll probably make your day.

One warning though: The story's not finished, and chapters come hit-or-miss. We got about a chapter a month in the beginning, but this last one was a year in the making.

Still, it may be the unfinished aspect of the story that makes it so compelling. I give it 5 stars.

Okay, so it's absolutely anecdotal evidence, but my cat, Kisa, (sorry, no obligatory cute photos up (yet...)) is a fair judge of interface affordances. She's recently discovered the computer screen, and loves to tap at it with her paw (there's a case for direct interactivity instead of using a keyboard and mouse!).

Anyhow, cute as that is, the interesting bit is what she taps on. Basically, she loves the cursor (naturally, it's small and moves fast) but she'll also tap on icons (like the top navbar), and solitary beveled buttons, but never other interface elements like imagemaps or text links.

As obvious and rational as this may sound, it's still important to remember that there is a very real difference between inhierent affordances that come from within (low, sturdy flat things can be sat upon) and experiential, learned affordances (chairs can be sat upon).

While text links are the strongest experiential affordance we have on the web, other ones, like non iconographic imagemaps, or worse yet, navigation methods whihc require text ("Click on the country you're currently in') require forebrain thought. People designing for the web should try to reserve the forebrain to the content, and not the navigation.

At any rate, it's clear Kisa needs her own laptop now.

Sometimes the timeliness of the web can get the beter of you. Check out this weather forecast I saw today at SFGate (archived for your convenience).

It's good to know the raindrops falling on my head are just my imagination!

Well, two of my classes are finished, and I've only a final on Monday and another on Tuesday then I'm done and can get back to the interesting projects. If you haven't signed up at the Cameo project yet, check it out and put your email in to be notified when new cameras come in. I'll be putting a lot more into it this summer and we can look forward to some cool (and probably unexpected) results.

If you haven't taken a look at the cameo project yet, do it. The pages up there haven't been updated for a long time, but it's about to go into high gear!

Nothing like staying up all night for an 8am final... Gar.

Okay, I am studying mostly, but I can never sit still, so after studying in Moffitt Library, I went up to the Haas Business Library (much more comfortable chairs, and less people) then to I-House for a snack and more reading, then to 50 Birge which, surprisingly, was empty. (It's a 200-seat classroom with stadium seating). I found that it has a pretty good sound system, even when you're playing a CD on your discman, through your headphones and into the lecturer's microphone. Mmm... Mortal Kombat...

Anyhow, plunging back in, seeing how well I can do tomorrow through force of will tonight.

Rented Dogma last night. I saw it in the theater but it's one of those movies you've got to see twice. If you haven't seen it, do. Heresy was never so intelligently, violently, and humorously done.

Ah well. Back to the stacks...

Augh! I got my Linguistics grade back from Jason last night, and remarkably I got an A. This is great, (and maybe a little unexpected, though very hoped for) but now I'm absolutely jonesing for more As on the shelf.

It is remotely conceivable that I could pull off straight As (there, I said it) but I would have to kick some serious ass on the exams I have in the next few days. First on the list is Psych 126, Perception, who's final is tomorrow morning (that's right, Saturday) at 8am. To ace the final I'll have to know a lot more about perception that I do right now, and I've got 23 hours to learn it cold.

Basically, that's my way of saying don't expect much in the way of new entries for the next day or so, or that if you do see new entries, you should pity me for my inability to focus on the task at hand.

By the way, for the interested, I'll be putting up my paper on emperical methods of mapping contested concepts within a population once I have time to format it and scan/reproduce the illustrations. I know you're all on the edge of your seats.

(For you first-time readers, don't run away. My posts aren't usually so dry (or self-serving), as you can see below).

See you on the other side!

Is anyone else out there going through Slashdot withdrawal?

So it's finally happened (or at least it's going into beta).

A company, ProcessTree, has put up a service where you can pool your computer's spare cycles (ala Distributed.net) but they'll pay you, because you're not cracking encryption (well, you might be...), you're processing other people's data. Maybe Pixar's, maybe the NSA's, who knows?

They say you can probably make enough monthly to pay for your internet connection. Check it out...

Do you have those friends or old coworkers who you haven't talked to in years, and the only way you know they're alive is when they dig your name out of their address book so they can send off a chain letter?

Well, on a lark I came up with the solution. It's called the Reverse Chain Letter and it just might change the world (if we're lucky).

Download it and use it. Please.