Cranezilla --Mark Crane's collection of rarely annotated links

Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think brought all the best lessons from usability down to a readable text that began a discussion, and explained the give and take that usability and design sometimes have to work against. It was refreshing to read after hearing only decrees from on high, delivered in the full style of academics telling everyone how Things Should Be Done. If I had to pick one web-specific book as my all time favorite, this would be it.

# posted by craniac @ Thursday, February 28, 2002 |

Find out what is expected for your career path. Positions in fund-raising and what is called "Institutional Advancement" require leather and top-quality portfolio because your contacts will be persons with money.

# posted by craniac @ Monday, February 25, 2002 |

A US EXPERT RECKONS obsessive web browsing can cause attention spans to drop to as little as nine seconds - equivalent to a goldfish.
"Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things," says Ted Selker, a professor at MIT. "If we spend our time flitting from one thing to another on the web, we can get into a habit of not concentrating," he told the BBC.
A US expert reckons obsessive web browsing can cause attention spans to drop to as little as nine seconds - equivalent to a goldfish.
"Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things," says Ted Selker, a professor at MIT. "If we spend our time flitting from one thing to another on the web, we can get into a habit of not concentrating," he told the BBC.

# posted by craniac @ Monday, February 25, 2002 |

"We have been trying to resolve the issue of Ashley's pink hair since before Christmas," he said. "Initially, we were assured that she would return it to the natural colour over the holiday but since Christmas her hair has remained pink.

# posted by craniac @ Saturday, February 23, 2002 |

Joshua makes a great point about emergence. and that's also where Aaronland's point is related. one strategy is to establish a default structure --based on a limited number of nodes and edges-- and then allow the taxonomy to "emerge", based on your own feedback and/or other user feedback. the results can actually take an implicit form, where the most common groupings rise to the top. you can then set a cutoff point so it returns a smaller result set. hey, maybe you can write a simple sorting application, a-la christina's suggestion, where each post-it is actually a SQL insert. you insert or post-it all the items and then start ranking them in categories. the problem though, is that whenever you add more categories, you will need to re-rank all the previously inserted items to see how where they fall in the updated "bigger picture".

# posted by craniac @ Monday, February 11, 2002 |

Dan's idea was to use a high gain rooftop antenna to offer wireless Internet service. What if I found a place that already had wireless Internet service, and used a high gain antenna to take advantage of that service from a great distance? It would be just like sitting in Starbucks with a notebook computer and a latte, except that I'd be at home where the coffee is considerably cheaper.

# posted by craniac @ Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

"Where is your jacket, young protestor?" called out a petite policewoman, who asked us to refer to her as "Officer Smith."
"I'm not cold," I said through chattering teeth. "And I'm not a protestor, either. I do a Web site, and I'm writing about the demonstration. Have any thoughts?"
"Yeah, let them move to Afghanistan and see how they like it there," Officer Smith said.
I had to admit she had a point.

# posted by craniac @ Thursday, February 07, 2002 |

Trooping off to find their corner of a foreign field, in much the same spirit as an earlier generation went to Spain with the International Brigade, the volunteers were Web designers, engineers, students, delivery drivers. They came across as cool, wired types, as comfortable in their modernity as any of their fellow-surfers in the Internet cafés. So did Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, and the other hijack suspects, who left a forensic spoor of brand names across the length and breadth of the United States. We know them best as efficient modern consumers—of Parrot-Ice, Tommy Hilfiger, Econo Lodge, AAA discounts, Starbucks, Cyber Zone, Golden Tee '97 golf at Shuckum's Raw Bar and Grill, Salem cigarettes, Heineken and Budweiser, Chinese takeout from Wo Hop III, lap-dancing at Nardone's Sports Go-Go Bar and the Olympic Garden Topless Cabaret.

# posted by craniac @ Thursday, February 07, 2002 |

The experience of ministering to this impossible parish radicalized my father. A lifelong reflex Conservative voter, he joined the Labour Party. His High Church theology became ever more attenuated and symbolic. He climbed his way through the tower blocks less as a priest than as a psychiatric social worker. He grew a beard that made him look like Karl Marx, left his dog collar in the drawer, and went about in an open-necked plaid flannel shirt. Although his church congregations were now tiny, he worked around the clock, negotiating with the authorities on behalf of his parishioners, succoring the needy, counselling the desperate, befriending the friendless.

# posted by craniac @ Thursday, February 07, 2002 |

The most senseless use of time in prison has to be constant television watching. There are adult men in prison who watch cartoons and soap operas for hours each day. They know all the soaps' characters, plots, and can figure all the possible scenarios of upcoming episodes. They live through the tube. They call television the "Boob Tube" because it will make you dumb if you aren't already. Its shameless, naked images will poison your mind and spirit. Its fantasy will rob you of all original creative thinking abilities. Constant television watching develops the dangerous habit of always wanting to be entertained, which causes laziness.
Television is a no-no. Cut out television for one month and you will be surprised at what you can get accomplished in that time. Knowing how to manage time properly is important in everyday life. When we learn how to get the most out of our days, we will come to know a real sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. There are only twenty-four hours in a day. The more you begin to actually do the clearer it becomes that there never is enough time to get things done. Then you will understand the value of time.

# posted by craniac @ Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

Numbers Tell the Story
Despite the traditional rules of financing, Fastow reduced the balance-sheet debt, maintained the credit rating, and reduced the cost of capital while simultaneously growing the balance sheet. In just the last two years, Enron has nearly doubled its total assets from $16 billion to $30 billion--without shareholder dilution and without a drop in the company's credit rating. "He has successfully financed billions of dollars in a manner that has held credit quality," says S&P's Barone. "And that is not an easy thing to do. It is a testament to Andy's focus on cash flow and his ability to think outside the box."

# posted by craniac @ Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

Making your own screen protector is actually pretty simple. All you need are:
A sheet of clear plastic wrapper, the kind you use to wrap your books. A single sheet you buy from the stationary shop for about S$1 can make you enough protectors to last a long time. Also note that plastic wrappers have different thickness. If it's too thick, your screen will not be too responsive. If too thin, it may not provide enough protection.
A pair of scissors or penknife.
Monitor cleaner, the kind you use to spray on your PC monitor to clean your screen.
Lint-free cloth or camera lens cleaning wipes.
A plastic card, e.g. a credit or ATM card.

# posted by craniac @ Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

Cheap Screen Protector
by gsearle | Aug 06 '01 (Updated Jan 09 '02)

The Bottom Line Don't shell out $25 for a PDA screen protector when a cheap (often free) sheet of vinyl will do.


I was appalled to see PDA screen protectors being sold for $25.00. All I wanted was a piece of plastic to cover my PDA's screen, and these companies wanted me to shell out this kind of money! Well, I found a really cheap alternative that works really well - vinyl sheets! This is the same stuff that manufacturers use to create those temporary, easy-to-remove labels that you find stuck to new electronic equipment

# posted by craniac @ Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

"Apparently, the basic philosophy for the exhibit -- 'the power of the individual to make a difference' -- is the antithesis of that espoused by many within the Smithsonian bureaucracy, which is 'only movements and institutions make a difference, not individuals.' After much contemplation, I see no way to reconcile these diametrically opposed philosophical viewpoints," she said.
Small could not be reached for comment last night. Smithsonian officials had maintained throughout the eight months of increasingly strident debate that they would maintain final say over the nature of the exhibit. That sentiment was repeated yesterday in a statement by Marc Pachter, acting director of the American History Museum.

# posted by craniac @ Tuesday, February 05, 2002 |

Executives who are computer challenged often need a compelling reason to catch up. It could be an embarrassing episode, a new job that comes with expectations of proficiency, a realization that their children know more about computers than they do or not-so-subtle nudging from secretaries and others.
They often feel more comfortable receiving instruction in private, in part because they can openly acknowledge their deficiencies. One executive attending computer classes offered as part of the Wharton advanced-management program told classmates that she had lost her "Internet virginity" at the school, recalled Robert Mittelstaedt, vice dean for executive education. Another Wharton executive program offers tutoring by M.B.A. students.

# posted by craniac @ Tuesday, February 05, 2002 |

What I've learned from all this is that the subjective process of becoming a cyborg, in the hardwired sense, greatly suppresses one's appetite for objective theorizing about it. Where "wounds are openings to possibilities," as the French technocultural critic Jean Baudrillard once suggested, they are equally openings to infection. There's nothing like having a stinging, aching, seven-inch scar running down your thigh and a large foreign object lodged inside of it, slugging it out with your body's defense mechanisms, to make you appreciate the complicated trade-offs and mixed emotions involved in real-life bio-mechanical bonding. It is as much a world of wound management, site infection, tissue mutation, implant extraction and rejection, and reams of HMO paperwork, as it is a world of life-restoring body repair and trendy cyberpunk mythology. All rhapsodic cyborg theorists should book a date with a bone saw (or at least heed the words of those of us who have) to remind themselves that, in our cyborgian future present, and in the end: it's all about the meat, stupid.

# posted by craniac @ Tuesday, February 05, 2002 |

ext = external.menuArguments

doc = external.menuArguments.document

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escape(doc.selection.createRange().text) + "
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strURL = escape(ext.location.href);

strTitle = escape(doc.title);

winBlogger = 



window.open("http://www.blogger.com/blog_form_pop-upE.pyra?b=&t=" + 



strSelection + "&u=" + strURL + "&n=" + 



strTitle,"bloggerForm","scrollbars=no,width=475,height=300,left=75,



top=175,status=yes,resizable=1")

winBlogger.focus()

# posted by craniac @ Saturday, February 02, 2002 |

SM: I don’t think the 100-plus architecture schools across the country realize how alike each program is, how interchangeable their curricula and faculty are. I’ve spoken at most of them. The faculty are usually all dressed in black. They all seem to say the same things. It’s all become redundant and very stale, unimaginative. What’s ironic is that you hear professors talk about how out of the box we need to be, how risk-taking is part of being an architect, yet the faculty is often guilty of sitting on their hands. If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community or to challenge the status quo into making responsible environmental and social-structural changes now and in the future, it will take the “subversive leadership” of academics and practitioners to keep reminding the students of architecture that theory and practice are not only interwoven with one’s culture but have a responsibility for shaping the environment, breaking up social complacency, and challenging the power of the status quo.

# posted by craniac @ Saturday, February 02, 2002 |

SM: I don’t think the 100-plus architecture schools across the country realize how alike each program is, how interchangeable their curricula and faculty are. I’ve spoken at most of them. The faculty are usually all dressed in black. They all seem to say the same things. It’s all become redundant and very stale, unimaginative. What’s ironic is that you hear professors talk about how out of the box we need to be, how risk-taking is part of being an architect, yet the faculty is often guilty of sitting on their hands. If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community or to challenge the status quo into making responsible environmental and social-structural changes now and in the future, it will take the “subversive leadership” of academics and practitioners to keep reminding the students of architecture that theory and practice are not only interwoven with one’s culture but have a responsibility for shaping the environment, breaking up social complacency, and challenging the power of the status quo.

# posted by craniac @ Saturday, February 02, 2002 |