UC Berkeley has a class for Weblogs in the School of Journalism.

Quotations by Einstein

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." (Reader's Digest. Oct. 1977.)

Home Page Design Guidelines

A company's homepage is its face to the world and the starting point for most user visits. Improving your homepage multiplies the entire website's business value, so following key guidelines for homepage usability is well worth the investment. (Alertbox May 2002)

bread, coffee, chocolate, yoga

what a somber feeling to stand in my office window and look out at the ceremony today over ground zero at 10:29am. . .

Tell us the ingredients you have and we'll suggest recipes to use them.

The Kraft "interactive" kitchen: Simply enter an ingredient and they'll do the rest! Just remember, this is brought to you by the inventors of instant macaroni and cheese.

How much ass does Google kick? All of it.

Remember when searching the Internet was hard? The dark days when we relied on dumb-as-sand machine intelligences, like those on the back-ends of AltaVista and Lycos, to rank the documents that matched our keywords? The grim era before Google, when searching was a spew of boolean mumbo-jumbo, NEAR this, NOT that, AND the other? God, that sucked.

blackholebrain: Round, naked, mindless, boneless, fried chicken blobs.

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot... if scientists can make featherless chickens, why just stop there?

I mean, why don't scientists just go ahead and genetically breed chickens that have no bones either. That'd be a big time saver wouldn't it? And while they're at it, why not make the chicken's head and feet shrink down to little, edible nubs, so that chickens are reduced to round, naked, mindless, boneless blobs of meat? Talk about eliminating processing time! And even better, make it so the chicken blobs only require periodic buttering or oiling to keep them alive.

China sets date for the Moon.

China says it is planning to establish a base on the Moon to exploit its mineral resources.

The 50 Greatest Bands of All Time.

The band is back. During the past year or so, the pop world has completed a cycle that began in the mid-1990s. Back then, with grunge flannel on Macy's mannequins, the band model seemed a bit tired. Rappers, dancing teens, and DJs took over the pop charts, MTV, and magazines. Then, gradually, bands crept back. Groups like Creed, Incubus, System of a Down, and, most notably, Staind and Linkin Park have spent serious time in the Top 10.

AOL offers mea culpa, promises to regain trust.

Angry shareholders took the floor at AOL Time Warner Inc.'s annual meeting on Thursday as management admitted that some of the company's plans had derailed during the year, and pledged to make it up to investors.

The top 100 books of all time.

Full list of the 100 best works of fiction, alphabetically by author, as determined from a vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries as released by the Norwegian Book Clubs. Don Quixote was named as the top book in history but otherwise no ranking was provided. [via rebeccablood.net]

The Zen TV Experiment

Now proceed with these experiments:
1. Watch any TV show for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
2. Watch any news program for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
3. Watch television for one half hour without turning it on.

Hamburgers, A Burger Tour of Washington State, by Rachel Kessler (08/31/00)

IT IS A TRULY American epiphany, the discovery of the Holy Trinity: cheeseburger, fries, and a shake. The formative moment occurs at your local burger shack--you know the one: the grease-saturated concrete, the employees in their boat-shaped paper hats. No other burger tastes the same once the palate absorbs and forms to your hometown's particular blend of pickles and special sauce, maintaining the superiority of the home burger shack to all subsequent burger shack encounters.

Buffalo Wings.

There is something for most people to like about Buffalo wings and for those many reasons the food has spread rapidly from its origin in Buffalo, New York, and is now part of our national food culture, no longer something you can find only in the Northeastern United States.

Perhaps the simplest way to discuss the origin and diffusion of Buffalo wings is to stick to a chronology.

I envy people that drink.

Maybe that's too broad a statement. I don't actually envy people that go to bars with their friends for an occasional night out or for a party, or those that have a glass of wine with dinner. I can do that any time. Well, anytime, if I had friends to go out with or someone to have dinner with. My envy is probably less healthy. I envy people that drink to forget, that drink so much they pass out, numb from the pain, that can actually be in the middle of a conversation and shut down and not even remember it the next day.

Jonathon Delacour's weblog "about" statement.

Although this site may appear to be a weblog, it does not follow the conventions of journalistic truth that many bloggers adhere to. Rather, my desire is—to borrow Susan Sontag's description of Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge—to crossbreed fiction, essayistic speculation, and autobiography in a linear notebook rather than a linear narrative form.

What I Should Have Said

The French call it l'esprit d'escalier, "the wit of the staircase," those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late, on the way out of the room—or even, to tell the truth, days later. It's happened to you: you've suddenly thought of just what would put your foe in his or her place, but past the time when the arrow could sting its victim. You've stewed in your own juice ever since, and the chance for singeing repartee is gone forever.

"Spider-man" heads towards error record

Fans have so far spotted 77 continuity errors, the most flaws identified in an opening weekend, according to website movie-mistakes.com.

East Broadway Ron's Radio Weblog.

One of the great things about living in Chinatown/Lower East Side is the blending of the new and the old without conflict.

Israeli Troops Kill 3 Arab Civilians by Mistake.

Israeli soldiers mistakenly killed a Palestinian woman and two children Sunday when they opened fire after a roadside bomb hit their armored vehicle near the West Bank city of Jenin, a military source said.

Tape shows Palestinians faked funeral.

The Israel Defense Forces has released a videotape showing what it calls "a phony funeral that the Palestinians organized in order to multiply the number of casualties in Jenin."

Daily Box Office

Spider-Man has swooped into the record books. The $130 million Marvel Comics adaptation enjoyed the biggest day ever in Hollywood history, shattering Harry Potter's $32.3 million opening day record and Potter's $33.5 million single day record.

A Perfect Cup Of Coffee

Once the coffee is brewed, switch off the heating element and serve the beverage immediately. If it can't be drunk at once, consider either making smaller batches or storing the remainder in a thermal flask. Do not microwave cold coffee, do not switch the heating element back on, do not muck about with those pansy tea-candles that you bought at IKEA. If I catch you playing games with those stupid electric mug warmers I will kick you in the gut and laugh while you try to breathe.

The Sanctity of Elements

All-too-frequently an external client or an internal manager or co-worker demands interface changes. They usurp the design process -- taking the decision-making away from the experts -- and deign the interface by dictum rather than traditional development processes, to the detriment of the product.

Pre-9/11 warning on flight training

Two months before the suicide hijackings, an FBI agent in Arizona alerted Washington headquarters that several Middle Easterners were training at a U.S. aviation school and recommended contacting other schools nationwide where Arabs might be studying, law enforcement officials said.

Egyptian Columnist to Hitler: "If Only You Had Done It, Brother"

"These accursed ones are a catastrophe for the human race. They are the virus of the generation, doomed to a life of humiliation and wretchedness until Judgement Day. They are also accursed because they repeatedly tried to murder the Prophet Muhammad. They threw a stone at him, but missed. Another time, they tried to mix poison in his food, but providence saved him from their treachery and their crimes. Allah cursed them when they carried out the criminal massacre of the peaceful Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla."