Category: Uncategorized

The combination of the Justice Department's “enemies list” (Salon) and Poindexter's DoD sponsored “Information Awareness Office” is truly chilling.  McCarthy and Hoover have returned armed with truly powerful technology and nobody seems to be paying it much attention. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Resurrecting an Ancient Library. – “Two thousand years after it was destroyed by fire, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina—the mythic Egyptian library that at one time boasted a universal collection of everything ever written—was reopened to the public on October 16.” “The idea of resurrecting the Bibliotheca Alexandrina began in 1974 as part of an expansion campaign… Continue reading Resurrecting an Ancient Library

Bookkey. – “With bookkey you organise and access your bookmarks in a new, more flexible way, using keywords instead of a the usual hierarchical.structure.” (via Girl Hacker) LS Thoughts – No time to download and play with this now, but it looks interesting. This seems like a better way to save and retrieve bookmarks, although… Continue reading Bookkey

All About Books. – “The United States is reportedly becoming less a nation of readers. It is no secret that millions of students, including high school graduates, do not learn to read above a minimum level. The average American learns about the news from viewing television rather reading print media.” “Even many teachers read little.… Continue reading All About Books

Irish university may sue over Star Wars movie. – “Ireland's oldest university said Tuesday it is taking legal advice on whether Star Wars director George Lucas used an image of its famous library without its permission.” “The Long Room of Trinity College's library was built in 1732 and houses a number of treasures including the… Continue reading Irish university may sue over Star Wars movie

Virgina Postrel on user experience: Virginia was the editor of Reason magazine for many years, and is now an author and blogger. In this interview with the American Graphics Institute she talks mostly about how general design affects the user experience, but the ideas apply to design of web publications and applications as well. The… Continue reading Virgina Postrel on user experience:

Nice paper on usability on the web – Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability) – Great paper on usability. There are a lot of nuggets here that are worth taking to heart. The topics covered go down to where on the page most people are expecting to see links. Print copy is available.… Continue reading Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability)

I've been reading a great (and out of print) book : By Design, by Ralph Caplan. The author does a wonderful job of communicating the potential of design in a simple and direct fashion. Recommended reading, and it's a short read too — those of us trying to define IA to others could learn a… Continue reading By Design

Bad Spam Filters  Spam is getting worse and worse. My incoming spam ratio is well over 50% by now. SpamAssassin catches and tags most of it; these are automatically shuttled into a “Spam” folder. About once a week, it takes me 15 seconds to make sure there's nothing important in there and throw it out.… Continue reading Untitled

Cornell.  Amit Lal gets a prototype of a nuclear micro-generator working.  A generator of this type could power a small device for a decade.  This is some of the most exciting technology in play today. The prototype shown in August was gigantic by comparison with the latest versions, Lal said. An entire device, including a… Continue reading Cornell