January 2010 Archives

My wife has a dream that we will one day leave our rabbit-warren roomed downtown Edwardian semi and buy a mid-century modern house that we can reno into a minimalist dream abode. 

On one hand, this makes me smile smugly, because none of us -- not our three children, not me and certainly not Carol -- has a minimalist bone in our bodies when it comes to possessions or clutter, and I suspect all the extra light of a modern home would make the dust bunnies and McDonalds toys everywhere just that much more visible.

On the other hand, I have made the mistake of mentioning this in the past, and the temperature in the room dropped so fast I'm sure icicles formed on the cupboards. So it also just makes me shut up and be supportive.

To that end. I got her a subscription to Dwell magazine this Christmas, which is one of those gifts that appear to be for them, but is really as much for you. After all, I too would love to live in a light-filled expanse overlooking a ravine.

So I nearly spit out the organic fair trade espresso I was sipping from my Alessi mug when I came across UnHappy Hipsters, based on photos from Dwell magazine. The photo I've grabbed above is captioned, "And one day, a ladder appeared. Julien climbed with guarded optimism; could this be the way out for which he'd been searching all these weeks? " which I think brilliantly sums up the barren experience that child must endure living there. I mean, our boys have more toys tangled up in the blankets of their unmade beds than he has in his whole playroom. And I won't mention the pink and purple chair.

Please, for the love of God, don't send this to my wife. I'm in enough trouble as it is.

I'm not much of a User Interface geek (that is, I enjoy a pointless but entertaining way of getting around a site as much as anyone), but as a web designer I'm always interested on how convey maximum amounts of information/direction to users as simply and cleanly as possible.

So I thought this was a pretty cool blog post about how icons become less effective as they become more "realistic." It's like as humans we have this sweet spot with symbols: too much detail, or too little, and they stop becoming useful to use as clues to their meaning.

Anyway, I liked that in itself. But then right below on the same blog was this demo of a 3D style computer desktop. Unintentionally, it kind of proves the point of the first. Really, do I need a 3D representation of my desktop in order to use my computer better? It has some cool tools, I'll say that, but there's a point where the guy has all these stacks of documents there, and I couldn't help thinking "I don't need a computer to replicate the stacks of crap everywhere, that's what real life is for."

Who knows, maybe it's the future and I'll have to adapt. After all, my father still puts up a spirited defence of the superiority of the Command Line Interface over these stupid "icons" all over his iMac screen.

Here's a CNN story about how some folks have been experiencing depression and even "suicidal thoughts" after seeing the beauty that is the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar.

Yes, a movie. Not because they went to Costa Rica and couldn't take the intolerable greyness of Toronto upon their return, not because they saw the Rockies and struggled with their puny insignificance in the universe. Apparently, some exceptional CG and a large tub of popcorn did them in.

Aside from depression, apparently "Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality."

Whoa, heavy. Then I saw that the quote was from a 17 year-old living in Sweden.

Ah.

See, when you're a teenager (especially one living in a country with 3 hours of sunlight a day in winter), if you're not disgusted with the human race and disengaged from reality then really, you're not doing your job. Can we move on now?

Maybe it's just age, but sometimes it really feels like time is moving this fast. Here's one year in Oslo in 90 seconds. Mesmerizing. And as one who lives in a place with a real winter, I love the way this brings the "two worlds" to life so clearly. When I look at my garden in the winter it's impossible to imagine how lush it will become in summer. And in summer, hard to imagine how barren it will soon be again.

I like how this bit of spam (from the hijacked email account of an old tenant no less) even comes with an offer for anti-spam software. 

Hopefully I haven't offended anyone with that, as I know we don't all celebrate it.

Well, that was the holiday that wasn't. I spent most of Christmas and New Years working, either on email or out in Saskatoon at the World Junior Championships. The latter part had its charms in that it's pretty exciting to be at an event where people are so out of their head passionate about the sport. The results of most of this trip can be seen here.

Sadly, Team Canada lost in the final, but it sure was a fun ride. And speaking of passion for sport, here's a great example of an organization that really just doesn't understand anything about digital.