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The personal web log of Mike Lee, a web information architect, and teacher working in New York City "I surf as much as I eat." curiouslee in...   Hiptop Nation Mirror Project Google Images The City Paper UMBC TechPort email me past monthly... 2000:10.11.12 2001:01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08. 09.10.11.12 2002:01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08.09.10.11.12
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Friday, June 29, 2001
Music viz Via email comes a note that Peacock Maps, distributors of a wonderous map of the whole internet, has now created a series of posters based on images of music visualizations. These are pure eye candy, and a bit out of character for what is stated as the mission of the company. I'd like to see more examples of Internet visualizations available commercially as posters. Thursday, June 28, 2001
All the Internet in China Salon has republished a post from The Well on one person's adventure searching for an Internet cafe in China. Grungy computers connected to high speed access remind me of street scenes that could have been in the movie Blade Runner. The outernet: web browser interfaces everywhere An article in Business 2.0 appropriates the old term Outernet (which used to mean any media outside of the Internet) to describe a new wave of Internet kiosks built into things like airline and train seatbacks, restaurant booths, and gas pumps. As the hardware costs continue to drop, and Internet and wireless connectivity expands, expect to see web browsers in some wacky places as advertisers get more desperate. Wednesday, June 27, 2001
A profoundly beautiful night sky Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a breathtaking night time exposure from the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Astrophotographer Barney Magrath was able to elegantly compose the fog-filled volcanic landscape against a sparkling sea of Milky Way stars. Mars, which is at its closest to Earth, punctuates the scene. The image can be purchased as a large color print from the photographer's web site. Instant message: WHY ARE YOU LATE? YOU ARE DIVORCED An Islamic court in Dubai has ruled valid a man's divorce declaration sent by cell phone text message to his wife. The couple is back together again, but this must be the first case of divorce using wireless text messaging. Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Our building learned I regularly revisit my worn copy of Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn which extensively chronicles the long lifecycles of buildings as they are rennovated or repurposed. Here's my own experience with a building that "learned."  Before: a segment from a photomosaic by Masume Hayashi taken in 1999. These are the tops of four-story tall tanks used in manufacturing soap in the Proctor & Gamble Factory.  After: my photo of roughly the same area (which happens to include my desk) in what is now the third floor offices of e.magination. Notice how the chemical pipes running along the ceiling have been replaced by cable trays and HVAC ducts. And the 30 foot rise to the skylights is now covered by a new fourth floor occupied by an ad agency. Back in April, we moved into this building, now called the Cascade, in the Tide Point development on the Baltimore Harbor. Monday, June 25, 2001
Software wars map Software developer Andy Tai has been posting maps of software platform competitive wars since 1998. They don't look great, but do provide some interesting insights. Sunday, June 24, 2001
Kelly Goto's workflow book Web ReDesign: Workflows that Work is an interesting new book on web production and project management coming in August from Kelly Goto, a frequent workshop presenter at web conferences. A page at NASA links to some of Kelly's conference presentations. She has real-world experience developing sites for Webvan, Food.com, and PetStore.com. Saturday, June 23, 2001
Much ado about Smart Tags A List Apart has a very good article surveying all the issues around the Microsoft SmartTags controversy. The issue came to light in a Mossberg column in The Wall Street Journal. A keyboard within a keyboard for cell phones I saw this clever new keyboard for cell phones in the latest Popular Science. It fits an alpha key set in the empty space between the standard buttons. You put your finger into a debossed button to enter numbers, and rock your finger in one of four directions to access the alphabet. The site has some interactive demos. I can see this one actually catching on. Friday, June 22, 2001
Cringeley: high tech startups set to boom again Bob Cringeley reminds us there is still a vast untapped reserve of venture capital, and the first signs of recovery will be another wave of startups. The big difference this time will be that VCs are wiser and results driven. The article outlines some rules for success. Thursday, June 21, 2001
Managing ebay's growth and usability Computerworld describes the challenges that face eBay in information architecture and usability. The have 24 million users, 6 million items for sale, and 100 million unique page views a day! Unless you're them, any site you'll ever work on will seem microscopic. Tuesday, June 19, 2001
At the end of the universe: nothing Time magazine's cover story last week was on How The Universe Will End. New observational evidence suggests the universe is indeed expanding, and will continue to do so probably forever. I was struck by the finality of the sidebar graphic showing the current model of the phases of the future of the universe depicting decay and dispersion. The big bang has resulted in the coalescing of matter into our current Stelliferous Era. What we have to look foward to next is the Degenerate Era where most of the universe becomes locked up in collapsed, dead stars in steady "proton decay." After that, the dead stars implode forming black holes which eventually evaporate into elemental particles and radiation. Finally, 10,000 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years after the big bang, we will enter the Dark Era with diffused waste matter spread through an inconceivably big universe that is "cold, dark, and dismal." Not that it really matters to the human race, but now we know. For more info, the PBS web site has an interactive timeline, and the New York Times has a review of, and the introduction from Fred Adams' book The Five Ages of the Universe Monday, June 18, 2001
Rendered reality  I was surfing through the amazing imagery from the upcoming movie Final Fantasy which takes computer animation to a new level of realism. In the Flash version of the site, visit the Production section, and look in CG Animation. We're getting one step closer to synthespians. Fortune: the man who bought the internet Bill Gates gets all the press but Fortune brings to light another entity that is actively buying up some key parts of the Internet's business infrastructure. Sunday, June 17, 2001
Scott McCloud on micropayments: part 2 Part 2 of Scott's visual thinking on micropayments has arrived. Also the past columns are shown in thumbnail view on a new index page. Saturday, June 16, 2001
Information artifact rolled  These are all the building demolition and construction blueprints for our office complex. Signs of the apocolypse I had collected a couple of these links to post, but Slashdot has packed them nicely into a single post: What else can one say? Homeless shelters as business incubators I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this Salon story on ex-dot-commers in homeless shelters. A group of them even started a new venture during their stay. Tuesday, June 12, 2001
Info BOs Somewhere in my recent surfing, I came across the idea of boundary objects. Boundary objects are things that carry meaning across organizational boundaries. They are containers and carriers that create shared understanding. The best example I can think of is a set of building construction blueprints. Everyone from the butt-crack flashing construction worker to the visionary architect refers to this same artifact. I'll be thinking about BOs a lot in the future as much of what I do seems to involve them. Monday, June 11, 2001
Compare stuff Research Buzz reports on Compare Stuff, a new search engine that allows you to compare the results of several separate keyword searches. Sunday, June 10, 2001
The end of the (web design) world In another rant, Zeldman acknowledges that the era of big business driven, well-funded web content is over, and calls for a return to an era of practical communication and personal expression. JWZ rant on web design A scan of some other blogs turns up Jamie Zawinski's hot rant on web designers. Jamie was employee 20 at Netscape and ran the open source browser project Mozilla.org until resigning after AOL's acquisition of the company. He describes some web designs as having the appearance of "an epileptic fruit salad." Saturday, June 09, 2001
Marketing myopia Marketing Myopia is a new web log that in their own words "is a place to vent, and call out the darkside of marketing and advertising.... ad campaigns, bullshit marketing ploys, evil corporate P.R. machines, etc." Friday, June 08, 2001
New restaurant 2: DuClaw Brewery at Arundel Mills Mall Our second friends and family night at a restaurant this week was at the new second location of DuClaw Brewery at Arundel Mills Mall. Our company developed a multimedia kiosk system that's built into the the dining booths. The restaurant's location next to the giant Muvico 24 theaters opens great possibilities for providing showtime information to patrons.     We were pressed for time trying to make an earlier showing of Swordfish, but I did get to taste some of the appetizers. The food is what you'd expect from a beer pub, and the owner's goal is to consistently take it a notch above the typical TGI Fridays fare. Microsoft Smart Tags assimilating your content Walter Mossberg alerts us to a potentially insidous new feature in the upcoming Windows XP called Smart Tags. Basically, this is a mechanism built into Internet Explorer that allows Microsoft to create new hyperlinks in any content to link to sites of Microsoft's choosing. I think this technology will go nowhere, except maybe as a knowledge management technique in company intranets. Thursday, June 07, 2001
New restaurant 1: IXIA It's not often one gets to go to two restaurant openings in the same week. The first up was IXIA's friends and family night. IXIA opens in the space vacated by Louie's Bookstore and Cafe on North Charles Street in downtown Baltimore. The cuisine is nouvelle and the atmosphere is cosmopolitan with a decor that's a refined version of the "found art" look pioneered at the owner's other restaurant, The Papermoon Diner.     Here's what I had: Appetizer The night was a delight! Feminine e-business The era of manly boldness in e-business ended last year and is taking a cold shower. One writer calls for more feminine energy to help replace greed with community, inclusion, open-source code, and peer-to-peer sharing. Disappearing desktop An opinion piece at NewMedia considers the prevelant use of laptop computers as primary workstations. You'll find this the case at many offices, and true of my own situation. Weather toaster photos The Register finally posted some photos of the java-powered toaster that prints weather forecast symbols. The project site will launch soon as well. Wednesday, June 06, 2001
Storytelling from afar The new ACM eLearn magazine has a good paper on the use of storytelling in distance learning. Strategies are presented for overcoming the constraints of online interaction, and there are some useful bibliographic links at the end. Tuesday, June 05, 2001
The information architecture of meeting women Chapter 5 of this online book on "How To Meet Women" has a surprisingly systematic approach in suggesting the use of flowcharts and card sorting: Hopefully, you will have by now filled up the first several pages of the project book. At this point, transfer the information to a format that will better suit your purpose. Consider making a wall chart, a more or less elaborate diagram on poster board that will prompt you, guide and direct your conversation, when required. This will function as a sort of "talisman", or lucky charm, to boost your confidence as needed. I should have had this back in high school. I would have had to carry the chart with me all the time. Over and under your web browser Any company that tries to co-opt the presentation of your web browser for economic gain will be doomed to failure. A new gang is at it again with a technology called Frogan's Layer. Info-Vis reports on how the technology can place a transparent layer over your computer desktop so that web sites can trigger free-form pop-up windows all over your screen. No thanks! I'm already incensed about the New York Times running the new pop-under ads from X-10. Monday, June 04, 2001
Build your own nuclear reactor A poster on Slashdot rediscovered an old article from Harper's Magazine about a 14-year-old kid in Detroit who meticulously collected or sythesized radioactive materials to build a neutron gun and breeder reactor in his parent's back yard. Despite some discussion about the veracity of the story, I thought it was hilarious. The boy exposed himself to 1,000 times the normal amount of background radiation, but feels he's only taken about five years off his life. He's in the Navy now, and will be released later this summer. Will the backyard scientist make a comeback? Sunday, June 03, 2001
Virtual High Education Week has a story on Florida's innovative virtual High School. The project is being watched closely as a model for other cities around the U.S. I shudder to think what pranks will be played in a computer-mediated environment. The article links to a useful report from the The Institute for Higher Education Policy titled Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Distance Education (direct PDF download). Saturday, June 02, 2001
Ye olde Netscape Evolt has posted a unique archive of the alpha development versions of Netscape from 1995. Some of these are guaranteed to crash your system, but in this fast-changing era of the Web, it's the closest thing we have to historical artifacts. Friday, June 01, 2001
Old New York Via Camworld: a series of vignettes on the history of New York. I like the bit about sexy telegraph chat. So long and thanks for all the games Researchers in Hawaii have trained some dolphins to play a computer game as way to create a common communication language. I hope the dolphins say, "we like it here in the ocean—keep out!"
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