2020 Hindsight

Hour of the Pearl, redux

I just got an email from someone who liked my Hour of the Pearl pictures, from rollerblading along the Santa Barbara waterfront. (thanks, CW!) I clicked the link in the email to see what he was referring to... aaah, those pictures. Yes, as a matter of fact, those are kinda nice. Nice to be reminded of forgotten twilight. So I remind you.

J.K. Rowling's personal site

I went searching for news of when Book 6 of the Harry Potter series comes out, and instead found this (prolly coinciding with the soon-to-be-released Prizoner of Azkaban movie).

I thought, "What, J.K. Rowling is blogging?" No, it's a flash-based site, and very cleverly done. She debunks some of the gossip and the site includes descriptions of characters and story that's been edited out of the series so far.

7 web tricks that users don't know

An article by Carolyn Snyder (author of Paper Prototyping) on web surfing habits and tricks that users don't know. (Some gotchas that she encountered were not found by usability testing professionals in the Bay Area; the users from there seem to be a more web-savvy bunch because they have closer association with web developers, perhaps?) [via PapaScott]

Time and money crunches doomed Beagle 2

The inquiry into why Beagle 2 was doomed released a summary of its report today.

Ironically, Beagle 2's ambitious scientific goals - to search directly for signs of Martian life - may have played a role in the mission's undoing. The summary states: "the very high potential scientific benefits of the project may have contributed to a collective institutional underestimate by us all of [how] to identify and mitigate the risks [resulting from] the very tight financial, mass and schedule constraints".

The tight time constraint arose because Beagle 2 had to be ready to launch on Mars Express, which itself was assembled in record time to take advantage of the close approach between Mars and Earth in 2003.

A design epiphany: Keep it simple

NY Times reports on a Simplicity Design Workshop held over the last year at MIT's Media Lab. [via dangerousmeta]

Cannes Film Surprise made with iMovie

Tarnation is a small budget home-grown movie.

The surprise hit of the Cannes film festival is a movie made by a first-time director with a budget of precisely $218.32.

Tarnation was created by 31-year-old jobbing actor Jonathan Caouette, using the Apple Macintosh package iMovie. It is a touching and often disturbing family history pieced together via photographs, home movie images from the 1970s and 80s, and interviews by Caouette with his mother and grandparents.

Blog software comparison

A handy compare and contrast collection of weblog software that works on the server side. The author's asking for additional imput. [via Al Hawkins]

This chart displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison. Only server-installed scripts will be included in this list. (Sorry, no Radio, Blogger, etc.) I created this chart to help figure out what blog tool best suited my needs. Hopefully, it will be useful to the self-hosted blogging community as well.

Super Size Me

I saw Morgan Spurlock's acclaimed Super Size Me film last night. Excellent. Very highly recommended.

Morgan has a blog, too. He's doing press tours like there's no tomorrow. 30 days eating nothing but McDonald's food changed his body and his health, and now the non-stop promotion and the acclaim he's deservedly receiving is making other changes to his life. Of note, from his May 11 entry:

After the Aussie news, it was off to tape an episode of Dennis Miller’s new show. This was also another surreal experience. I’ve been a big fan of Dennis’ for a long time and to sit across from him while he talked about the film and made me crack up was awesome.

I have to keep stepping back and acknowledging that this is all really happening.

As I left his show, he grabbed me and gave me some great advice, “Enjoy this time.” He said. “When you’re on your way up like this, it only happens once. Don’t get caught up in the bullshit and have fun. Because in a couple years when you’re really established, you’ll be thankful you took the time to enjoy the ride.” Smart words from a smart man. [Read More]

No way to run a war

by Mark Helprin: The Democrats are guilty of ideological confusion and the Republicans of disdain for reflection.

Last weekend's JPL Open House: Now with pictures!

I've uploaded photos from the JPL open house, added more to the story and put it all in a page of its own: JPL Open House Report.