The Amazon Reviews Meme

I know, this is another meme: it will be boring in something like twenty days.
But this morning it really made me laugh in the semi-deserted office as almost all the company but me and a few others (my choice... I'll explain later...) is flying to Las Vegas right now.

Amazon User Reviews for:

Bic Pens
"Upon the morning in which I had been promised the delivery of this pen I could hardly sleep for excitement. My dreams, such as they were, were filled with inferior pens dripping ink all over myself and my world, and of choruses of blunt pencils intoning words of doom that I could hardly comprehend. When I woke my head ached and my soul was heavy."

Milk
"Has anyone else tried pouring this stuff over dry cereal? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!"

Poor Bunny Corpses sold as food
"Nothing says "Eat Me" like a photo of a skinned rabbit carcass! Honestly, the photo just makes you hungry, doesn't it? It remained me of all of those times in biology class when I was so tempted to try a bite of the putrid fetal pig I was dissecting. Man, that takes me back!"

and you can find a few more, browsing through the "related" products. (via BoingBoing)
Ok, back to work now. Just trying not to think about the Vegas thing...

Swap Meat in London

Can't resist buying stuff online.
I finally received my four Billy Davis Ghost Prints from Coudal's Swap Meat. The prints look awesome. I had them framed (Frame Factory, in Haverstock Hill, near my new residence in London), so now I have a new decor on the the yellowish walls of my humble studio flat.

Photo: [with the light] and [in the dark]

Separated at Birth

While browsing around music and entertainment websites, I came across this photo: clearly the visual proof that Dave Grohl is slowly mutating into a Steve Wozniak shaped human form.

Hat tip: Andrea (lost somewhere in Brasil).

New Deluxe Timewaster

It seems there's a new website around, made to prevent us (chubby and lazy internet addicted) to be productive anymore: Super Deluxe.
Super Deluxe, property of Turner Broadcasting, is a new comedy video broadcasting and sharing website.
It might be similar to YouTube, but aimed to comedic content and, hopefully, without people commenting all the uploaded videos as "fake".

In the words of Mr. Todd Dominey, Creative Director at Turner Interactive:
"Super Deluxe is all about original, funny stuff you won't find on any other web site. And if you want to share a video with someone, or contribute your own, the tools are there for you to do so. The tools won't make Super Deluxe great. It's the content. And there's plenty more coming."

So, make you an account, sit back and relax (read: procrastinate everything) and enjoy.
Enjoy especially videos like Sodom and Gomorrah by Brad Neely, and Writers of Lost from the Olde English.
They even have a NYC based Ugo Fantozzi.

YouSpam.com

First we had old fashion email spam (I even had to enable Spam Assassin on my Dreamhost account due to the huge amount of "unsolicited messages" received in these last months).
Then comments spam on blogs, spam on forums threads, spam through online forms and even referrer spam in the statistics logs.
The new trend, as I discovered during the last week, is spam directly in the YouTube inbox... and wait! In the videos too!
Next? Flickr?

Photos from the ISS

Nice use of "Uploading by email" service at Flickr: Anousheh Ansari is posting photos taken aboard the ISS on her flickr account.

Jnkmail general stats

The "stats geek" inside me just got inspired by Justin Blanton's "Some general stats" blog entry.
So, here's my Mint data so far:

YouTube, we have a problem

Something is going terribly wrong with YouTube "related" videos feature...

The Iconfactory

The Iconfactory is redesigning.
Love the animation.

Flickr Inspector

Nils K. Windisch, also known as netomer on flickr, developed the new (and beautiful) flickr inspector.
Everything you wanted to know about you, or other flickr users, on a single page. Lovely.
My flickr account under inspection.

Interesting Bits

Most of these links have been waiting a long time in my "must see" bookmark folder, so:

When I grow up I want to be like Zembla Magazine.
The man behind the Mac's startup sound!
Tang Museum by Flat.
Eric Morel: cocogp!
Internet is full of geniuses...
Style-Force Pixelfonts.
Orbit1.
Bird Flu hits Florida trailer park!

On totally another topic, next week I'll be riding this beauty at Vallelunga International Track, during the official presentation to the public (and potential customers...) organized by BMW Italy. I can't wait...

Thanks Dreamhost

Dreamhost just quadrupled disk space and octupled the monthly bandwith (too bad my bandwith use is quite risible...) on both new and old accounts! What a nice way to start a new hosting year.
This along a couple of other terrific features may make you consider sign up with them!

Netlag

From Pleix:

"1609 outdoor live webcams all over the world. For each cam one image recorded every 10 min From 29-01-2004 18:40 GMT to 30-01-2004 18:40 GMT."

Admire: Netlag

Where do you come from?

Dear reader - yes I'm talking to you - you reading this few words, staring at your monitor with an american coffee mug in your hand: where do you come from?
Looking at this site stats, I've noticed a huge increase in visits this last month (single IPs). Something like this has already happened in the past. This time, anyway, I can't see among my referrers the "origin" of this massive flow of visits.
Hints (use comments below) largely appreciated.

On another topic, separated at birth:
Darth Maul (preliminary character designs) and Mr. Jack Nicholson - see the comparison!

Spring/Summer 2005.

Panic Inc launches it's goodies shop today, selling T-shirts designed by co-founder Cabel Sasser, and featuring the coolest drag 'n drop Shopping Cart I've ever seen on the web.
It's Panic: Shockingly Good!

I'll vote for you.

Ninja's killed my family.
Need money for Kung-Fu Lessons.

Web Essentials 04.

- Did you see anything?
- No, sir! I didn't see you playing with you dolls again.

Mr. Zeldman video keynote for Web Essentials 04.

(thanks to Mr. Vins)

Wayback!

Jnkmail.com: March 2003.

Net Phone.

It' only me, or do you think that Takara's ethernet enabled internet phone has an ambiguous design?
I mean... it also sports a "toy port"!

On another topic: photos updated.

The so precious dot ca.

Due to some new rules for the ownership of .ca domains, some sites have been wiped out from the internet in the past days.

Those include our news aggregator faves: Airbag, that moved to airbagindustries.com, and Typographi.ca that still seems to be offline.

Let city of Southpark attack Canada!

Google Keywords.

And, this month, the award goes to...

The idiot who landed on this site searching Google for:
"i downloaded gta vice and it is in .gif form".

Slice it, I say.

Second prize for: "what motorcicle is used for", coming from Aol Search, and third prize for the totally meaningless "BONSAI SCROLL".

Slideshow!

I'm currently experimenting with the neat and simple photo slideshow, coded in PHP by Justin Blanton (another one who was waiting for something like that) - finally what we needed!
Thanks Justin!
(Expect a photo section update soon...)

If you want to show Mr. Blanton your appreciation for his work... buy him a 23" Cinema HD Display!!!

WR v3

Third version of Webmaster Republic is online now.

Moving Hot Spots.

"I am like the ice cream man, but with no music
and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream."

Yury Gitman

TV Listing Journey!

This night the first episode of Six Feet Under will be on air on Italian TV.
I don't want to miss it, so this afternoon I tried to check over the internet (I use Safari, Mac) wich channel, and at what time, shows the premiere.
I know for sure that Mediaset (biggest italian TV network) is airing it, so the first thing that comes to mind is to check mediaset online website for TV schedule - simple no?

Mediasetonline greets me with a wonderful floating banner (that suggest a poorly designed layout) and supa-famous Porn Star Aria di Giovanni innocently looking at me, caged into another banner linking to a nudes site.
I then spot the Canale 5 and Italia 1 links and go to the respective sites:

on Canale 5 site I'm not able to click on the lef hand links, the ones I need to reach the schedules, because of another floating banner (later I noticed that I'm randomly able to click the links on the left, don't know why - your experience may vary).
Italia 1 is a way better, but unfortunately, for no particular reasons the TV schedule shows only morning-afternoon shows: yeah!!!

After 15-20 minutes trying, i gave up, discouraged, and finally found the information I wanted using the teletext system (now that's really hot new technology) on a TV set downstairs...

While the rest of the world is converting to web-standard, clean and/or rich looking, usable websites, we still need to learn designing almost decent ones (me included)...

Ah, I forgot, finally I found that the show is at 22:50.
Now: where's that huge popcorn bag???

Junk Mail from Jnkmail.com

I've read that it happened to others before, but only today I received too a warning email from these bright guys at the jnkmail.com team!

Dear user of Jnkmail.com,

We warn you about some attacks on your e-mail account.
Your computer may contain viruses, in order to keep your computer and e-mail account safe, please, follow the instructions.
For details see the attached file.

The Management,
The Jnkmail.com team
http://www.jnkmail.com

These spammers are getting more ambitius than ever!
And the mail sounds totally weird because of the silly name I've choosen one late monday night for this website...

Terrific, after thousands of Italian Crafted Rolex offers, several Huday Hussein letters, and enough enlargements pills for my penis that could have let me join with great, unseen, success the international Porn Industry, making real big bucks (and a lot of fun)... It's almost nice to spot new creative ideas in junk mail.

Speak Up Revitalized!

Speak Up gets better: an overall redesign, a new logotype and a new, better organized, structure, to serve some of the best design thoughts and discussions on the internet these days!

And, oh "v_2" is gone: there is a new address too!

He is Alive!

Our beloved Mr. Rubin strikes back!

Rockstar Games Upload III

The Rockstar Games Upload III contest winners announced.

Prize (Episode One)

I received a small package from Fort Lauderdale this mornig.
I'll let you, curious monkeys, know what's inside this evening, but I think some of you already know...

ID3, Project 1210: Human Rights for ALL!

On December 10 2003 on the 57th anniversary of the ONU's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as an independent content producer, you can help to increase awareness about human rights abuses in the world.
Words, art, design, photography, thoughts can work it out!
Why don't participate?
Project 1210 needs you!

And, as Stuart suggests:

"Weblog owners are also encouraged to make a post on December 10th on a particular issue or perspective relevant to 'Human Rights for ALL"

WR and Jnkmail are supporting so far!

ID3

Independents Day: rebirth.

Happy Tree Friends

In a pure Itchy and Scratchy Show trend: enjoy the Happy Tree Friends!
(Thanks to Gianluca for the link)

Escher "Relativity" with LEGO.

I love this kind of stuff.

(link from k10k.)

TVM.

Trevor Van Meter relaunches his website.
If you don't know him: check out the world-famous "Fly Guy", you'll love it.

Future Proofed My URIs

I future proofed my URIs, using Brad Choate's Regex Plugin, thanks to Justin Blanton, who wrote a simple how-to months ago on his blog.
One, among others, useful thing about the new method of archiving is that MT now uses folder named as the entry title for filing.
From my stats, I can now easily understand which entries people are reading from the archives, since the title of entry is in the URL.
Anyone (so I) better recognizes:

/archives/2003/02/01/book_design/

than:

/archives/archives/000019.html

Future Proofing now is gone. Next on the list: comments.

Lost Swedish and Brasilian Pop Bands

On k10k, Klaus Kristensen is linking the Lost Swedish Pop Bands, but they're leaving the Amigos Invisibles wonderful video behind!
(Both found long time ago through Zeldman).

Entry #100

Accidentaly, entry number 100 is the first entry after the redesign.

Anyway: at London Photos you can find some wonderful polaroid manipulations (no Photoshop), "perfectly composed" (quoting Rebecky) pictures and, of course, gay legos.

The Future of the World Wide Web.

Tim Berners-Lee lecture on the future of the World Wide Web at the Royal Society.

Brilliant

Coniglio Cattivo.
(In italian only).

Mezzoblue rebuilds with standards.

Dave Shea, the man behind the wonderful CSS Zengarden, a demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSS–based design, rebuilt his personal blog: Mezzoblue with XHTML Strict and a clean, semantic markup, hard job: flawless result!
This (with the contribuition of a, maybe, CSS hardcore-fan) ignited a little discussion about the use of tables in websites designs.

Adios Netscape.

AOL pulled the plug with netscape.

The new Brainbox.

We were waiting.
The new Brainbox is online: check out "Half" video.

Fetish.

Did you know that the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research estimates that 38,000 cardiovascular deaths, due to sleep apnea, occur each year?
So why don't you get your own SleepAngel?

I wonder if they do it in black leather...

Smart Quotes

I've installed John Gruber's SmartyPants, an useful MoveableType plugin for all of us who don't want to manually encode into HTML typographical correct puntuaction.

It works with MT, Blosxom and even BBedit.
Why don't you give it a try?
(Assuming you are lazy as me
when editing entries...)

Maintenance Operations

I'm working under the hood of jnkmail.com, I’m planning to add new tiny features in the next two weeks.
At the moment I just rewrote the html code, that now is XHTML Transitional compliant, and reorganized the use of SSI (Server Side Include) for the side bar and the footer.

If you spot any errors or strange behaviors, please do not hesitate to contact me!

Adios IE.

Microsoft discontinued the development of Internet Explorer Mac Edition, while it's Windows version will be embedded into Windows itself, so if any windows users want to upgrade their browser, they would wait for the upcoming (apparently not before 2005), code named "longhorn" new windows client version.
This will shake the internet community!

If you want to work with an updated browser whose support for the webstandards will continuosly improve, you should switch to the other alternative browsers.

I will miss my beloved Explorer.

Little Updates.

If you don't see the background color, please force-reload.

DWWS

According to Blogsphere, Amazon most "blogged" item (the second) is Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman.

I pre-ordered the book last week and I'm awaiting it in my mailbox (we don't have mailboxes here in Italy, really) in the hope to make jnkmail.com, and all the other sites I make to feed myself, a bit more standard-compliant.

If you are a bit of a web geek and you want the web to be "visually pleasant" and accessible to everyone I strongly suggest you to read Mr Zeldman and his alistapart.
I read (on web and on paper) him since higfive.com times, and as a young designer and web designer I respect him.
As a drummer I lately discovered that I've studied, years ago, during the first years of the web, some of his brother's drum patterns.

Wow, I'm some way "linked" with the Zeldman family!
(just kidding)

Happy Birthday!

One year of typographica!

Please feed the bear.

Every pet needs your love and attention, feed him, play with him, poke him at bearskinrug.

If you're asking yourself... yesss, I found it via k10k's link to Kevin Cornell's wonderful sketchbook.

the new brainbox?

Mauro Gatti's thebrainbox.com is under redesign (a temp version of the site is online now), waiting for his new flash site you can check out his latest projects like the "perfectly crafted" (at least I think) Radio Italia Network site: notewhorty italian webdesign!

Conclave Obscurum.

Quite disturbing interface: I enjoyed much the site, amazing illustrations and animations, especially this one.

The Mirror Project needs you.

The mirror project "is a victim of its own success".
It needs a new, dedicated server, so they're asking for donations via PayPal.

hoogerbrugge dot com

Modern Living.

Mms Mixer

Nokia 3650 sports a fresh mini-site.
This really is how to use Flash!
(Hope I Could...)

Franz, thanks for the link ;)

Pixel Art?

Whooa! Do you like pixel art?
I found this site,
made by an Italian guy ;)
The icon characters are amazing and perfectly animated,
give a look to the portfolio to see some interesting site design, interface design projects he made.