Circadian Shift

Head hurts. Not happy.

What better time, then, to read about End of the World Scenarios -- I'm liking the odds on extinction by insanity.

(Link via abuddhas memes.)

Ugh. Cold season continues here at The Hovel (rapidly becoming the Snotty Kleenex Ranch). Will try to post more later.

How, tell me, how could not one but two websites that feature 80s alternative/synthpop MP3s have escaped my notice?

I found NorthernBeat via the links page of wavelenghts (which apparently has gone on indefinite hiatus). Past tracks featured at NorthernBeat include songs by Visage, The Human League, Ultravox, Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran, Blancmange... And I missed them. AAAUUUGGGGH!

Then, via NorthernBeat's links page, I found 80s Nostalgia, which, in addition to current news about 80s artists, also has a new MP3 each month (more or less) for download. May's download is a track by Hunters and Collectors, whereas April's offering (still online) is a song by Julian Cope.

These sites have duly been added to the blogroll and will be monitored vigilantly from hereon in.

I was supposed to go to the zoo today, but I've come down with a cold. Achy, stuffed-up head: Boo. Neo-Citran: Yay.

Did eventually drag myself out of the hovel, wherein I found that the 7-11 at College and Spadina did not have Cherry Bomb Jolt in stock. BOO.

Had to content myself with a Orange Carrot Sobe, which, in light of my cold, is probably a good thing.

Meanwhile, this boy is toast links to a tutorial on creating really cool-looking CD covers. Loads of fun for the graphically inclined.

Also handy is this standard CD jewel case insert template for Microsoft Word, courtesy of the folks at Avery. I see no reason why you can't print your finished case designs onto regular paper, instead of buying the fancy Avery blank inserts.

Must go replenish fluid intake.

"Do you know your Dada from your Moma? Try the quiz and see."

I got 11 out of 16, which means that I'm not as art literate as I thought I was.

Thanks to my brother (who got 10 out of 16 -- not bad, bro!) for the link.

Addendum 01 October 2005: I seem to be getting a lot of hits to this page via search engine, and noticed someone from this forum has linked here. So, let's just clarify a couple things, shall we?

1. I did not write the cartoons displayed below. These are excerpts from a page that used to exist at the URL http://crossspot.net/objective/kidz.html. If you go there now, you get a "File not found" message. The parent domain, crossspot.net is some sort of Christian web hosting company. I don't know anything about them, and I don't care.
2. The material is a joke. It is a spoof; a satire; a parody on how, supposedly, some "real" Christians think. The fact that it is a spoof is discussed in this Metafilter thread, and if you had bothered reading to the end of my post instead of just shutting your brain off the minute you saw something you didn't like, you would have seen that.
3. I do not agree with the views expressed in these cartoons. I do not have any religious affiliation, precisely because I dislike how organized religions messes with peoples' heads. I can, however, see these cartoons for the joke that they are because I have a sense of humour. Maybe you should get one too.

So, now that we've got that out of the way, please enjoy/marvel at/mock/despise the following cartoons at your leisure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

From the kids' page at Objective, a Christian ministries website:

Habu's Corner
	How many gods do you have? Wouldn't you rather have just one God who loves you a bunch than a bunch of gods that don't love you at all?
Jesus loves everybody, even the unsaved like Habu! Remember to pray for Habu and others like him that they may find Jesus and accept Him into their hearts!

...and...

Spiritual Safety Tip
What should you do if you find an atheist?
	Atheists such as crotchety old Mr. Gruff think they've got it all figured out...
...but then why are they always so sad?
If you find an atheist in your neighborhood, TELL A PARENT OR PASTOR RIGHT AWAY! You may be moved to try and witness to these poor lost souls yourself, however AVOID TALKING TO THEM! Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children or they may even try to trick you into neglecting God's Word. Very advanced witnessing techniques are needed for these grouches. Let the adults handle them.

(Via Lactose Incompetent.)

Addendum 28 May 2003: GAK points out that the site is a spoof. Does that mean that dinosaurs really are extinct, then? Damn.

Right. So I threw another retro MP3 up at The Outpost:

"Metropolitan Life" by B.B. Gabor (2,578 KB)

I mentioned B.B. Gabor before, when I posted another track of his last December. He made a splash on the Canadian New Wave scene back in the early 80s, but faded away as the decade wore on. Sadly, he took his own life in 1990.

"Metropolitan Life" was the other hit from B.B's debut album. It has a lighter touch than "(Nyet Nyet Soviet) Soviet Jewelry" -- more pop influence, but still with an ironic tone. And you can dance to it.

Same disclaimer applies to this MP3 as to the one for "Soviet Jewelry" -- my own transfer from vinyl, quality decent but not super-high-end, blah blah blah.

Addendum: -- Jeez, was I on crack when I wrote that you can actually dance to "Metropolitan Life", or what? More like "bounce up and down to it, like you're having a seizure". But I think I vaguely recall pogoing along to "Soviet Jewelry". Or not.

Today's lesson: The Tim Horton's at Bloor and Bathurst does not have chocolate eclairs.

Boo.

The boy who likes to drill holes in people's heads has another website on the go (check out the dinner blog). So between that, his popcultzine blog (co-authored with Monsieur GAK), and the big list, I'm impressed that Graig has the time/energy for offline life.

I, on the other hand, broke down and got my own Bloki account, although there's nothing there right now except the default pages. I'll put something there eventually.

And I'm way overdue for an update to CS: The Outpost. Still have to get the site files from the CD I backed them up to when Adele went crazy.

Will try to post more later on, before I go to bed.

New to Blackmask's collection of free e-books: novels by Franz Kafka.

Y'know, this pattern of link consumption and spewage is probably not good for me.

But anyway...

Given my recent babbling about wikis, this rather lengthy article titled Quickiwiki, Swiki, Twiki, Zwiki and the Plone Wars: Wiki as a PIM and Collaborative Content Tool, serves as a handy guide to wikis and other information management tools, covers some of the differences between wikis and blogs, and has a small glossary of wiki and content management terms. (Via the IA Slash newsfeed sidebar.)

Also of interest is this paper titled Good to the Last Drop: Dimensions and Cultural Implications of Coffee Service in Libraries. As if there was any doubt (certainly not in my mind), having a coffee kiosk in the library is a good thing. (Via The Shifted Librarian.)

Right. Should do something else now.

Ever have trouble quantifying just how shitty you feel? Now, Units of Angst come to the rescue. To get you started, the basic unit of angst is called a mope. (Via McGee's Musings.)

Meanwhile, Lilly Wonka crunches some numbers and discovers that bullshit really does add up to more than hard work.

You're welcome.

(This post dedicated to the deceased rodent I spied on a neighbour's lawn this morning.)

I don't remember where I read about it first, but The Brunching Shuttlecocks have bid the world farewell. Which explains why my Weather In Hell widget hasn't been working. sigh

In other news, it's now clear that the Starbucks lifestyle isn't just about coffee anymore (via Badgett's Coffee e-Journal).

And, Tom Coates publishes his thoughts on discussion and citation in the blogosphere (with infographics, of course).

Meanwhile, you may want to do a bit of spring cleaning on your hard drive (via Slashdot).

Uuuhhhh... I'm sure there are other things that I meant to post to my blog, but they presently escape me.

Will have much website wrangling to do this week.

Walkin' along, singin' a song...

People In My Neighbourhood

Two quick links to way too much information:

• a big honking long list of links to articles on blogging and knowledge management, several of which I've linked to to already (via Conversations with Dina, found via thomas n. burg | randgänge)
• a ton of books from the National Academy of Sciences Press that you can read online for free (via Anti-Aging Klog)

Wheeeeee!!

The Amazing Portal Generator

RTG's Amazing Portal Generator (the APG for short) lets you design your own Web portal. Choose links from a list we provide or add your own. Choose buttons from a list of pre-coded buttons which you can customize. Buttons can do a Web search, get a stock quote, or retrieve a local weather forecast. You can customize your portal with your choice of colors and fonts.

When your design is complete, the APG writes your Web portal to a disk file. If you double-click this file, your Web browser starts up and displays the portal.

You don't need to know HTML, the language of the Web, to create a Web portal with the APG. Your design specifications are translated by the APG into the appropriate HTML commands.

This program is freeware.

(Via OpticalPoptitude)

Addendum 23 May 2003:: APG is OK, in as far as it goes, but if you actually know HTML, you'll likely find it a bit limiting. And I found the interface a bit awkward. I did use it for generating the code for a bunch of search boxes quickly and painlessly, so that's a good thing. In all, not bad for a free toy, but hardly a "serious" tool.

I love whiteboards. I have several, two of which are made of metal (heavy) so that you can stick magnets on them as well. (I also love fridge magnets, plastic letter or number magnets, and of course, those word magnets that you can compose verse with.)

In fact, I find it hard to restrain myself from drawing something on any whiteboard when I see one -- this includes the time I was at a job interview and the guy interviewing me stepped out of his office for a minute. (I did get the job, by the way.)

You can understand, then, why I liked this post from Lou Rosenfeld:

Don't know why I never mentioned this here before, but when we outfitted our office last year, I went out and purchased a 4'x8' whiteboard from Staples. You know, the kind with a chintzy aluminum frame and weak fastening tabs which, over a year or two, would likely snap off from weight stress. The thing cost about $250, but hey, what good is an information architect without a whiteboard?

The next day I happened to find myself at Lowes. A large white shiny thing caught my eye in the "Lumber'n'Other Large Flat Unwieldy Items" section. Lo and behold, a 4'x8' sheet of melamine, intended for lining a basement shower stall, but perfectly suitable for dry erase markers. And no crappy aluminum frame to fuss with. All for the incredible price of $9.99. I bolted it up on the office wall in minutes, and sent the overpriced version back on its way to Staples.

I gotta get me some melamine.

Now that the big list is hosted on the same happy server as this blog, I can readily post to both via a single login, which means that I have one less excuse for not coming up with more lists.

And if that wasn't enough, there's now this thing called Bloki, which will let people collaboratively author web pages through their browser -- kinda like a wiki, but with the relative ease-of-use that a blogging tool affords. I'm very tempted to set up an account, but I'm having enough trouble just keeping up with my current websites. (News of Bloki obtained via IA Slash's little newsfeed sidebar.)

There's an awful lot of spinning around going on:

Experts say information overload is a serious problem in many companies, adding to stress levels and resulting in a downturn in productivity (a report from Proudfoot Consulting last year found IT-related problems - such as information overload - were responsible for 8 per cent of lost time).

Irish website content management author and public speaker Gerry McGovern believes the problem known as information overload stems from the fact that since the founding of civilisation man has been operating on the premise that more is better. "(It's) the-more-the-merrier kind of concept ... if we create more, we create more value," McGovern says.

(If you decide to read the "Spinning Around" article, be sure to scroll down the page and check out the additional links and tips for dealing with information overload.)

I had a few links on information anxiety that I mentioned in my blog about a year ago; unfortunately many of them are now 404. Fortunately, Google is around to provide a couple more:

• a tutorial on information literacy which includes pointers on conducting research and evaluating the information you find
• some quotes taken from the books Information Anxiety and Data Smog

BTW, the latest "XML Deviant" column from XML.com proclaims that XHTML is the Most Important XML Vocabulary. Just for your information.

Dynamics of a Blogosphere Story:

Microdoc News has been studying the way a story enters the blogosphere, develops, and draws to a conclusion... Each blogosphere story has a definite beginning, develops along quite predictable lines and comes to a predictable end. Stories develop over a period of between 7 and 27 days.

What is a blogosphere story?
Weblogs by nature are highly interlinked sources of information which capture a weblog writer's opinion on a topic in a single post and interlink that opinion to other weblogs and sources of information. Through a mixture of opinion and interlinking with other sites a reader of weblogs can sample a wide range of opinions and can identify what is important about a particular topic. Each weblog post is not meant to be a complete story in itself, but rather is part of a larger story that develops across a number of weblogs and other information sources to build what we call a blogosphere story.

Includes a colourful, if somewhat confusing, diagram for those of you who dig the boxes-and-arrows thing.

(Via blogdex.)

Addendum: Keeners may also wish to read this paper in Competing Memes Analysis:

Competing Memes Analysis is a method that makes studies of consequential topics no more difficult than those with minimal importance. It is a three step process that
(1) organizes activities into groups of competing memes that often emerge in developmental successions,
(2) codes records of activities for the presence or absence of each meme, and
(3) constructs models of the changing frequencies of the memes.

I've been trying out Amphetadesk for the last couple days to monitor the RSS feeds of a few IA blogs that I read frequently. So far, so good.

And there are still my two goofy portal things that I've been playing with. I'm still ironing out the glitches, whereupon I will then permalink them in the sidebar. But they also make it real darn easy to monitor a bunch of other websites at once.

From all that, here are a bunch of links I've come across recently:

• Business Is Toying With a Web Tool -- namely, wikis (NYT article; free registration required)
• Canada Parts With U.S. on Drugs Policies (another NYT article)
• The Art of the Apology
• Organizational Learning is No Accident
• 10 Things Your Moving Company Won't Tell You (via WebWord)
• a special Matrix issue of JOHO

BTW, the big list has a new home and a new domain name. Congratulations to GAK on the successful transition. And, if any of you folks out there wanna churn out your own big lists for all the world to see, do let His GAKness know and he'll set you up.

Some members of the viewing audience may notice that I've changed my blog description.

I originally defined this blog's mandate to be "Reading. Computers. Art. Music. Insomnia." because I figured that's what I would talk about the most. "Art" later got changed to "Film", but really what I wanted to convey was my interest in visual media and communication in general. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've mentioned "Film" in the last year.

"Insomnia" was another catch-all term meant to convey my odd sleeping patterns (I was very much in an up-all-night-sleep-all-day mode last year). I still struggle with keeping "regular" hours, but I generally don't talk about the sleep thing as much as I used to.

Sure, computers and music are featured promininently here, and "Reading" (if not necessarily books, per se) also gets a frequent mention. But really, this blogging thing of mine boils down to me just channeling a whole bunch of data and information. Lots and lots of information.

Anyway, the new slogan, "Somewhere between pattern recognition and cognitive dissonance" hopefully captures a bit of what goes on here. Sometimes everything fits together; other times, not so much.

Thanks, everyone, for reading.

Linkage cribbed from blogdex

• Shirk Ethic: How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office
• CSS Tabs with Submenus
• Tornadoes halt Pringles production
• How do we find information in the Blogosphere?

Also check out this Field Guide to Bosses while you're at it.

Still goofing around with free headline feeds via Javascript ('cuz I'm too lazy to implement a more elegant solution):

• General News
• Technology News

Well, I found Blogmatcher a few days ago, and it's loads of fun -- look at all the blogmatches for Circadian Shift.

Blogmatrix, on the other hand, baffles me (my info here). I suppose I could spend some time playing with it, but that would require effort.

...more navel gazing:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

So, is anyone out there gonna be joining me on 3rd?

Vodka turns 500 this year

Perhaps this will make up for the fact that I wore a suit yesterday.

You are the Low-Fidelity All-Star. You were born with your cool, and it's totally natural.
You run the gamut from Hipster Supreme (only they can ingest as much coffee as you) to the geeky hipster (Mario Kart, anyone?).

What Kind of Hipster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

• What I Hate About Your Programming Language

  At a very high level, all programming languages are similar. They all require you to describe a problem to solve. They all require similar skill sets -- a good programmer in one language will find his or her skills will transfer to another language.
  Of course, at a practical level, there are important differences between languages. Different language families make certain techniques easier than others...
  The philosophy of the language designer shapes the language, its libraries, its ecological niche, and its community. Pascal was a teaching language. C is portable assembly. Lisp is very much the lambda calculus. Perl is expressive glue.

  (via Slashdot)
• Job Market Trends and Technology Strategy

  Job trend data shows what is hot and what is not in technology. The important thing is not the absolute level of use but the trend. Hot technologies like Linux, Python and .NET show strong growth. Dying technologies such as Smalltalk show a slow decline.

  (via blogdex)
• Web-Based Attacks Could Create Chaos In The Physical World

  ...automated order forms on the Web could be exploited to send tens of thousands of unwanted catalogs to a business or an individual. Such an onslaught would not only pose problems for the victim, but it could also paralyze the local post office charged with making such deliveries...

  (via Complexity Digest)
• The ABC's of Personal Knowledge Management

  I've been using the ideas of David Allen and his Getting Things Done (GTD) process for organising oneself...
  One of the simplest yet most powerful ideas within GTD is the reduction of noise in a personal filing system. How do you file your own reference materials? Two parameters drive the system.
  1) It must be easy and fun to file materials otherwise you won't
  2) It must be easy and fun to find materials otherwise you won't trust the results of step 1.

• DENIM: An Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design -- sketch prototype websites using a stylus and tablet -- whoohoo! (via this boy is toast)
• Thanks for the (Corporate) Memories -- "When employees leave, they take vital knowledge with them. Without a process in place to capture that knowledge and transfer it to their successors, it winds up lost forever."
• Leadership: Fostering Systemic Creativity -- "Building a creative organization involves a combination of top-down, bottom-up, and brushfire approaches."

Damn, now that I'm home, and the server is cooperating, I've forgotten what I wanted to blog about yesterday.

Server woes continue. Or, more accurately, router woes continue, which prevent the server from talking to the rest of the planet.

My ace technical guy assures me that things will be under control soon.

More later.

My relative silence of late has dropped me right off the Blogging Ecosystem's list of most prolific linkers (my latest stats here).

This week is again shaping up to be pretty busy, but I'll see what I can do to address the posting deficit.

diveintomark pointed me to this piece on What to do with things to do:

This categorization popped into my head recently:

• grow
• restore
• maintain
• prune
• close

as yet another way to group things to do, areas of activities, and perhaps even relationships.

Also on Tantek's site is this musing on How much is enough?:

• How uncomfortable does something have to make you before you change it?
• How wrong does something have to be before you make it right?
• How good does something have to be for you to want it?
• How ideal does something have to be before you commit to it?

Food for thought.

Oh, and by the way, personality is a lifetime's work:

Rather than being stuck with the same character we're born with, our personalities change throughout our lives -- in some cases more as we get older...

(Via WebWord)

Just gonna throw out a bunch of linkage before I forget about it:

• Sonshi.com -- a strategy resource for Sun Tzu's The Art of War (via The G Spot)
• Part Programmer, Part Archaeologist -- Oh god, I know what it's like to be brought in to do documentation as an afterthought -- memories fade, notes get lost; at least it makes my degree major in Anthropology somewhat relevant.
• Getting the Full Picture -- Want to know what your subordinates think of you? Get them to fill out a Leadership Report Card.
• Stop Something -- "It's a lot harder to stop a project than to start one. But for the sake of your employees and your business, maybe that's what you should think about doing."
• Yahoo's Search Engine Continues Evolving
• Harvard Criticizes Google's Adult Content Filter
• The Fine Art of Sucking Up -- Cringe all you want to: this is life.
• Short-Circuiting the New Paper Pushers -- "Those HR bureaucrats have been replaced by coldhearted robots. So you need a new set of strategies to win them over." (Don't get me started on the (in)utility of the Human Resources department.)
• Sharpen Your Job Interview Skills-- "The keys to winning a job interview are to establish trust and communicate the skills you'll bring to your next employer."
• .NET: A guide for managers -- or anyone else who wants the Cole's Notes version of what the hell .NET is
• Team learning: More than group thinking -- last article in a series covering concepts from Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline

Seems like all I did was blink, and we're at Friday already. Am just gonna jot down some linkage, all willy-nilly, before I forget about it. (Some of it, I already have forgotten.)

• I saw this documentary called Say I Do at the Hot Docs festival here in Toronto last weekend. (Props to Carla for the tix.) A shorter version of the film will be shown on CTV tonight (Friday) at 8pm Eastern Time (uh, two hourse from now) and re-aired this Sunday at 1 pm ET. Watch it if you have the chance.
• Then there's the O'Reilly Open Books Project for those of you who don't have enough to read. (Via Manifesto Multilinko.)
• There's also a ton of linkage, and more linkage, much concerning CSS and markup languages, courtesy of Dive Into Mark.
• Lastly (for now), here are some Notes for job seekers in UI Design and Computer Science (via InfoDesign).

I'm feeling like there's way too much to do. At least Adele is functional once again.

I was having way too much fun yesterday with this safety sign builder, which I found via xBlog.

There's also this quick read on visual language, discovered via InfoDesign.

Yeehaw.

Well, my notebook PC (whom I've christened "Adele" -- it's a Dell, get it?) has been acting more and more tempermental lately, thanks to her shoddy excuse of an operating system known an Windows ME. I'd started backing up all my data to CD last week, in anticipation of a supreme hissy-fit

Adele picked today to spazz out on me entirely. I managed to back up my remaining data (e-mail, mostly, plus some MP3s). I then wiped the hard drive completely, and am in the process of re-installing everyting.

I'm now blogging this on my super-duper Pentium-200 MMX (named "Max"). Max runs Linux-Mandrake 8.1, and while he's kinda slow, he's a very sturdy machine. I'm also doing this using the Galeon web browser, which I've never used before. I like it. It's reasonably fast, and renders CSS2 much more nicely than Netscape Communicator 4-point-whatever. And you can open multiple tabs within a single browser window. Yay.

Anyway, it'll take a while for me to get back in gear again. While I haven't lost any e-mail, it is presently inaccessible, so I will likely be even less prompt than usual in responding to any missives that have been sent to me recently. But I'll be back. Yes I will.

Sorry about last night's outage. I'll post something later today.

Beverage consumption underway (Vanilla Coke, you silly people). Must fire up something in microwave.

Meanwhile, a dorky personality-test post:

Take the "Which FARK Cliche Are You" quiz!

(via Accordion Guy)

Yeah, missed posting yesterday. Will try to bash out something later today. Must have food and beverage first.

Also forgot my blog-o-versary last week -- it was one year plus one week ago today that I started this little enterprise over on Blogspot.

Thanks, all, for reading.

Yep, it's May already, and I've yet to add a new retro MP3 to Circadian Shift: The Outpost. Had a rather busy weekend, parts of which I will document tomorrow when I get a chance.

Meanwhile, to hold you over, go check out Brilliantine, where there's another impeccably compiled mix of old and new tunes. Highlights include LCD Sound System's "Losing My Edge", which I mentioned back in February, as well as one of my favourite tracks by Japan, the song "Quiet Life".

Also check out Rare 1980's MP3 of the Week, where one of the currently featured tunes is the extended version of "Hot Water" by Level 42.

It's unfortunate that the tunes by them that got the most airplay on mainstream radio ("Something About You", "Running in the Family") were bland MOR staples; their earlier stuff was more in a funky, jazz fusion vein. "Hot Water" re-captures some of that earlier sound, and features a particularly infectious bassline. Go give it a listen.

The alarm clocks are set for 6 and 6.15 am, see I should probably try to get some sleep now.

Uh.....

• U.S. warns Canada against easing pot laws

  David Murray, right-hand man to U.S. "drug czar" John Walters, says he doesn't want to tread on another country's sovereignty, but warned there would be consequences if Canada proceeds with a plan to decriminalize the possession of marijuana.

  (via Media Dystopia)


• U.S. says Canada cares too much about liberties

  The State Department report on global terrorism for 2002 suggests that while Canada has been helpful in the fight against terrorism, it doesn't spend enough on policing and places too much emphasis on civil liberties.

  (via Manifesto Multilinko)

sigh

Yeah, sorry for the lack of updates, folks. My days have been spent taking steps towards becoming a productive member of society again. Hence the aforementioned early risings, which have turned my days upside down.

I don't mean to be mysterious -- I just don't feel like writing about it right now.

I was watching the 11pm CTV News yesterday, and there was an item on U.S. opposition to de-criminalization of pot in Canada.

The item has footage of John Walters, director of the White House office of National Drug Control Policy, expressing his views.

Among other remarks, which are noted in the story posted on CTV's website, he actually likened the threat of an influx of pot smuggled from Canada into the U.S. as "a form of harm that amounts to a kind of chemical warfare".

I'm not kidding -- you have to watch the video to hear him say it.

So does this mean that Canada is now slated for invasion for posing a threat to the U.S.?

Jackass.