Circadian Shift

• Blogs in Organizations - A new form of Communication
• Putting Execs on Blogging Steroids
• K-Log Productivity: Time to find and availability (via Column Two)

Should you not be able to get enough info on linking trends in the blogosphere, you can now add Blogpulse to your media-watching diet.

From their list of top links for today, here's an article on The future of XML documents and relational databases.

Yeehaw.

• Happy Signs that we'd like to see (via Paul's Blog)
• a handy web colour wheel (via Rambles, Rants and Ruminations)

• today is Kate Bush's 45th birthday; she's also working on a new album (via DJ Martian)
• The BBC Interviews Morissey (Real Audio format) (via extrasonic)
• more MP3s by Anythingbox (via Net Gone Pop)

• a summary of a report on ROI calculations: K-Logs vs. traditional Intranet Portals (via IAslash)
• updated Webmonkey support chart for Windows browsers; there are separate pages for browsers in Macintosh, Unix/Linux, and other OSs (via IDblog, spotted on the aggregator)
• a very cool Tabbed DHTML/CSS Bookmark list, which unfortunately does not work in Opera (via Photojunkie)

The temperature's been creeping upwards again, after a relative cool snap last week. Having not adjusted my wardrobe accordingly, managed to work up a fair bit of a sweat after this afternoon's traipse throught the Annex.

Time to kick back and think cool thoughts.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah...

• The Secrets of Successful Idea People
• Reorganizations: What to expect and avoid (via blogdex)
• Keep Office Politics Out of Your Design (via InfoDesign)
• Tight ties could damage eyesight (via BostonWorks: The Job Blog) (Addendum 30 July 2003: Link fixed. Thanks, John!)

Now, I'm just waiting for someone to declare pantyhose a health hazard. One can always hope.

• The Periodic Table of Dessert (via Information Nation)
• Terms of engagement -- "definitions to keep on top of current events" (via The G Spot)
• The Caffeine Machine -- "Hey, you got your computer in my coffee maker!" (via Pete Bevin)
• Brain buzz that proves Chinese is harder to learn than English -- "people who speak different sorts of languages use their brains to decode speech in different ways" (via Heckler & Coch)

Two links, courtesy of bBlog:

• Tyrants, Statesmen, and Destroyers (A Brief History of the CEO)
• Calling it Quits: How to leave a job or client without burning bridges

I've added a new feature to Circadian Shift: The Outpost.

The "Gaping Void Gallery" will have new drawings syndicated each week from Gaping Void: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards." I'll try to keep at least two weeks' worth of cartoons up, subject to space requirements.

Here are the first two galleries:

• week of 28 July 2003
• week of 21 July 2003

I also changed the layout of the Outpost and added a couple newsfeeds and widgets. More changes are on the way. Sometime.

Meant to blog this yesterday. Yeah, whatever.

Skip breakfast, get fat: study
Finnish researchers say those who skip their morning meal run the risk of getting fatter and ending up in worse health than those who eat breakfast.

Unfortunately, it's not likely that a steady diet of all-day breakfasts from my local pub or deli is going to help in keeping the pounds off. Alas.

(Breakfast link via the biztechportalthing.)

Changed the layout and added a bunch of feeds to my artsentertainmentportalthing.

Ha. Like anyone visits it besides me. Whatever.

I suppose there are some people out there who have been eagerly anticipating the 15th Edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. I'll admit I'm not one of them -- I bought the 14th several years ago, and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've used it. But, in case you care, here are some highlights of what's new. (Linkage via MetaFilter.)

MeFi also posts linkage and commentary about novelist Gene Wolfe withdrawing from teaching a writing workshop following complaints by some of the students that he made "unfair" comments about their work. Which reminds me that I have yet to read Chip Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys.

A blog post from one of Wolfe's workshop attendees shares some of the author's more valuable advice:

Was viewing a job posting on Workopolis and happened to notice this item:

:: What You Should Expect ::
A culture that fosters "Pursue of Excellence" and out of the box thinking.

Well, something's out of the box, anyway...

Made a bunch of changes and additions to my Bloki site.

I'm really happy with the improvements that Bloki's been making to the application -- it's now less buggy, and the WYSIWYG editing is less kludgy.

They've also added comment functionality to the blog portion (although I only use mine as a change log, so it's not likely that people will comment on the posts there), as well as the capability to host forums on your site. Not that I plan on adding any forums to my site, but I could, y'know...

Added the Summary RSS feed from Kalsey Consulting's blog to my IA/KM/CM Aggregator and spotted this post:

Writing Realistic Job Descriptions
When writing job listings, some managers and companies will list every skill they wish a potential employee might have as required experience...
It's obvious that someone is listing all the tools that might be used in the job, adding in the job requirements, and then throwing in a wishlist of all the skills that might be useful. The problem with this approach is that you are virtually guaranteeing that you won't get qualified applicants for the position.
When I look at that job description, I can't decipher what they really want. What's the real need behind that job?

Amen. Must resist urge to slap an HR rep.

The Morning News weighs in (thank you blogdex) with this gem:

The Key to a Successful Freelance Career: A Diary
The key to a successful freelance career is routine. Give yourself a strict schedule, just like any job. People may complain about the inconvenience of the workforce -- getting out of bed at an early hour, dealing with the boss and the co-workers -- but that keeps us honest and productive. Without such checks and balances, some of us fall to pieces.

Meanwhile, Slashdot links to a Business Week article about the rising popularity of meditation in the workplace. The ensuing Slashdot discussion also makes a few interesting points.

Business Week pops up on the radar again, thanks to a BostonWorks: The Job Blog link to an item on the drawbacks and dangers of working the night shift. I agree that it's much harder to conduct a life outside of work when you're assigned to the graveyard shift. Although I wonder how many habitual night owls would avoid going to the gym even if they worked a day shift -- I know I would want to avoid the vapid spandex hordes at any time of the day.

Yet another study of automobile telecommunication enthusiasts concludes that using a cell phone while you drive is More dangerous than driving drunk.

Kinda like the clueless wonder I recently spotted at Bloor and Spadina, who was simultaneously talking on the phone, restraining her dog in the front passenger seat, and attempting to turning right. If I had a baseball bat with me at the time, someone would be missing a few tail lights.

(Study link via Gizmodo.)

.....

Addendum 25 July 2003: Further to Jimcat's note (excellent point, by the way) in the Comments on this post, here's a list of 10 most dangerous foods to eat on the road (via blogdex).

I'd like to add that changing a tape or CD while driving is also a darn good way to get yourself into an accident. I can't believe that some morons actually want to install DVD players in the dashboards as well.

I'll stick to walking, thanks.

.....

Addendum #2, 26 July 2003: Mookie thoughtfully provides links to definitions and notes on the origins of the word "asshat".

Last night, I went to see the flick Johnny English.

Don't bother.

  Do laundry?
  Do dishes?
  Update websites?
  Read?
  Burn mix CDs?
  Curl up into a ball on the futon?
  Eat an entire box of apple turnovers?
  Finish drinking my "Cherry Bomb" Jolt?
  All of the above?
  None of the above?

AI-YI-YI!!

Currently racing up the charts at blogdex and Daypop is this little item:

Wolfowitz Warns Iraq's Neighbors Not to Interfere
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned foreigners Monday not to interfere in Iraq, in remarks aimed at Iraq's neighbors and suspected foreign fighters who may have arrived in the country.
Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, told a news conference in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that Washington would, however, welcome outside help.
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq," said Wolfowitz, who is touring the country to meet U.S. troops and Iraqi officials.

Y'know, this sort of pointy-haired cluelessness is a lot less scary when you read about it in Dilbert.

(*yours, or someone else's -- you choose)

I just wish my life could be as strange as a conspiracy
I hold that hope, but there's no way to be what I want to be

The CD player finally quit after endless revolutions through Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. I've now substituted my CD-single copy of Felt's "Primitive Painters", again with the setting on 'Repeat'.

Reich's shimmering, looping atmospherics were the perfect sonic backdrop while reading Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It. An episodic travelogue of sorts, it's tinged with the same longing and ache that bled from the pages of Paris Trance and suffused the vignettes of But Beautiful.

What can I say. Now that the book reading is over, Felt's aural bombast is the perfect salve for the sense of inextricable loss that I'm left with once again. I don't know why Dyer's writing does this to me.

I've been slacking off on the "work-related reading" lately.

Courtesy of Gaping Void: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards."

Whatwith actually building websites, theory has taken a back seat. However, reading material continues to proliferate:

• the August issue of Fast Company is online
• HBS Working Knowledge looks at The Power of Posture
• you could always crib on usability standards with The Bluffers' Guide to ISO 9241 (via WebWord)
• or, for extreme chuckles, there's The four basic ontologies of semantic interpretation (via InfoDesign)

Or, I can just skip all that entirely and go back to crunching stylesheets.

I need more coffee.

Web stuff I've been working on, here and there (although most of it has yet to go "live"):

• adding more content to my resume site
• adding more content to my Bloki
• changing the layout and adding more content to Circadian Shift: The Outpost
• changing the layout and some of the feeds on my artsentertainmentportalthing
• updating my Blogrolls

Yaaaa-aah-aahh! Eyestrain! Eyestrain!

Maybe I should just stick to blogging the easy way.

(EZ-blog link via extrasonic.)

Lifestyles of the unemployed:

• Unemployed Man Getting Really Good at Unemployment
• My To-Do List, Now That I've Been Laid Off from a Dot-Com for the Third Time

(Linkage via blogdex.)

Infographic junkie alert:

maximizing sandwich taste: an exploration of yum

Via Steph, who claims that "(t)he only thing Visio is good for, is making sandwich diagrams".

You know you've been neglecting your online presence when people you know In Real Life keep urging you to "blog something".

Well, okay, just one person, but still... Might as well try to keep the readership happy...

Links:

• New on Blackmask is this volume titled Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with Refreshments for all Social Affairs, also available for download in several e-book formats.
• TinyApps recently added a selection of svelte software for the Palm OS to their site.
• Do you remember what the web was like before Google? Check out Where Are They Now? Search Engines We've Known & Loved. Also of interest is the guide to The Major Search Engines and Directories of today.
• For another blast from the past, there's always the Cool Site of the Day Archives -- a few of the sites that were cool back in August 1994 are actually still around.
• Have I mentioned this site before? Innovation Tools has linkage to all sorts of resources for jump-starting your brain.
• Lastly, should you ever wonder exactly How Much Information exists, this site will "look at several media and estimate yearly production, accumulated stock, rates of growth, and other variables of interest".

Might not be around much this weekend. Hopefully will pick things up again next week.

Last night on College St.:

• Wandered into Soundscapes and ended up walking out with a new CD -- Transatlantic Love Machine by Tinkertoy. Ambient electro with elements of Philip Glass and Steve Reich thrown in for textural interest. Good for a late night chill session.
• At the Royal, met up with some of the GTAB crew for a screening of Better Luck Tomorrow. Spot on depiction of oppressive suburban high school conformity, SoCal Asian style. Pacing occasionally sluggish, but otherwise a decent film.

Found this story via BostonWorks: The Job Blog:

Unemployed Australian man sent to escort agency
SYDNEY (Reuters) -- Returning to work took on an unexpected meaning for an unemployed Australian man when the government's job network told him to apply to an agency looking for female escorts.

You really have to wonder sometimes about these job recommendations. I subscribe to a number of 'Career Alerts' through Workopolis; I get e-mail informing me when positions are listed that match my "specified search criteria", with mixed results. Take yesterday's e-mail responding to my search criteria for "Technical Writer":

A job has been posted at workopolis.com, matching your specified search criteria. To read about it just click the link below, you will be taken directly to the job posting, where you can find out how to apply:

VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH AUTHORITY: Laundry Worker ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=5985253

VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH AUTHORITY: Cook 1 ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=5985247

MULTEC CANADA LTD.: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=6342584

VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH AUTHORITY: Food Service Worker 1 ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=5985237

FUTURE EXECUTIVE PERSONNEL: JUNIOR INVESTMENT ADVISOR - BERMUDA - U. S. TAX FREE SALARY ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=6342528

NORAMTEC/GSA SEARCH CONSULTANTS: Junior Hydrogeologist ( Posted on 15-jul-2003 ) http://jobs.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work.job_posting?pi_job_id=6342334

Just because I can, I added some new newsfeeds to a couple of my pages:

• on my generalnewsportalthing page, I put in a feed from About.com's "Canada Online" site
• over on Circadian Shift: The Outpost, I added a feed from About.com's "80s Music" site

Still busy. Light bloggin alert continues.

Addendum 15 July 2003:: Oops. Forget to test the damn news page in Internet Explorer. Sorry. The thing looks fine in Opera. Will have to fix it later.

Tim Hortons takes a bite out of its doughnuts

Tim Hortons is shaving down the size of its doughnuts to what they were in 1964.
The doughnut and coffee giant says the change is a way of standardizing all franchises by using the original dimensions established when the chain first opened almost 40 years ago.
"Since 1964 we've had specifications for the size of the doughnuts but over the years, franchise operators deviated from that and made bigger or smaller doughnuts," said Patrician Jamieson of Tim Hortons.
Jamieson says the doughnuts "lacked consistency" so the company decided to re-issue the original specifications so that all the doughnuts will be the same size across Canada.

(Via the biztechportalthing.)

So you want to learn Japanese, huh? Think again, smartass.

(Via Information Nation.)

Been kinda busy. Expect light blogging for the next few days.

• You probably think this song is about you... -- "If you really want to get to know someone, try rummaging through their CD collection. An study has proved that when it comes to judging a person's character, their favourite music is one of the most valuable clues." (via KML's Monoblog)
• Indian firms see darker side of call centre boom -- "Rajit Gangadharan thought his dream had come true when a call centre offered him an attractive job soon after he finished a bachelor's degree in commerce... But the dream soured for the 24-year-old when he began to see the flip side of his cool job: Long night shifts, irregular eating habits and few opportunities to meet his old friends." (via BostonWorks: The Job Blog)

The Nemesis Project for CSS and XHTML is "an attempt to gather links to all the CSS information possible". Tons o' linkage, to templates, tutorials, and other stuff.

(Via paranoidfish.)

Been playing with News App, which lets you build a web page that grabs its content from RSS feeds.

My page is here. Nothing fancy, as I've only got four feeds. I also elected to go with the "Steely" stylesheet from W3C Core Styles rather than cook up my own.

Certainly, there are other feeds I could have included, but I liked these ones because they only run excerpts of very long posts -- there's only so much scrolling that I can handle.

Will likely play with it some more at some point, when I get ambitious.

Been a while since I went spelunking through InternalMemos.com. Much of the really juicy-looking stuff requires a paid subscription, but here are the subject headers of a few of the site's free offerings:

• Speaker Phone Etiquette
• answering the phones
• Meal Breaks and Rest Periods
• You're fired

Right. No cat pictures today.

• mondo jackpot of portal design articles via a SAP Design Guild edition on Portals - The Information, Functionality and Services I Need at My Fingertips
• a site called Portals Community also looks hella cool; check out the whitepaper on Portal Fundamentals
• Delphi Group whitepaper titled Populating the Portal: New Approaches to Accessing Content and Application Services Within Enterprise Portals (PDF file, 5.88 MB)
• Building Portals with XML
• Portals and Web Services: Services at the User Interface

Also stumbled across Excite Lite, which bills itself as "Lightning fast on even the slowest dial-up!". It is pretty darn speedy, actually -- compare and contract with regular Excite.

• Management is a dirty word -- Kevin Laurence comments on people's tendencies to equate "management" with "tyrannical, dictatorial control freaks", and reviews a new book book titled What Management Is
• Organizational terrorism -- "...modern communications, and the growth of weblogs and web bulletin boards in particular, have also given power to bitter employees. Think of it as the proliferation of weapons to organizational terrorists." [Addendum: Link fixed. Thanks, Liz!]
• Gaping Void -- cartoons and doodles drawn on the backs of business cards

I hadn't realized that Circadian Shift is trading on Blogshares. I was listed a few months ago, but only recently did things start taking off.

Ah, if only that $5K were for real right now...

The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive?

The ubiquity of technology in the lives of executives, other businesspeople and consumers has created a subculture of the Always On -- and a brewing tension between productivity and freneticism. For all the efficiency gains that it seemingly provides, the constant stream of data can interrupt not just dinner and family time, but also meetings and creative time, and it can prove very tough to turn off...

These speed demons say they will fall behind if they disconnect, but they also acknowledge feeling something much more powerful: they are compulsively drawn to the constant stimulation provided by incoming data. Call it O.C.D. -- online compulsive disorder...

Dr. Hallowell and John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard and a psychiatrist with an expertise in attention deficit disorder, are among a growing number of physicians and sociologists who are assessing how technology affects attention span, creativity and focus. Though many people regard multitasking as a social annoyance, these two and others are asking whether it is counterproductive, and even addicting.

The pair have their own term for this condition: pseudo-attention deficit disorder. Its sufferers do not have actual A.D.D., but, influenced by technology and the pace of modern life, have developed shorter attention spans. They become frustrated with long-term projects, thrive on the stress of constant fixes of information, and physically crave the bursts of stimulation from checking e-mail or voice mail or answering the phone.

No word on whether or not compulsive checking of blogstats is a symptom.

(New York Times article; free registration required.) (Link via Technorati.)

I decided to go ahead and upload another track this month to Circadian Shift: The Outpost, despite mounting pressure from the RIAA on other sites that feature(d) rare music releases from the 80s. We'll see what happens.

The song pick for July is:

"Im Nin'Alu (Played In Full Mix)" by Ofra Haza (5,470 KB)

The "regular" version of the song is available on the album Shaday, which isn't too hard to find on CD. As for this extended version, finding it on CD poses more of a challenge. This is my own transfer from 12" vinyl.

(As this is a track that I've ripped myself, my usual disclaimer applies; ie. recording quality is decent, but I don't have high end stereo equipment -- super-picky audiophiles may perhaps find it wanting.)

Interestingly, this song came to prominence after it was sampled by the DJ duo Coldcut on their track "Paid In Full". Ofra Haza's record label, Warner Brothers, was all set to sue the shit out them, when someone wisely realized that Coldcut's tune was actually generating interest in her work. (How else do you expect a singer of Israeli folk tunes to make it to the top of the pop charts?) They let the matter drop, and Coldcut graciously did this "Played in Full" remix. And thus a smash hit was born.

More information about Ofra Haza can be found here. There are a number of tribute sites to her on the web, as she sadly died in 2000.

Addendum: Oops. "Paid in Full" was actually performed by Erik B. & Rakim; Coldcut did the remix which incorporated the "Im Nin'Alu" sample.

• Grokking the infoviz

  As the term implies, information visualisation is all about making data visible -- or, more precisely, the patterns that are hidden in the data. Graphic aids such as charts have done this for ages, says Ben Shneiderman of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland (and co-editor of 'Readings in Information Visualisation', the sacred text of the field). What is new, he and his colleagues explain in the book, "is that the evolution of computers is making possible a medium for graphics with dramatically improved rendering, real-time interactivity and cost."

  (via InfoDesign)


• Weblogs and knowledge management . Don't forget to KISS

  knowledge workers have limited capacity to absorb new ideas and practices into their already overfull lives. You can suck up that limited capacity in learning the ins and outs of some fancy new knowledge management tool or you can use that capacity for examining individual and group work practices and adapting them. Weblogs and wikis let you dial in that  balance in a different, and potentially better, place than more complex tools.



• Fight the bite with weaponry to battle mosquitoes -- "Expensive, high-tech gadgets not always best, experts say" (via Gizmodo)


• Even when not on a phone, cell phone users are more distracted when driving

  The Response Insurance National Driving Distractions Survey compared attentiveness of cell phone users to non-users when not talking on a phone. When asked a series of questions about different topics that might take their attention from the road, people who use cell phones were significantly more likely to be distracted when thinking about every-day issues and concerns than drivers who do not use cell phones while driving.

  (also via Gizmodo)


• Windows Palmtops Reviewed -- a look at the new Pocket PC 2003 operating system (New York Times article; free registration required) (yet another link from Gizmodo)


• Verbal Attack: The emails of Dave Suthibut -- Dave yanks the chains of various HR flacks; while amusing, I don't quite understand how this constitutes a fight "against the forces of corporate greed and tyranny" (via MetaFilter)

xml hack reports that the Morphon XML-Editor is now available for free.

The Morphon XML-Editor is a WYSIWYG Wordprocessor-like validating XML-Editor which lets you easily create and modify XML documents. Morphon also provides a CSS editor for use as a styling language. The Editor itself is multi-platform as it is written in Java.

8 Good People -- "we are a group of writers chronicling our lives without work. Sometimes we'll be whimsical, sometimes we'll fulminate, but we'll strive to be always interesting"

(via Follow Me Here)

Great big honking list of Free Stock Photography Websites (via David Crow).

Y'know, it honestly has not occured to me even once this summer to put on insect repellent before I go outside. Surgical face mask? As if. Burger? Yes, please.

Now citizens of our fair metropolis who still have their bloodstream/lungs/braincells intact can get one of these:

(Via The G Spot.)

...but not without noting a few links first:

• Blogging Headline News's "Careers & Employment" category
• How to Save the World -- has all sorts of neat posts on business, technology, and life in general (thanks to thunk/log for the tip); for instance, check out:
  • Why the Predicted Talent Shortage Will Never Happen
  • What the Blogosphere Needs More Of
  • A High-Level Spec for Business Weblogs and Social Software

Right. Now I'm really going to turn the computer off. Really.

• Getting up to speed on Wikis: Part 1 and Part 2 (via seblogging)
• The Rhetorica Network:

  ...offers analysis and commentary about the rhetoric, propaganda, and spin of journalism and politics, including analysis of presidential speeches and election campaigns. This site features the Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal web log, Presidential Campaign Rhetoric 2004, comprehensive news media links, a rhetoric textbook, a primer of critical techniques, and information for voters.

  (via The Modulator)
• Make mine a latte: A new role for America's coffee houses

  America is becoming a café culture. But the reason is less Starbucks marketing than the economic downturn. The white-collar army of the unemployed are making cafés their offices and job-search centres. Going there every day provides the same sort of structure and routine as a formal office -- but with much better coffee.

  (via Blogging Headline News)

BTW, Happy Canada Day, everyone!