Circadian Shift

Just because...

"Most people overestimate what they can do in one year, and underestimate what they can do in ten."

(via Thoughts On Business)

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power." -- David Brin

(via Seb's Open Research)

"An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible." -- Alfred A. Knopf

(ibid.)

"Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way you cope with it that makes the difference." -- Virginia Satir (1916-1988)

(ibid.)

"I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think." -- from an e-mail quoted by raving lunacy; you should go read the whole thing

(via McGee's Musings)

• Coding Smart: People vs.Tools -- "Tools can help developers be more productive, but they're no replacement for thinking." (via paranoidfish)
• Better Living Through Standards (via Information Management Weblog)
• iCapture lets non-Mac owners check how their site looks when viewed through the Safari browser (via paranoidfish and plasticbag)
• PixeLink is an online tool for creating link banners (via kottke)
• Implementing mouse gestures on the web with JavaScript (ibid.)
• Zeldman links to tips for creating Favicons
• Clagnut links to several online colour tools, some of which I've linked to already (via paranoidfish)
• Mezzoblue has a CSS Crib Sheet as well as a list of CSS Best Practices (ibid.)
• The CSS Underscore Hack is a way to get around some quirks that IE has in rendering pages (ibid.)
• InformIT passes on Ten tips for moving to CSS-based page design
• yet another take on styling menus with CSS
• CSS Vault is another handy collection of CSS resources and linkage (via Clagnut and Information Management Weblog (who also linked to Mezzoblue's CSS Crib Sheet))
• Lastly, someone muses that in teaching CSS, there's a long way to go

• Over on How to Save the World, Dave Pollard sums up Peter Drucker's writings on innovation
• Dave also summarizes a Cap Gemini study on measuring innovation
• ID Blog points to a piece discussing The Trouble with Out-of-the-Box Thinking as well as a blurb on innovation fetishization
• Wired explores the link between autism and genius; there's a related post on Seb's Open Research about latent inhibition and creativity
• Synesthesia publishes some rough notes on unleashing creativity

I have a headache. Not a hangover, fortunately, but one of my good ol' fashioned sinus headaches. Not fun.

Whilst out socializing yesterday, I met some new four-legged friends.

This is Tigger, who resides with David and Jacqui. Yes, she is chubby, but adorable nonetheless. Not shown is the other kitty, Balthasar, who is bit more moody when confronted with many humans. (Pic is courtesy of Mr. Photojunkie.)

And this is Zack, who is Brett's canine companion. Like most retrievers, Zack is a friendly and rambunctious boy, who was thrilled with all the extra attention he received at his first party. Not shown is Cat, who, reportedly, was hiding out in a secret lair deep within the bowels of Brett's box-spring mattress.

And socializing with the humans was fun, too. Word up to all my GTAB homies who I saw yesterday, and am too lazy to list.

....

Addendum 02 December 2003: Eva posts that Brett's cat is actually named Chloe. And Brett has pics of Saturday night's festivities. And Rannie has more pics of D & J's LOTR fest.

Mookie pointed me to this Filipino cooking blog. However, because of the way Moveable Type assigns page names to blog categories, one particular section of the site has a very unfortunate URL, indeed.

BTW, should you feeling like trying out some new foods, I would recommend giving the pork adobo or the pork dinuguan a whirl. No, really. My mom does awesome versions of them both.

Been neglecting the blog again. And I've got a ton of stuff saved in my aggregator to sort through.

I will be out for the rest of the day, socializing with real live people (radical concept). For those of you who will be staying home, you may wish to amuse yourself with some of the following:

• Unleash your inner cubist and go play with Mr. Picassohead (via blogdex)
• Discover what 20th Century theorist you are (apparently, I'm Lacan) (via several places)
• Find le mot juste for what you want to say, with the OneLook Reverse Dictionary (via Neat New Stuff on the Net)
• Build your own paper models of Nintendo characters (also via blogdex)

Will try to post more tomorrow. Really.

Fingertips (as mentioned previously) is a site that provides pointers to free and legal music on the web. It now has its own domain -- fingertipsmusic.com, and a companion blog.

Also must remember to visit Disquiet's "Downstream" page more frequently. Presently have a bunch of tunage queued in the download manager, just waiting to land on my hard drive and seep into my ears.

I know that posting personality-quiz results is so lame, but I have to share this one with you:

I'm Lisa, who are you? by Lexi

I broke down yesterday, and bought that Underworld compilation that I was rambling about, a while back. I'm liking it just fine, thanks.

Meanwhile, two music "best of" lists for your reading and critiquing enjoyment:

• Pitchfork Media's picks for the Top 100 Albums of the 1990s -- OMG, I feel so out of touch (via MeFi)
• Rolling Stone's choices for the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time -- great list if you're a baby-boomer; I don't know what the rest of us are supposed to make of it (via blogdex)

Awright, might as well come out with it, then.

As if it hadn't been glaringly obvious by now, something else has been occupying my time for the last few weeks. I have been gainfully employed.

*shock*

I'm working on contract at a certain corporation that shall remain nameless, located in the north-central part of the Toronto megacity. I'm really liking what I do, but the learning curve has been a bit steep. Which doesn't leave with much brain power at the end of the day to generate blog-posts.

Going forward, I'd like to get into something resembling a balanced routine. Having lived the slacker lifestyle for some time (and for all of my blogging life), it's been downright intoxicating to throw myself back into a job. But this is not sustainable behaviour over the long term.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around. Hopefully I'll work the kinks out eventually. (Or, although less ideal, my contract will run out and I'll have more free time on my hands again.)

While indulging in a bit of self Googling, I discovered that I rank among the top Blogshares players for the month of November:

46. Jennifer Vetterli 55790.35% growth (Rank: 5839, $279,451.73 current worth / $500.00 start of month)

This despite having done absolutely nothing except stake a claim on my own blog (and putting the requisite Blogshares code in my sidebar), and receiving 1000 shares of it (presumably purchased at market price) for my trouble.

If only I could accrue funds so easily in real life.

(BTW, le blog has been on a real pricing rollercoaster on the Blogshares market. However, the price seems to be going up again, so if any of you Blogshare-playing kiddies want to snap some up, now might be a good time. Or not.)

Over on thought?horizon, David laments that he has 431 unread posts sitting in his aggregator.

Meanwhile, Eva at Easternblog instructs us to just go and read Popdex, because that's where all the cool links are, and she's too tired to post anything herself.

Anyone see a pattern forming here?

Anyway, I've got over 80 items sitting in the saved folder (which you can't see) on my Bloglines account, all just waiting for me to read/use/apply/post/disseminate/etc. Here are a few of the less mentally taxing ones.

• Bands 'urged to cut album tracks' -- "Record labels are urging artists to put fewer tracks on albums because fans are put off by too many average songs, the Los Angeles Times has reported." Or maybe the labels could sign better bands to begin with, instead of the same mindless puppets, over and over.
• Wired interviews techno DJ Richie Hawtin.
• So Many Channels, So Little Time: 25 Tips for Better TV Watching -- Most of us can't forsake the Idiot Box completely, but here are some tactics for sane viewing. (via kottke)
• Computers 'hamper the workplace' -- "When technologies are implemented and understood well, they can make life much easier at work... Instead of technology being foisted down from uninformed upper management, people should have more opportunity to muck around with it and make it work for them, report co-author Max Nathan told BBC News Online."
• Survey Reveals What Workers Are Really Doing During Conference Calls -- "...22 percent of Hong Kong workers admit they weren't fully dressed during their last teleconference..." There are some things that I would rather not know. (spotted on bBlog and FC Now)
• Would You Hire This CEO? -- Fast Company pins downs top executives and makes them answer questions from their own companies' standard job interviews. How do you think they did?
• An oldie but a goodie: the EDS TV commercial Running with the Squirrels (via McGee's Musings, who credits Internet Time for the link)
• For those evenings when you just simply can't face another Lean Cuisine, Kottke offers helpful tips on How to cook tator tot hotdish.
• Are you making time for you? -- A MSN Careers quiz, which I haven't taken yet. Quelle surprise. (via FC Now)

[insert quasi-apologetic whingeing about being busy and too brain damaged to post here]

More cartoons from Gaping Void.

Click here if you want to see the rest.

I'm just really not up to posting anything more ambitious, so here we go with a personality quiz result:

Super!! You are WILLEM DE KOONING.
You think just like you paint: in the abstract.
You live well outside of the box and never
know where life will take you next. Your
friends admire your ability to fearlessly veer
away from the boundaries of society.

Which famous artist most reflects your personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Thanks to Reflections in d minor for the link.)

Or, more accurately, cell phone users suck, but that's not nearly as alliterative.

(Even more accurate would be to say that certain obnoxious cell phone users suck, but that definitely does not make for a punchy blog-post title.)

(Enough with the asides, already.)

The following articles are courtesy of the BBC:

• Mobile ban driven home by adverts -- "An advertising campaign is reminding people of the imminent ban on using mobile phones while driving." Damn. Wish that was being implemented here.
• Why mobile phones may hurt backs -- "People who chat on their mobile phone while walking could be hurting their back, according to a study." And if you walk and talk using a headset, you just look like an annoying lunatic.

Addendum: Have to throw in this link to an article about cell phone use and brain damage. Maybe that's why ardent cell phone users can be so annoying. (Link via Boing Boing.)

I can't believe it's nearly 9pm already. Where did the day go?

Have managed to saddle myself with a wicked case of eyestrain from staring at a computer monitor all day. Gotta start using this program again:

OOS Alarm
This is an application I wrote for my own use, to assist me with avoiding further problems with Occupational Overuse Syndrome (OOS), also known as Repetitive Strain Injury (or RSI). OOS Alarm is a repeating alarm clock which pops up regularly to remind me to take appropriate breaks during my work each day.

And it's free! Unfortunately, it's for Windoze computers only.

• There are three basic reasons for doing less at work...
• While on a road trip, the folks at Wired determine that You Gotta Stop, Smell the Roses
• Document deluge threatens firms
• FC Now offers more tips on making presentations that don't suck in PowerPoint of No Return, Part II
• Simple Basics: The Lowly (and Supercritical) Voicemail, Part I and Part II
• Some pointers on using Feedster to track a specific topic
• Some observations on using a wiki for personal information management (you'll have to scroll down to read it)
• Forget about the Soccer Mom -- meet the Google Mom (via About.com)
• Here's a big honking collection of Web Design References (via Column Two)
• Tackling Usability Gotchas in Large-scale Site Redesigns
• Frames -- Why and Why Not
• Kuro5hin's list of Top Ten Internet Fads -- remember PointCast? (via blogdex)

• Props to Josie for sending along links to Guardian Unlimited's list of the 40 greatest US bands today, part one and part two, although it makes me realize how out of touch I am with some of the current popular music trends. Number 16 on the list is DFA, who released the wicked cool song "Losing My Edge" last year under the moniker LCD Sound System. Losing my edge, indeed.
• Atlantic Online appears in my blogroll because I keep meaning to visit it more often. I rarely do (too much else to read) but there's always something there that's thought-provoking and worthwhile. Meanwhile, e-book purveyor Blackmask has been releasing early editions of The Atlantic Monthly, and I mean stuff dating back to the mid-1800s. They're free for the taking and available in a variety of e-book formats.
• Lastly, here's a very nifty optical illusion (via Business Pundit).

Both links via blogdex.

• Guardian Unlimited lists their picks for the world's 40 best directors. You may or may not agree.
• It's a little too heavy for my tastes, but scientists confirm that Guinness beer is good for you. Hopefully, similar benefits can be had from consuming Smithwicks.

• Generation X Dictionary -- Remember all those glossary entries that appeared on the sidebars throughout the pages of Douglas Coupland's first novel? Knee-jerk irony? Occupational slumming? Well, they're all gathered here for your reading and reminiscing enjoyment.
• Tiny Sepuku is a nifty comic strip that purports to be an advice column. Maybe it is. (Thank you, blamblog.)

For all two of you who actually enjoy the cartoons from Gaping Void, Hugh has posted some more online for the members of his special syndicate.

Click here if you want to see the rest.

The Uberman's sleep schedule is supposedly a method of organizing your sleeping time to maximize your REM sleep (the most beneficial kind) and minimize your non-REM sleep. The folks at MetaFilter offer their commentary and additional sleep linkage.

The sole purpose of this post is to record that I am bloody well awake at this hour, and I really should be sleeping.

As you were.

As the following linkage (grouped roughly by theme) would suggest, I still need to prune my aggregator and e-mail newsletter reading lists. If I ever try to do a post this long again, slap me.

On that note, why don't we kick things off with some linkage on dealing with overload:

• In Managing the information glut, ia slash riffs on the same Wall Street Journal article mentioned in this FC Now post that I linked to a few days ago. Unfortunately, the WSJ piece itself is available to subscribers only.
• Some of the tactics noted in this blurb on staying sane during the holidays can be applied to life during the rest of the year.

For lack of a better description, the following deal one way or another with "squishy people-oriented things":

• Stressed Out -- "Today's workforce is really under pressure. But executives and managers have different viewpoints on the pressure points."
• A Fast Start on Your New Job -- "Your first ninety days in a new position are fraught with peril -- and loaded with opportunity."
• How to create an aligned enterprise -- "Alignment is about having all the resources in your company striving toward the same purpose. It comes from making sure that people and organizations know what is important to the company. It also means that people have incentives to move the company in that direction and not in directions that are counter to the overall goals."
• Problems don't mean a lack of progress with projects
• The Great Nap Debate -- "Can Napping at Work Increase Your Productivity?" (via Working Wounded)
• Shopping Stops Rational Thinking -- (via Business Pundit)
• Psychological testing - a rising tide is missing the boat (ibid.)
• Are Your Top People Ready To Leave You? -- a handful of articles from About.com
• Creativity Scene -- book recommendations from several top advertising creatives
• Group Initiation and Member Perceptions (via Column Two)
• an annotated bibliography of Work on Networks (ibid.)
• Learning Strategies used by adult learners (ibid.)
• The Business Case for Personal Productivity Improvement
• Business Pundit and Focussed Performance Weblog both link to Management fads: A behavioral explanation
• Networking, but Not Really offers tips for introverts, and others

This is all visual and information design-type stuff:

• PowerPoint: anathema or boon? -- "Most of the slide presentations use PowerPoint in its easiest way: lots of slides full of bullet point lists. Many presenters even just limit themselves to recite their contents. But with PowerPoint it?s also possible to come off of the beaten track by doing presentations that get to the point: communicating the message clearly."
• Meanwhile, noted PowerPoint critic Edward Tufte gets the piss taken out of him in The Dispassionate Statistician - Part I
• FC Now blogs on the PowerPoint of No Return
• Top 10 Ways to Use Venn Diagrams
• GraphicDesignUSA weighs in with their Annual Color Forecast for 2004
• ColorMatch Remix is an online colour-picking widget
• On a more "meta" level, there's The interdependence of the structure, information and presentation dimensions (via Column Two)
• Hub is a new blog and resource site created by the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea to explore interaction design (via ia slash)
• Then there's Executive Dashboards: an Information Design Approach

Web and software development stuff:

• Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History (PDF, 144KB)-- "Although many view iterative and incremental development as a modern practice, its application dates as far back as the mid-1950s." (via bitworking)
• 30 Search Tips in 40 Minutes
• Web Content Lifecycle and Content Management Roles (via Column Two)
• Laying out elements with the CSS box model is a rather rudimentary blurb on same
• More CSS layout fun: Flowing and Positioning: Two Page Models and Float: The Theory (via Simon Willison's Weblog)
• CSS Creator is another online widget that generates code for you
• Notes on 'Transitional Volatility' talks about consistency in navigation
• Oddly enough, Consistency and the UI of street signs also touches on this
• Optimize Your Home Page for New Visitors (via ia slash)
• Jakob Nielsen pronounces The Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines

Business and marketing stuff:

• The CRM Landscape: Why Now -- "the development of customer information technology, from simple list management to the more complex disciplines of CRM in practice today"
• BAM! Saving Money by "Watching" the Business Flow -- "This three-part series discusses how a major financial institution uses business activity monitoring (BAM) and business performance management (BPM) to make more informed decisions"
• Can Anything Stop Toyota? -- a look at kaizen (via Business Pundit)
• Lost Television Audience Found Online -- duh
• Five Essentials for Marketing Technology in a Down Economy
• Getting the Budget You Need and Deserve -- Part 1 and Part 2
• How to Save the World sums up a Business 2.0 article on Best New Technologies
• Privacy study: Job sites tend to share information freely

Apparently, I rank #5 on a Google search for 'squirrel wrangling'.

Yeehaw! Giddy-up!

Meanwhile, blamb has captured my feelings about Prime-Minister-in-Waiting Paul Martin quite succintly:

Le blog just had its 25,000th recorded visitor this past hour. (I say "recorded", because my SiteMeter was AWOL in February after Blogger munged my template on the old site.) The visitor had been running a Google search for 'circadian software'.

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by.

Dave Brubeck adds a new dimension to the evening commute.

Meanwhile, "N" was telling me about this a few days ago; thanks to Richard for providing a link:

Savour some chocolate... but ditch the coffee
Never mind red wine or tea; research suggests hot chocolate has the most antioxidants.

Mmmm. Hot chocolate and jazz. Could be a very pleasant evening indeed.

If you've never had your lunch filched by someone at the office, consider yourself lucky.

• No Free Lunch
• How to Thwart a Lunch Thief -- from the The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Work
• Stop, Thief!
• Stop Stolen Lunches, ID the Thief
• Banishing the break-room bandits in the workplace

So, you're a real motorcycle enthusiast. You've got the latest riding gear and all the accessories. So what do you need to make your bike rides complete?

Aerostich RiderWearhouse sells this delightful item -- just run a search for "Mr. Happy Puppet", and you can order one too.

(Thanks, Mookie!)

Was going to post more work-related linkage. Don't feel like it. And I probably have to weed out a number of my Bloglines subscriptions, as all I seem to be doing is overloading myself with information even more efficiently than before.

I will note these links, though, because they're fun(ny):

• "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." -- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts" (via Seb's Open Research)
• More Magazine Gives Readers Instant Online Boyfriend -- "users can download a 'desktop boyfriend,' who will live on the desktop and send an email and a new picture each day for two weeks..."

And of course I had to take this quiz:

(Via plasticbag.)

Addendum 12 November 2003: Thanks to Accordion Guy for pointing to the page with all quiz results.

Fast Company's Book of the Month for November is The Simplicity Survival Handbook by Bill Jensen. The Fast Company Now blog has the following related posts:

• Call for Simpletons and Simplinauts -- Jensen himself guest-blogs on FC Now, and declares this week to be 'Simpleton Week'
• SimpleBites: Email Hell or Help?
• SimpleBites: Email Hell or Help? II
• Attention Must Be Paid
• Attention Must Be Paid II

I must confess that I actually bought Jensen's first book, Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster, but have yet to read the thing -- it got lost in the shuffle of all the other books I've been meaning to read. Which, I suppose, is the problem.

• Get a grip on box elements
• What is the DOM? Explaining the Document Object Model
• Keep CSS Simple -- "Complicated CSS hacks are the modern equivalents of the frames and tables we used in wholesale lots back in the nineties. Their use serves to give the Web author a feeling of mastery, a false sense of security in the face of the countless things that can go wrong in browsers."
• Full page zoom -- Getting around the whole fixed-width vs. liquid layout debate.
• Keeping Navigation Current With PHP -- "To visually indicate which page of your carefully crafted CSS navigational menu represents the current page, you typically add an id or class attribute with a currentpage value, and style accordingly." Instead, you can use PHP to determine the current page. (Great, another frickin' language to learn.)
• Suckerfish Dropdowns -- More menu-wrangling fun.
• Brainjar's dropdown menus (via Zeldman)
• CSS smorgasbord -- Information bulimia, anyone?

• E-Mail, Net Abuse Increases in UK Workplace -- "Internet access and e-mail have become indispensable parts of working life, bringing with them widespread abuse as an increasing number of workers use corporate e-mail accounts to send personal messages and the Web to do their own shopping."
• Can You Hear the Sound of Computing Silence? -- "Finding it harder to concentrate at your desk? Maybe it's the constant drone of your personal computer. "
• Games at work may be good for you -- "Playing simple computer games at the office could improve productivity and job satisfaction, research suggests."

There's really nothing more that I can add to this:

Success, Traced in Cement: Iraqis Rebuild Factory at a Fraction of Estimate

SINJAR, Iraq -- The rumbling, rust-colored cement factory tucked into a valley in the northwest corner of the country here stands as a monument to the success of the reconstruction effort. Burned and looted in the aftermath of the war, it was up and running again by mid-September.

But it was not put back together by the U.S.-led interim government and the fleets of contractors being paid billions of dollars to fix the country. In fact, had the plant managers gone the "American way," the factory might still be in pieces.

U.S. Army engineers who came to survey the damage proposed rebuilding the plant into a shining showcase for the best in modern technology. They suggested buying a fleet of earth-moving equipment and importing machinery from Europe, estimating it would take $23 million and up to a year to complete the job.

The Iraqis had more modest ambitions -- they just wanted to get the factory running again, even at minimal capacity. With the help of $10,000 from the U.S. military, and $240,000 left over in factory bank accounts, they used scrap electronics, tore up one production line to get parts for the other, and fixed the plant in three months. It was not the state-of-the-art facility that the Americans envisioned, but it got the job done.

(Via Technorati.)

Eva has been pondering time management lately, and shares the following linkage:

• Time Management Tips and Tricks for Procrastination
• Time Management: The Pickle Jar Theory
• Time Management Skills - Making the most of your time

That last link goes to the Mind Tools site, which is a great resource for things thinking-related, like stress management, memory improvement, decision making, etc.

Also stumbled across the website for BalanceTV. I've never seen the show, but the site has all sorts of tips and articles to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The Virtual Colour Museum documents colour order systems in art and science, as well as colours and cultures.

(Via Metafilter.)

Evening naptime went on a little longer than expected. Were I a little more together, I could go and join in the fun at Accordion Guy's birthday bash.

Anyway....

Been a while since I visited Disquiet. Really must do so more often, especially since they've now got a column called 'Downstream' -- electronic and ambient download junkies, this is the place to find your fix.

Meanwhile, I must bashfully admit that I find Thelonious Moog an intriguing concept. Of course, I also like Walter/Wendy Carlos (got vinyl *and* CD copies of Switched on Bach) and some of Isao Tomita's classical transmogrifications. But we all have skeletons in our closet, don't we? (Thanks/apologies to NewFrontEars, who would probably be horrified by my kitsch-leaning tendencies.)

Still no sign of the Underworld compilation disc I've been drooling after in my local CD stores. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos released a solo album in September.

(Do people still say "album"?)

Too many discs... not enough cash...

The headlines in the aggregator and the newletters in the inbox go unread. There's no shortage of work-related linkage to post, but info fatigue overwhelms me.

Edward notes that "scholarly pursuits can often become a form of attachment". Every once in a while I realize that I can get a little greedy in my pursuit of "useful" information. The overly acquisitive streak in me would rival that of any shopaholic.

I'll refrain from posting any business/technology linkage until Monday (at the earliest), although I will note this one link, since Zed was nice enough to deliver it to my inbox:

15 Trends Taking Shape in Logo Design
The word "trend" has taken on a negative cast in recent years, particularly when the letter "y" is appended to it. A trend is actually a pretty innocuous phenomenon, though: Simply speaking, it is defined as a new line of direction.

Anyway, there's a little something I wrote in one of my notebooks a few years back. Since I'm not inclined to dig around for it to find the exact quote, here is my best approximation:

Remember to always respect your limits.
Corollary: Respect yourself.

I really am going to bed after this -- I swear.

(Thank you, G Spot.)

The Sleep Home Pages is a portal site to all sorts of information about sleep.

(Via Get, Give, Take & Have.)

I know, I know, I know...

Le blog has been sorely neglected this week. I have an excuse. It's a good one. I might even tell you about it sometime soon.

Meanwhile, Reflections in d minor points to an article called 20th Century Music 101, which includes a list of the "101 Essential Pieces of 20th Century Concert Music". The author notes:

I have taken care that the important genres are represented, as well as the prominent compositional and performance trends of the century. There is an arbitrary limit of three pieces by any one composer, and most of the composers listed could have different pieces on this list and more on a longer list.

Personally, I find the Minimalist genre under-represented -- Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams receive only one mention each -- but that is my own bias; the list is definitely worth a read, regardless.

I feel another craving for CDs coming on...

"i have nothing to say and i am saying it
and it is poetry." -- john cage.

(Cage quote courtesy of Monsieur GAK, who's been awfully quiet on his personal blog for some time. Fortunately, the Monkey is very well fed.)

This time, your task is to select the correct colour button. You're shown a word, which is the name of a colour, but what you have to do is click the button representing the colour of the letters which make up the word, not the colour which the word spells out. Do it 8 times, with only 4 seconds to choose each time.

Damn, it's harder than it sounds. And damn you, Mookie, for giving me another way to waste my evening.

(BTW, the Flash plugin is required to play the game.)

Christmas is approaching, which means it's an excellent time for the record companies to release 'Greatest Hits' compilations.

I couldn't help myself -- snapped up the Very Best of The Human League double CD set this past Saturday. Only disc 1 has the hits. Disc 2 has remixes which, frankly, left me cold. I'll stick with disc 1, thanks.

DJ Martian pointed me to a review of the brand new (released today) compilation Underworld - 1992-2002. It's another double CD set, with a very promising tracklist -- but why, oh why did they have to remix "Born Slippy"? Good thing my Trainspotting soundtrack disc has the unmolested version.

Due out next week is a greatest hits CD from No Doubt, which I wouldn't mind getting my hands on.

Already on the store shelves is the Chemical Brothers Singles 93-03, which admittedly I'm not quite so keen on coughing up the cash for. After all, do I really need it if I already have their last three albums?

Damn, I could use some CD money...

Afraid of spiders? Maybe facing a virtual reality spider will help you conquer your fear?

(Above-linked article includes a photograph of a tarantula. You have been warned.)

...

Addendum: Oops. Fixed the link (stupid HTML tag goof). Thanks to "N" for pointing out it wasn't working.

I'm really liking my Bloglines setup for monitoring a bunch of business and technology sites. Mind you, there are a number of sites that still (gasp) don't have a newsfeed, so I have to keep an eye on them the old-fashioned way(s).

Anyway, through surfing, and feeding, and e-mail reading, here are today's links.

• Mental Model Musings -- a guide to systems thinking
• Top 5 Tips for Increasing Your Search Engine Rankings (via Lockergnome Webmaster Weekly)
• CoffeeCup no longer offers its HTML editing software for free, but there are some other free software tools that you can download (ibid.)
• Jeffrey Zeldman on coding for easier redesigns (ibid.)
• when doing research for a KM initiative, an information gathering template is a useful thing to have (via Column Two)
• What is Service-Oriented Architecture? -- a primer from webservices.xml.com
• an overview of aural style sheets
• Mailto Forms are Easy But they Don't Always Work
• Are you trying guage the effectiveness of your online media campaign? Don't neglect your non-click conversions (via MarketingWonk)
• should you be designing online advertising for a European audience, better keep in mind these Standardised Online Ad Formats (ibid.)
• HBS Working Knowledge says that you don't have to be Einstein to be innovative
• Bridge the Gap Between Strategy and Tactics
• a growing number of companies are using personality tests to assess the suitability of employees for certain positions (via Working Wounded)
• Different Work: Why the Manufacturing Mindset Does Not Apply to Software Development
• How Do Specific Web Services Technologies Work? -- XML, UDDI, WSDL, SOAP... huh?
• according to this review, the First Linux Tablet PC isn't quite ready for prime-time
• Take Comfort in Your Home Office -- a quick guide to ergonomics
• IT Compensation Growth Modest -- "Nearly 3-in-10 (29 percent) of IT workers saw no change in their base wage, while 9 percent reported a loss."
• Lastly, if you're really determined to fry your retinas, week 4 of 'Carnival of the Capitalists' is online; come to think of it, did I mention week 3 last week? I think I forgot

Made a few changes to the sidebar. Still need to change a couple other things, but at least it now loads faster.

Yeehaw.

(Although I won't be using these resources myself, I just thought they were really neat, and decided to pass them on.)

Aspiring home-speedsters and other handy types may want to check out these Free Go-Kart Plans. There's linkage to plans for building your own ATVs and wheelchairs, too.

OK, my sidebars are still a mess. Still too many widgets. Still takes too long to load.

To further complicate things, Blogrolling has scaled back its free services, such that moochers like me can only administer a single blogroll. I might actually cough up the cash for a subscription -- I haven't decided yet.

Meanwhile a few of the newsfeeds on my portal things are broken.

Clearly a major cleanup is in order. (And we won't even get into updates to my other sites.)

In an attempt to control some of the chaos, I've set up an account over on Bloglines and am in the process of transferring my business/technology linkage there -- at least those sites that supply an RSS feed, anyway. It, like everything else, is a work in progress.

Anyway, I've set the viewing privileges on the account to "public", so y'all can read my Bloglines subscriptions, should you wish to do so.

Or not.

Indeed, I do know when to use who or whom. However, my memory of 80's lyrics is clearly slipping.

Oh good. More reading.

• presentations from the KMWorld and Intranets 2003 conferences are available for download
• To Portal or Not to Portal - That is the Question

(both links via beSpacific)

Getting notified of website updates via e-mail, then passing on said linkage by manually typing same into a CMS. Ich bin ein technopeasant.

Here's a bunch of stuff from the folks at Darwin:

• What is Middleware and What Are The Business Implications of Its Use? -- Probably a yawnfest for the übergeeky, but a decent summary for the less technically adept
• EAI is Dead, Long Live EAI -- Enterprise Application Integration is one of those things that I keep meaning to read more about
• Integration Through Shared Resources -- "Can grid computing solve your data management problems? It depends."
• Six Quick Tips for Holiday Online Retailers

TechRepublic offers:

• Managing workplace conflict: Advice for the new IT manager
• Three methods to differentiate your software from the competition's -- the article draws on Michael Porter's work, hence can be applied to anyone, no matter what your product is
• CRM in the call center and contact center

And, from various other sites:

• comparing XForms and Microsoft InfoPath
• Is Wi-Fi Bad for Your Health? -- "According to a lawsuit filed in a suburb of Chicago, continued exposure to 802.11 signals might be causing damage that could result in memory loss or other neurological harm, at least in relation to children."
• An Application/Infrastructure Jungle -- trying to maintain and keep together so many different applications, servers, and repositories makes the IT department a wild place indeed
• You got your e-form in my content manager! -- "Four ways to streamline business processes by pairing XML e-forms with Content Management systems"

The November 2003 issue of Fast Company is now online in its entirety.

• over on The Farm, Joey posts a bunch of linkage about wikis
• CMS Review is a resource site for people trying to choose a content management system; they also examine "CMS-Lite" applications, like portal, blog, and wiki software

Some work-related blogs that I must remember to visit again:

• Reforming Project Management
• Business Process Management
• ContentWire

Other stuff:

• Pattern: An Interdisciplinary Course in Textile Design and Elementary Group Theory is/was a course that combined the study of mathematics and art; very cool (via MetaFilter)
• some supertiny free fonts (via paranoidfish)
• Fingertips provides pointers to free and legal music on the web (via The Shifted Librarian)