In anticipation of ubiquitous wireless palm devices and GPS, GeoNotes is a system with which you can annotate physical locations and read the annotations of others with your palm device.

For example, if you visit a restaurant and find the pasta to be particularly good, you can sumbit your gastronomical musing to the system. All future customers will have the benefit of your experience when they arrive. Very cool. Found via peterme.com.

The summer I graduated from high school, I quit my job at a grocery store (something I had promised myself a year earlier I would do after a year at the job) and took a job with the government. Come to think of it, I don’t even know who I was working for, HRDC or Industry Canada maybe. Regardless, the job was to build websites for non-profit organizations. It was a make-work project through and through that seems vaguely communist in retrospect. I got the job through a referral and recommendation of my high school computer teacher (one of the best teachers I had).

This is not to say, however, that I was at all qualified. Nobody was at the time. The web was young and frames where bleeding edge technology. I got a great start at that job. It was slack, fun, and I earned a humorous nickname from my co-workers. What I remember most about that summer, though, is waking up. And I don’t mean some kind of epiphany or religious awakening, I mean waking up every morning.

I started work somewhere around 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning. The job was about a fifteen minute bike ride from my house (a very similar route to the one I had taken on a bus to high school everyday for the three preceding years). I would wake up in the morning at around 7:00 or 7:30 because I was ready to, with no aid from an alarm clock. I would shower, eat breakfast (remember breakfast?), and bike to work.

I remember it being sunny every day. Some days I would wear my walkman and listen to Stranger than Fiction by Bad Religion (out of character for myself at the time). Other days, I would travel without a soundtrack.

I packed a lunch everyday, which I would eat outside with my co-workers (a fantastically odd lot). Since I was making good money and still living at home, I had money to burn. With nothing else to spend my money on other than a Fender HotRod DeVille 410 60 watt tube guitar amp I had been dreaming about (and have since bought), I spent most of my salary on compact discs. The mall was between work and my house and I used to stop by the music store once or twice a week. I remember one day in particular where I bough superunknown by Soundgarden and there where actually two CDs stuck together in the one case. I was like winning the lottery.

It was a good summer I spent there. I had a good job. I worked with interesting people. But what really separates that summer from every other, both before and since, is the mornings. I would wake up every morning feeling rested and looking forward to going to work.

At this point, perhaps a bit of context may help explain why this is so important to me. The first 20 minutes of the every day of my high school career where hellish. I woke up to an alarm feeling like I had fallen asleep only an hour ago. I used to claim illness on days where I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed.

Since that summer I’ve had better jobs (and no job at all) but I have never had another time in my life where it was so easy to get out of bed in the morning. Even now, when I have a rewarding and challenging job (often more challenging than it is rewarding, mind you), I still have to fight my way out of bed every morning. No matter how great the hours that follow promise to be, the first 15 minutes of every day are perpetually difficult.

Clearly, there are some factors at play here that are in under my control. Diet, exercise, and going to bed at a reasonable hour would all help, I’m sure. But what I remember so fondly about that summer of pleasant mornings was that it was effortless. The dread of impending morning didn’t drive me to bed every night. I went to bed when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, and woke up in time for work every morning.

I was conscious of it at the time. I knew I had a good thing going on. I can still remember waking up and thinking, “Wow, I don’t mind getting out of bed. This is good”.

Since that summer, this state of waking up with ease has become for me something of a Holy Grail for me. Not so much that I would try to get more exercise, or eat better, which I’m sure would help. Rather, I’m just waiting for a point in my life when it will once again be effortless to get out of bed every morning.

This is a slightly “the more you know”-esque post. Teaching must be a difficult profession. Here a few of my better teachers:

Mr. Grant – Grade 4 English

Mr. Grant gave me and a few of my classmates a special assignment to read a book that was slightly above the grade 4 level (or so I thought). He seemed like an actual human being, as opposed to the other teachers which seemed like, well, teachers.
 

Mr. Griesbauer – Grade 12 Computer

I remember being amazed at how the same few kids who would practically crucify the teacher in first period would then engage in a meaningful and pertinent debate with Mr. Griesbauer only a few minutes later. The difference between him and the other teachers was that there was a mutual respect. He encouraged me to pursue my current career path and even helped me get a job to get me started. I understand he’s since been swallowed up by an administrative position.
 

Ms. Willis – Grade 12 Math

Since she was the principal we had all assumed she was a crazy and vindictive woman. As it turns out, she was very good at teaching math and took a genuine interest in each of her students. By the time I took her class she was only teaching the one course and spending the rest of her time with her duties as principal. I remember one day she asked us if we felt she didn’t have enough time to adequately teach the class since she was principal. It was risky to ask a meaningful question like that to a class of teenagers. She was leaving herself vulnerable. In an uncharacteristic display of maturity, we told her that not only was she doing a great job teaching, but that she should teach more. I think she’s full-time administration now.

IslandEdition.com’s latest editorial lashes out at the false courage of anonymous cowards in online communities. He sounds pissed off, but don’t let that cloud your reading of the article. I still think he’s right.

“Liquid Layout”. I picked up the term a few years ago from a tutorial by Lance Arthur of Glassdog.com. Liquid layout describes a website with a variable width, depending on how big your browser window (and screen) is. For example, open CNN.com, close the annoying popup window that asks you what continent you are from (!?!), and then try stretching and squishing the size of your browser window. Notice how the content of the site stays the same width regardless of the browser width. Now try Search.com. Notice how the content stretches and squishes to fit your window without introducing a horizontal scroll bar.

Who cares? Very few people, apparently. I do. A good liquid layout ensures a good visual experience for users on a wide variety of screen sizes. It’s harder to do for the designer and involves some sacrifices and limitations, but some of the best design comes from within strict constraints.

Imagine a print designer who claimed that to truly see his masterpiece coffee table book at its best you had to look at it in natural light and with 20/20 eyesight.

“Colors look a little washed out and the type is small.”
“Fluorescents won’t do. I designed it to be seen in the light of nature. Maybe you need glasses.”
“Fuck you.”

Expecting someone to change their computer configuration (particularly screen size) is like expecting people to buy a new car to go to the drive-in. Rather than clinging desperately to control of each and every pixel with white knuckles, web designers should embrace the openness of the web.

For those web developers who struggle with browser incompatibilities and nested tables for the perfect liquid layout, I appreciate it (for what it’s worth). Below are a few examples of fine liquid layouts I’ve come across. If you know of a good liquid layout let me know (steven@actsofvolition.com).

• Blogger.com – One of the best I’ve seen. Designed by Derek Powazek of Powazek.com (currently a k10k news contributor).
   
• Amazon.com – Kings of the useable web. Their related products features are frighteningly effective. One of the few major sites that still works at a 640 by 480 resolution.
   
• Search.com – One of Cnet’s few remaining liquid layouts (along with Cnet.com). R.I.P. Gamecenter.com and the formerly liquid News.com.
   
• Sapient – Monster web shop. Creativity and originality on an assembly line (they must use macs). Nicely liquid pages, although they start quite wide (defeating the purpose somewhat).
   
• Slashdot – Ugly but distinctive. Coders must think designing with white space is like writing inefficient code.
   
• Send me more: steven@actsofvolition.com

Daylight savings time is a nice reminder of how our clock and calendar are somewhat arbitrary artificial contructions.

Remember that next time you’re late for work.

Zeldman links to Forget Magazine.

I am jealous. Enjoy your stats boys.

A song, movie, and TV show you should enjoy:

song:

Westray by Weeping Tile (now of Sarah Harmer fame)
 

movie:

The Truman Show. Watch it again, for the first time.
 

show:

The episode of Northern Exposure where Chris Stevens, the host of KBHR builds a giant catapault to fling a live cow (it’s art).

If the media companies weren’t busy peeing their collective pants, I would have some way of linking you to these fine works. As it stands right now, you couldn’t even go find these gems even if you were willing to pay for them. Let’s wait and see if capitalism works it out.