Links for 2005-01-11

Posted January 11, 2005 12:21 AM.

• The Bastardization of Beta
  "It seems that every new web application now sports a "beta" tagline. Furthermore, it seems to stay that way for an indeterminable amount of time"
  (categories: beta flickr labelling vocabulary drift concept googlenews google productdevelopment)
• Buddy Bugs
  Buddy Bugs is an ambient peripheral physical interface that represents Windows® Instant Messenger contact list, where people are represented by glass bugs on a leaf.
  (categories: im instantmessaging msn msnmessenger windows physicalinterface ambientdevices userinterface ui ambient bugs buddybugs leaf art design)
• A Brief History of Writing Instuments - Ink and Letters
  "From cave paintings to the quill pen -- how ink, paper and pens were all were invented"
  (categories: ink writing pencil pen history cave alphabet words language prehistory quill paper cavepaintings painting)
• Pimp My Ride
  So one of the best things about going home for Christmas was introducing my mother - queen of makeover shows - to Pimp my Ride. I don't know if she'll watch it after I've gone, but she certainly seemed to enjoy it while I was there...
  (categories: mtv pimpmyride car makeover television tv tvshow show programme american america usa)
• On the iPod micro?
  Apparently, "Life is Random". The iPod in question can apparently take around 240 songs (1 Gb), has no screen and can only be played on random...
  (categories: ipod apple rumours rumors rumor rumour cupertino mac ipodmicro ipodmini speculation moscone photographs)
• ISBNs go 13 digit. After the PIPs project at work I have a bit of a thing about identifiers like ISBNs... Seems really badly designed to me, but hey...
  "The new 13-digit ISBN has been approved and plans are underway to transition to the new number industry-wide, world-wide by January 1, 2007. Find out how the expansion of the ISBN from 10-digits to 13-digits will impact your business and operations."
  (categories: isbn identifier identifiers books book bookshop uniqueidentifier)
• Old Observer article about Ikea and their satirisation of designers that I think misses the point...
  The article seems to suggest that it's anti-designer, but I don't think it is. I think it's anti pompous designer, it's anti-artifice and I think it demonstrates enormous respect for the craft of design and the creation of simple, beautiful things...
  (categories: ikea observer satire elitedesigners pomposity designaesthetic aesthetic article newspaper)
• Some kind of meta-BitTorrent Tracker Tracker...
  Keeps looking at BitTorrent sites to see if they're still there, closed down or consumed by enormous bandwidth costs...
  (categories: bittorrent bittorrenttrackers download downloads tv television)
• Torrez rocks - DIY micropayments with Paypal and Typekey
  I've already paid my $1 to read the article in question, and interested in whether or not people will actually start doing this stuff. Big names first, clearly...
  (categories: micropayments typekey paypal diy andretorrez torrez awesome neat weblog content publishing business money)
• Threadless redesigns
  Beautiful, elegant, intelligent site that sells beautiful, elegant and intelligent T-shirts to a small coterie of beautiful, elegant... you get the picture...
  (categories: tshirt t-shirts tshirts clothes ecommerce site design participation participatory socialsoftware rating voting flash html)
• RFC 2838 (rfc2838) - Uniform Resource Identifiers for Television Broadcasts
  I should be gripped by this, but it's so banally broadcast-oriented that it's stunning to think that internet people even wrote it. Doesn't even have identifiers for episodes or shows...
  (categories: pips bbc broadcast identifiers identifier programmeinformationpages television tv uri url uniformresourceidentifiers rfc rfc2838)
• The mouseradio is a fully functioning radio without buttons. The idea was to use the mouse navigation and to implement it in a radio.
  "Moving the radio vertically changes the volume, moving the radio on the horizontal axis changes the frequency. The radio is on, when the black speaker points up in the air."
  (categories: radio design mouse physicalinteraction interactiondesign embodiedinteraction audio music sound appliance device homeentertainment)
• Belle de Jour Spotted in Waterstones!
  Or at least her book. Nice cover! Very stylish indeed...
  (categories: cover design belledejour book prostitution prostitute sexindustry callgirl memoirs)