Gadgetopia

Application UI goes back to basics: Jon Udell discovers WriteRoom, and makes an important point. I'm writing this column on a Mac-based imitation of a 1970s green-screen terminal. Hog Bay Software's WriteRoom, a free program for Mac OS X, advertises "distraction free writing" as its In WriteRoom's default full-screen mode ...

So, I went for a walk through the Presidio, and I stumbled upon the sign pictured above, which I have to say I didn t expect to see. I was taking a picture of it, and Kevin Kelly walked up behind me. He confirmed that this was the actual Wayback Machine ...

Paramount/MTV Taking a Napster: What's stranger, that there's a Napster film in the works, or that it's going to be written by Alex Winter -- who you may remember as Bill (or "not Keanu"), From Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Paramount and MTV Films have given the greenlight to ...

Choose Your Own Adventure - Never-Ending Story Engine: I knew someone on the Web would do something like this sooner or later. The Web itself is a big Choose Your Own Adventure, when you think about it. This site is an interactive fiction writing engine that allows you to read ...

Ruby Book Sales Surpass Python: I always thought that a good way to gauge adoption of a language is by the amount of space its books occupy at the local Barnes and Noble. This is sort of the same thing. While I was looking at the data, though, I noticed ...

I used a term with a colleague the other day -- "masturbatory Web design" -- and he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. I use the term a lot, so I don't think about it, but he thought it was hysterical and completely appropriate for the situation ...

The Level of Discourse Continues to Slide: This is a short but interesting piece on the "damage" that PowerPoint has done to discourse and presentation skills in the last ten years. "Once upon a time, a party host could send dread through the room by saying, 'Let me show you ...

I think it's time to address content usability in RSS feeds. I subscribe to about 100 feeds, and I run through postings really quick, either hitting the Delete key (thanks Newsgator!) or the down arrow to move to the next item (when I've looked at them all, I go back ...

The New Diamond Age: This was a great feature in Wired magazine about 18 months ago. It details the current state of the precious gem market, and how diamonds can now be made for less than they can be mined. "These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much hope. "No, ...

The other day, I was reading the Wikipedia page on McMansions (via Kottke). It was extremely interesting, and it made a good point: The movement of the "atrium concept" home layout from popularity to ubiquity in modern American architecture stems largely from the "Ten Minute House" theory [...] Most realtors ...