As a thought experiment along the lines of Merlin Mann’s interesting 5ives.com site, I thought I’d take a stab at listing five things that, as a designer, I don’t know anything about.
(Admissions are all the rage these days—Tom Cruise eating placenta, Donald Trump getting paid for baby photos, former White House administrators calling out their boss, etc.—so why not.)

1. How color settings work best in Photoshop.
2. How browsers technically render HTML markup.
3. Whether it’s actually easier to read sans serif type online.
4. Why the color purple is rarely used as a link color even though, early on, it was determined that purple links are the default “visited” state.
5. Why the American flag, in its design perfection, actually looks like the United States.

I listen to WNYC.org every day. It’s a relic of my experience there, though I live very far from the city. I heard that there are a number of families protesting the production of the new Oliver Stone exploit World Trade Center.
I had a dream about a week ago. It was very vivid. I was inside an apartment on one of the top floor of the WTC. The apartment was huge and took up pretty much the whole floor of the building. I think this, in itself, is a remnant of the studio program on the 93rd floor that I visited in early 2001. The whole floor was pretty open and you could walk from one small artists’ studio to the next and then look out the windows to see Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey, and Staten Island. The views were spectacular and harrowingly high. Anyway, the dream: I was in this huge apartment on a top floor and all the well heeled were there – lots of people with a lot of money. And the building was turning slowly, rotating. It was moving clockwise and, by standing next to the large window, you could see the landscape around you. At one point, it picked up a good deal of speed and it was kind of fun and almost unsafe. Then, it was time for dinner and a huge buffet was served on lots of tablecloth covered tables. The food was odd, like a fusion of fusion foods. There was an eggroll that had asparagus stalks sticking out of it. Other finger foods looked unfingerable. The building slowed down around 5:30 p.m. I realized that the building stops spinning around dinnertime so that people could digest their foods more easily.
At a certain point, I didn’t want to be at the party anymore and I left to go down the stairs and I promptly got lost. The stairways were huge and complicated and then I saw concrete tunnels that led to large public areas that were carpeted and pretty, just like they really used to be. Red carpets, a few security guard stations, a couple of fine stores and lots of people bustling around hither and thither. The concrete tunnels were really hard to navigate, though, and every time I got to a concourse, I could not find an exit. When I did find an exit finally, it was blocked by a ladder or some obstruction and I could not get out. I just wanted to go home but there was no way to leave. At some point, I asked someone directions for how to exit the World Trade Center and they pointed me in the right direction, down the red carpeted stairs and then through a small hole and then I was outside. I saw some friends or colleagues outside and we looked at the two buildings, which were now spinning, clockwise, together, quickly. The towers were actually in the water, close to the edge of the island, and they looked very, very large, looming.

Bears are big news here in Manitoba. Now, it seems, they’re news everywhere, in part because they may not exist for much longer.

Mr. Cheney came “out” today, saying that he shot his “wad” in the face of his friend.
I’ve been thinking about some new rules for the Vice President’s Office that may be applicable now that this transgression is (maybe, possibly) over:

1. Don’t shoot guns. They could hurt someone–even someone you like.
2. Don’t kill animals that can’t kill you. It’s just kind of bad karma, dude.
3. If you have to be out with a gun, try to keep the thing above your head. Lots of shit can happen when you carry guns and stuff.
4. If, for whatever reason, you shoot someone in the head, tell the police and be manly. It’s hard to admit shooting someone in the head, I know. But it’s important that you explain what happened, if it does happen.
5. Try rubber bullets. They’re pretty cool and they can still kill things. Sometimes they kill people even though they’re, like, rubber.
6. Don’t tell folks, after you shot someone, that you wish the person you shot well. It’s probably better if you kind of hang out at their hospital bed for a few days and make amends.
7. If the person doesn’t get better soon, send a card. But make it a personal one and don’t have your press secretary make jokes or anything.
8. If you really do want to shoot guns and stuff, overall you can be a lot more useful in places like Iraq or Iran where they need the help. But if you can’t make it that far, that’s cool. Get your kids to go do that shit.</li.

There have been a lot of relatively smart (and high quality) productions of late, both fictive and non-fiction about the frightening present and future. A lot of these draw on the raging paraonoia going on the blogosphere (both right and left) but it takes a pound of reality to make an ounce of real fear. Without further editorial, here are a few of the more interesting ones:
Epic: The Web in 2014
Anti-Semitism in today’s Arab Media
The Office promo from “NBC”
Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project

I’m suffering from a massive cold and in the spirit of unfriendliness and overall dissatisfaction with my recently becoming late 30s guy I have the following news:
I am now old.
Here’s why:

• I can’t understand the appeal of ringtones.
• I don’t know why little girls love pink and purple and why companies take no risk when they market to girls with those colors.
• My head feels just a little bit smaller and more congested than it ever has before and I’m sure it’s because earlier practices are now paying off unkindly.
• My upper torso is shape shifting all by itself.
• Very soon I will ask the barber if he can just shave my head to 2 mm of stubble. This will make balding less an issue, they tell me.
• I have lately worn slippers.
• For my birthday a year ago, I was given a fanny-pack by my parents.
• For this birthday, I was given gift cards to nice online clothiers. My understanding is that the family no longer can predict my shirt size.
• I visit the Web for news and information.

Goodbye:

• Crowded apartment full of books and computer parts, paper swimming amongst the magazines and toys.
• Crappy election year, full of spite and below the belt politics.
• Terrible twos.
• Non-product-oriented business opportunities (the sneak peak can still be had here).
• Numerous magazine subscriptions.

Hello:

• Brand new, unjaundiced, bright-star year full of hope and possibility.
• Year ending in an odd number. Odd years have proven, in general, to be better for me, historically speaking.
• Trippy threes.
• Shiny new faces, replete with goodness, grace, and generosity.
• Numerous magazine subscriptions.

A happy and healthy and peaceful 2005.

In the past week, I’ve had some unexpected success with calling the customer service departments of a few large companies. In contrast to earlier times, like during my customer service caveman era when I spoke with an Apple technical assistant in Bangalore who kept putting me on hold to ask his cubicle-mate questions, these are much brighter days indeed! During this same shadowed era, a call to Washington Mutual to request ATM cards was greeted with a request on their part for us to visit our local WAMU branch office to order these cards ourselves — as they couldn’t place ATM card orders over the phone.
First, a call to AT&T to inquire about an extra month’s charge. It turned out that they were right and I was wrong. Who knew? I did not. But then the customer service representative said, “Let’s see how we can save you money each month” and she actually did: about $40.00 per month with another phone plan. [Why they couldn’t have just called me first about this deal, I don’t know.]
Second, a call to T-Mobile, my new bad mobile service provider (Sprint was the old bad one). Customer service reps at T-Mobile are nearly always cheerful (even giddy) and cut to the quick. They tracked down an order, made sure the service was good by asking if it was good, and promptly won my well-worn threads of mobile loyalty.
Third, a call to Chase (a.k.a. JP Morgan Chase) to start a new bank account. For some reason, the genius programmers there did not test their Java applets on Safari or Firefox (on Macintosh), so my online application got lost in the digital shuffle. But in calling them, they quickly picked up, put me through to a kindly man named Michael who took down my most personal Federal information and told me that the account would be ready to set up and sign in a few days time.
Are these three examples of good reverse patronage a sign of our times in some way? Do they represent a fearful workforce forced to be smiling at all times at work lest they frown at home forever alone? Do these examples spell the return of jobs to the United States where “friendly Americans” can again cater to our friendly American needs?
More interestingly, perhaps, I wonder if other countries are as equally fond of finding good customer service and, more darkly, I wonder if Americans’ fondness for good customer service is connected with our slave-holding past.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. My wife has been sick and I’ve been swamped with work and things. While we’re all recovering slightly, here’s Errol Morris’ version of Donald Trump talking about Citizen Kane and the unnature of wealth.

If you’ve ever taken a basic course in leadership, you’re told that Rule Number 1 for building sustainable communities is to ensure that you have a successor. That person should be groomed, educated, and assured that they will maintain the values, objectives, and aspirations of a community if the leader is, for whatever reason, absent. This rule holds whether you’re a president, activist, CEO, radical, athlete on a team, military officer, executive director, or chairman.
Mr. Yasser Arafat, moving through the crowd in a bulletproof coffin, had a tremendous amount of time to ensure that his complex constituency would be represented and empowered. As in his life, in which he surely represented the dreams of many Palestinians but could never get past his intransigence to earn his people real peace, he has failed in his death to be a leader of substance and action. It’s a sad judgment and a sad day for many people but I actually believe the future for Palestinians may start today.