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March 31, 2010

links for 2010-03-31

March 30, 2010

links for 2010-03-30

  • (tags: music)
  • "The Snapper NXT identity [underwent] an evolution of the old typography, and it's a definite improvement. But the same can't be said for the 'NXT' part as it looks exactly like what you would imagine anything called 'NXT' would look like: it's pointy, it's trendy, it looks like it could be on any kind of next-generation product. And the gradients don't help any more than they do the new turtle."
    (tags: words branding)

March 24, 2010

links for 2010-03-24

March 17, 2010

links for 2010-03-17

March 11, 2010

links for 2010-03-11

March 10, 2010

links for 2010-03-10

March 7, 2010

"Me-gregation"

After more than a month of neglect--and really, what's a month or two after three years--I took advantage of Oscar night to work on my home page while the Mrs. watched the Oscars. So my home page is finally new. Whew.

In a fit of abject creativity, my new home page is, well, basically a bunch of links. But that's sort of the point. In an age where one's social profile extends to myriad web sites with poorly interlinked commonalities, I like the idea of having a pivot. So no more netwert.com branding, as I did for more than a decade; instead, a little more me branding, or at least, me-gregation, or whatever the word would be. In due time I'll get the utility of the interior pages of the site to more or less match, and as I play with the site design, I'll give the new home page some much-needed design flair, too.

I also went about perusing my website archives, and I must say, long before it became a paragon of boredom I had some pretty sweet home page ideas. All hail flatbed scanners and randomizer scripts!

links for 2010-03-07

  • Ars Technica takes a pragmatic but tough stance on ad blockers, turning off the website's content entirely for users who refuse to look at arstechnica.com ads. The freedom-fighers in the comments (and, I imagine, pro-ad-blocker folks like David Pogue) are mad, but Ars makes a good point from which they refuse to back down. "[If you won't whitelist our ads] please go get your news from a higher quality source. As it stands you're a net loss to us." Great read.
    (tags: news internet)

March 4, 2010

links for 2010-03-04

March 3, 2010

On baseball strategy

Terrific analysis of pitcher-hitter mindgames by Joe Posnanski.

So, when you see a guy who gets a lot of curveballs -- say Aaron Rowand -- that is not because he can't hit a good curveball. It's because pitchers believe he can't hit a mediocre curveball. It's a great game. The pitcher knows Rowand isn't very good on breaking stuff. Rowand knows the pitcher knows this and comes to the plate expecting to see breaking stuff. The pitcher knows that Rowand knows that the pitcher knows, so he is on alert that if he throws a hanging curveball, Rowand might just crush it. But Rowand knows this, so he might be overanxious if he sees the hanging curveball and hit it nine miles foul. Or he might be thinking curveball so much that he promises himself to not wing, and the pitcher might cross him up and throw fastball -- even Aaron Rowand got more than 50% fastballs last year -- and Rowand is so screwed up in his head that he just watches it go by for strike three and ... yeah, it's a great game.

Yeah, it is.

March 2, 2010

links for 2010-03-02

My recent travel, health, work and curiosity history, as told in iChat status messages

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March 1, 2010

links for 2010-03-01