My site is on hiatus indefinitely. I need some time to think through a lot of pressing issues. Hopefully, I'll spend less time online and more time out here, my favorite thinking spot. Will I be back? I'd like to think so, but at this point I really don't know. (Update: I'm planning on returning on May 1st, 2002.)
In the meantime, I've left the site online for anyone who may be interested. I'll still be checking my e-mail, and I'll occasionally be on Trillian, but for the most part, I'll be significantly reducing my online presence.
It's been a fun few months, and I've met all sorts of interesting and wonderful people, only a few of whom I can acknowledge here. Hopefully when (if) I come back, you all would have made the web a better place than it was when I left it.
Thanks to everyone who helped make this site a success. Be sure to say hi if you see me in these parts again.
Aliotsy Andrianarivo
March 2002 Archives
Discovered these today:
one.point.zero: Who said CSS-based sites need to look ugly? colin o'brien's site is definitely one of the slickest I've seen in a while, especially with the fly-out menus. Oooh...I just checked, and one.point.zero validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional! Very nice work. The content is your standard weblog fare of links, but colin has a lot of stuff I haven't seen elsewhere. Exploring a little deeper reveals all sorts of interesting stuff, including colin's hobby: collecting arcade games. The site's design is also appealing to me: controlled and minimalist (trend, anyone?).
daisey: a fellow coolstop site of the day recipient that I discovered through rebecca. The word 'delicious' comes to mind as I attempt to describe daisey's site. I love the colors and all the little graphical accents. Her site has a warm inviting feel, kind of like a good friend's home. Much like a friend's house, it's fun to explore her site...you never know when you'll run into some interesting knick-knack that tells you a little more about her unique personality.
Incidentally, the latest addition to my site was found via daisey's site. I'm sure everyone has seen guestbooks, at other people's sites, but how many of you have seen guest maps? It works pretty much like a guestbook, except that you drag a little arrow around to show where you're located as well? I thought it would be interesting to see where all my visitors are coming from, and to learn about how you found my site. If you have a site, be sure to leave an address as well!
So, Senator Jesse Helms, who's wrangled with AIDS activists over funding to fight the disease, has urged for $500 million in AIDS funding. Wow.
Not that I think that one should make spiritual decisions based on an online quiz, but I found the results that the Belief-O-Matic found for me quite interesting. The top five that I was "most compatible" with were:
1. Conservative Protestant (100%) (which I am)
2. Orthodox Quaker (98%)
3. Seventh Day Adventist (96%)
4. Liberal Protestant (75%)
5. Eastern Orthodox (74%)
The bottom five were:
23. Neo-Paganism (24%)
24. New Age (22%)
25. Secular Humanism (21%)
26. Scientology (20%)
27. New Thought (14%)
All of which I suppose is true, but I don't like the idea of being "compatible" with any particular belief. I didn't choose Christ...He chose me, and for as long as I'm on earth, I am in His debt. Praise God.
So Marvel is offering a bunch of their comics for free online, including Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spiderman, the reworkings of those storylines that began in 2000. I've never been really into comic books, but I've going through some at work lately to help one of my students learn to read, so I was intrigued. Turns out these new "Ultimate" strips are a lot, um, hipper, with all sorts of timely references to pop culture (I counted three or four "Britney Spears" references) and the Information Age (Aunt May looking something up on the Web). Peter Parker is now a 15-year old web designer. They even have subtle references to current politics (the license plate of the presidential limo in one X-Men issue says "Dubya") and even Marvel's recent forays into Hollywood. Here's a sample of the writing:
"Why shouldn't I get a little bling bling off of the whole super hero thing I got goin on?"
Peter Parker, aka Spider Man
Sound corny? Definitely. Still, Marvel somehow manages to pull it off in a believable, entertaining fashion, without the superficiality that seems to come with corporate America trying to ingratiate itself with youth culture.
Why is it that if I mention a girl—any girl—in conversation with another guy, it always goes along the lines of this:
"...I'll borrow the notes from someone."
"Who?"
"This girl I knew from last quarter."
"Ah...is she cute?"
"Eh...does it matter?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does."
*sigh*
Finals all done. I'm completely drained right now.
Couple of long overdue links:
Angela has an elegant new layout for her blog.
surfstation has finally released their long-delayed redesign. Their design adds more weight to my suspicision that minimal, content-focused design is growing trend for 2002. Still, I'm kind of disappointed. The random background thing is kinda cool, but I was expecting more for something that was 2 months late. Incidentally, k10k is nearly four months behind their original promised re-launch date. They've been down for nearly 9 months now.
Here's something interesting I found through Brian's site: enter your zip code to find out how merchants classify your area. Davis, California, for example, is described with terms like "Boomtown Singles," "Big Fish, Small Pond," and "Upward Bound." Apparently, we watch ER, read Vogue, and are college basketball fans.
I'm thinking about redesigning my site...here's a rough draft of what I'm planning so far. (This is a joke. Honest. Courtesy of The Fulifier.)
My brother on priorities while studying:
"I don't see the word 'hygiene' in the term 'studying for midterms.'"
So, in the spirit of finals week, here is a little something for all of you stressing out. I've also changed the music in Running on... to "Waiting in Vain" by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Is it because I relate with the lyrics? Maybe...
Special thanks to Rebecca for linking me up. It's startling how many interests we share (Star Wars and The Cranberries, for example...). Lots of interesting content...in particular, I like her photo section and art history site.
The Strokes have a sweet website. Flash-based interface, which can sometimes be a problem for a site meant to appeal to a wide audience, but it's pulled off nicely here. The interface is in fact pretty clever on multiple levels...although using a TV motif has been done before, it's well executed here. The nice thing about it is that everyone (at least, anyone using the Web) has used a TV before, and so knows intuitively that pressing a button will change the screen. Visitors won't have to waste too much time figuring out the interface since they're probably already familiar with it. Very clever.
This is why the Internet is such a scary place. This site lets you search for anyone's drivers license, with photos, in the entire United States. Although this information has always been publicly available, the advent of the Internet makes me wonder if losing some privacy is a fair exchange.
Addendum: Ever wanted to know what it must be like to be, well, me? Here's a look inside my thought process as I was passing the Russell and Sycamore intersection near the Cuarto dorm area...
Hey, I think that's Angela! It is...cool! She doesn't see me, oh well I...WHAT THE...?! PANIC WHOA?! Crazy lady!!!"
*swerves to narrowly miss hapless elderly woman oblivious to the angel of death on two wheels bearing down on her*
Maybe I ride too fast. Or maybe I should pay attention while I ride...
Will has a sweet site. Excellent work with Flash and beautiful visuals.
bekah has a nice site, too. I'd give a longer review, but I gotta go pick up a friend's bike. Be back later.
overheard snippet from a conversation (in Valley Girl accent):
"So, it's like, this perpetual downward...thing, you know?"
new splash up.
after a surge of pixel wipes and abstract 3D shapes in 2001, I think we're seeing a new trend for websites for 2002...check out floodgear and striding studio. Once bastions of the sort of stunning visuals you'd find at sites like shadowness, they've chosen more minimal designs with lots of white space, putting the focus squarely on content. striding studio's creator tim admits that he's lost hits because of the change, but it's nice to see a trend setter experimenting rather than sticking with what's safe and popular.
Added a new feature to this page...if you're curious about what the music I'm running on sounds like, click on the link above for a stream in a new pop-up window. It uses a simple trick I learned in Flash to stream a high-quality audio sample more reliably than Windows Media or RealPlayer. The current featured track is "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Leave comments about the selection if you'd like, as well as any problems you run into.
So, a couple that met playing Diablo II is getting married. Can you even imagine what that must have been like?
"There's something about the way his avatar swung his long sword that made me tingle inside..."
Imagine the stories they'd tell the kids...
"Daddy, how did you and mom meet?"
"Well, I was cornered by a swarm of zombies in an ancient tomb and I thought I was a goner when this beautiful stranger rescued me in the nick of time with a fireball spell...it was love at first sight, but little did I know that I would marry that fiesty warrior someday..."
*silence*
"No, really, Daddy, how did you and mom meet?"
Mercedes Benz USA is probably the biggest name I've seen so far with a design that is completely tableless. The site is simple yet elegant, with the sort of smooth lines and technical sophistication that you'd expect from Mercedes.
She hasn't updated in ages, but Katie has a gorgeous site.
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Which Firearm are you? |
ok...so that wasn't my first choice...but man does it look cool. Hehe.
From Third Day's live journal:
Tonight's show at the University of California in Davis was great. This was probably our best crowd of all the California shows. At the end of the show, the crowd rushed the stage and things really got cooking with butter.
So yeah. It was that good.
"Long-time, heavy marijuana users may eventually see their memory and attention span go up in smoke, new research suggests." Erm, this is news?
angela has a new layout up. Go go go!
Third Day concert today. Oh yeah!
Addendum: Third Day rocked. It was loud. My ears are still buzzing. The opening act was actually decent (Australian quartet called, strangely enough, the Paul Coleman Trio). They were followed by Bebo Norman, who has a decent single out called "Stand." He seemed kinda nervous onstage...I think his music was great, but it would be better suited to a more intimate setting, like an open mic night at a coffee house, rather than in front of 3500 screaming fans.
Then Third Day came out and everybody went crazy...we were near the back, but the band was LOUD, and so was the crowd. Although they have a new album out, they went with a line-up consisting of some of their more popular hits, and the audience lavished much appreciation on them for it.
Funniest moment: Lead singer Mac Powell cut the band off in the middle of their song "These Thousand Hills" to ask this lady if she was talking on the phone (she was). He took the phone from her and said "Hi Nick, this is Mac from Third Day. Everyone say hi!" *crowd of 3500+ screams* "You're not having nearly as much fun as we are. Here's a song for you..." and he proceeded to continue with the set. The band was fun to watch, lighting was spectacular...definitely a great concert. They also nicely integrated a serious message about the gospel, which I wasn't alone in appreciating...obviously, they were there for more than just entertainment.
Been too busy with school to update around here. Toying with ideas for site improvements and a new project henceforth codenamed "xp." Very original.
Addendum:Ok, I'm renaming the project to "Hybrid" because I figure ol' Bill Gates will figure out a way to sue me. Not that he needs to, since Forbes confirmed that he is once again the richest man in the world. Besides, Hybrid sounds cooler anyways.
