Diabetes Walk, take 2

alternateorg on October 24, 2005

There’s still more time! Since we decided to do the American Walk for Diabetes in Boulder instead of Denver, hoping for better weather, you can still make your donation to the cause.

You want my son to get cured, right? You have a little extra cash, right? Do I need to draw you a picture? Thanks to Tai and Phil for donating through Alternate. Ian appreciates it.

Random items of interest

alternateorg on October 24, 2005

Yeah, so I don’t post much. Really, at all, any more. It’s sad.

So I’ve decided this afternoon, to kill the last few minutes at my fabulous new job by posting random shit I’ve found of interest lately.

Want to get in on all of the “Web 2.0/Ruby On Rails/AJAX + other buzzwords” action, but don’t really want to learn Ruby or Rails? Well, then jump straight into using the behind-the-scenes Javascript fancy-ness by using the ridiculously cool Script.aculo.us library to render your effects. For extra buzzworthiness, use the easy-as-pie Behaviour framework to implement your new-found special effects without a million onclick handlers all over the place. Fancy2.

The new Tristeza album coming out in November is really, really good. I can’t tell you where I got it but damn if it isn’t pretty hot, even if James LaValle isn’t in the band anymore. There is enough room in this world for both Tristeza and the Album Leaf. Add to that my favorite new band, Rogue Wave and you’re in indie rock heaven. Even if Rogue Wave did have a song on the Napoloeon Dynamite soundtrack.

I’m hoping really hard that my next project at work can find inspiration from something at Visual Complexity, quite possibly the coolest interface resource I’ve found in a long time.

This is a neat ad for Playboy, utilizing rain as way of shifting the message. Slightly.

Sigh

alternateorg on October 20, 2005

You know you have a problem when even you skip over your blog’s tab in Safari. “Why go there? There’s nothing new, and I know, because it’s mine. And it sucks.”

Sigh.

America's Walk for Diabetes

alternateorg on October 12, 2005

Ian in the hospital at his on-set of Type 1 Diabetes

I recently accepted the challenge of walking in the American Diabetes Association’s America’s Walk for Diabetes fund-raising event. I am taking part in this event because I believe in and support the Association’s mission: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.

You, too, can help by supporting my fund-raising efforts with a generous contribution. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference to more than 18 million Americans who are affected by diabetes and another 40 million who are at risk for developing diabetes. It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause – you can make your donation online by simply clicking this link.

Flickr’d photos of Ian in the hospital in September, 2003.

"This guy trashes the HIG the way Johnny Depp trashes a hotel room."

alternateorg on September 13, 2005

You’d probably have seen this anyway because you all should read Daring Fireball, but I just had to point this out, and right now. Daring Fireball: The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

Brushed Metal: Who did they go with for iTunes? Not that Unified Title and Toolbar cocksucker…

Mike: No, they got someone new.

Brushed Metal: New?

Mike: Yeah, and he’s hot. Very hot. He looks like Unified with a tan.

Brushed Metal: Beige?!

Mike: No, not tan colored. Like suntanned. He’s like Unified but darker. His color is a lot like yours, but smooth and shaded like Unified. And thinner. No borders. It’s a very chic look. Reminds me of you, back in the day.

Hurricane "Corina" and other stupid quotes

alternateorg on September 12, 2005

Just more proof of my stark belief that this administration is, in fact, the actual coming of the anti-christ:

I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” –President Bush, on “Good Morning America,” Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina
…
What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them.” –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005
…
We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do … The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” (Laughter) —President Bush, touring hurricane damage, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

Read more here, if you think your stomach can take it. Via TheMorningNews

Flick Off!

alternateorg on August 30, 2005

Since Tai currently works in the digital identity field and since I worked in it just over a year ago, digital identity articles are always interesting to me, especially when they include such staples for me as Yahoo! and Flickr.

“If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline,” wrote Thomas Müller, a Hamburg, Germany-based artist who shows more than 1,400 photos at the site. On Wednesday, Müller created a protest group, Flick Off, that has attracted almost 400 members.

I seriously don’t get that. Sign up for a stupid fucking Yahoo! account and shut the hell up already. It’s Flickr’s product, not yours, maybe if you’d been asked if you cared one way or the other, you might have some griping to do, but christ. Do I find it a little sad that Flickr thought it a good move to delete your pictures in 2006 if you don’t sign up for a Yahoo! account? Yeah, I do. You should have the choice to federate your two identities, or keep your Flickr identity stand-alone, but you shouldn’t be forced to do something with an account that you aren’t comfortable.

If this was maybe an online banking account issue, or something a little more secure and important than personal photo sharing, I might see a desire and a strong reason to stir things up and talk on Wired.com about how much of a baby you are. But Flickr? Yahoo? Not a big deal. Suck it up and choose a Yahoo! ID.

Now if this was MSN doing this.. I’d probably have canceled my Flickr account within minutes. But that’s just me.