Report

Mon 24 Jun 200207:49 PM

I saw “Minority Report” over the weekend, and was pleasantly surprised by most of it, though it falls apart in the fourth act (that’s a joke). I’ve never liked Spielberg’s work all that much, but I admit that he’s created a real vision here. If nothing else the movie, set in the year 2054, is filled with hypothetical user interfaces that are beautifully executed — for a change in a Hollywood film, they’re interfaces that actually look like they were designed by real designers.

New Mail

Wed 19 Jun 200208:35 PM

Yahoo! is on a redesign kick, apparently. They’ve launched a public beta version of their Internet-based Yahoo! Mail service (Log in and click on the link on the home page), which actually looks pretty decent. They’ve even gone out on a limb and used Microsoft Office for Windows-style button/menus, rendered with JavaScript.

Village Veloce

Mon 17 Jun 200204:51 PM

It’s hard to believe that this throwback to the era of random violence happened just three blocks from where I live now and just a block from where I lived for two years: “Patrons of Bar Veloce in the East Village were held hostage by a man who sprayed kerosene on them and then threatened to set them afire early [Sunday&#93, according to the police. Three people and the suspect were shot.” — Al Baker, The New York Times.

Movies 101

Sat 15 Jun 200209:52 PM

David Bordwell maintains an excellent Website on Cinema, a kind of primer for studying, thinking about, watching and enjoying movies.

The Real Slim Scooby

Fri 14 Jun 200207:36 PM

Fit to Print

Thu 13 Jun 200209:41 PM

To share my Epson Stylus C80 over my home LAN, I bought a D-Link DP-101P+ Pocket Print Server on eBay. Snap it into the parallel port, plug an Ethernet cable into it and plug it into a hub, and you’re ready to go — theoretically. This thing was a pain in the butt to install. It took me hours to decipher the poorly written manual and figure out how to properly configure it. For the benefit of other DP-101P+ buyers, I documented what I learned on Epinions.com. Once I got it working though, it worked like a dream… almost worth the effort.

Comic Geniuses

Wed 12 Jun 200207:24 PM

As it nears its first birthday, The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is holding an Art Festival on Sun 23 Jun in New York. The list of featured attendees is long and diverse, and headlined by the legendary Jules Feiffer.

New Look

Tue 11 Jun 200207:02 PM

Yahoo! is redesigning, as shown in this beta page posted for user feedback. It’s hardly a radical overhaul of the portal’s venerable aesthetic but that’s to be expected — they’ll never not look like this.

Mob Mentality

Mon 10 Jun 200209:40 PM

The mafia took a step deeper into mythology today when John Gotti passed away. On the news, they showed images of Gotti in his heyday, parading down Mulberry Street in Little Italy, and that New York couldn’t seem further away — today Mulberry Street is an upscale shopping concourse paraded by fashion victims and moneyed hipsters.