MSNBC has a fun little quiz with some of the more tricky questions asked of those seeking to become citizens of the US. I was suprised that I got all of them correct (yes, 100%). I guess that makes me a real American as opposed to the cheddar cheese eating type. Via

In honor of my mother who scored a Spiderman on the hero quiz, here’s the trailer for Spiderman 3. It looks very cool.

I’m not sure what today’s sound is, but I swear it’s a chainsaw. Even worse, it sounds like it’s on my floor. You get used to it after the drilling and the fire alarm.

What beats the noise of drilling from yesterday? Why, the buzz and strobe light of a twenty minute fire alarm test (the alarm is directly above my desk) on top of the drilling and the hammering from directly below my desk.

Sometimes, life is cruel. I can’t wait to go home.

This morning, I was able to further appreciate the sound of the drilling that is clearly coming from the exact spot one floor beneath my desk chair. In fact, I’m quite certain that I can feel small vibrations from the drilling. The resulting effect is very similar to those massage chairs seen in a Sharper Image catalog. Considering that those chairs, can go for almost $4,000 USD, I would consider the drilling to be quite a steal, as I paid nothing for it. It could be even argued that I’m in fact getting paid to enjoy the pleasant vibrating motions, although I would like to point out the distinct lack of a cup-holder.

Since the drilling sound is exaggerated by the headache I have this morning, I give the Drilling From the Floor Below a hearty 4 out of 5.

Oh damn, the drilling was just replaced by the hammering sound of (you guessed it) a hammer. So, much for my gentle massage chair.

Here’s a quiz that’s too much fun not to take. Answer a series of questions and the Hero Quiz will tell you what type of hero you are. Via Romance Writer Cynthia Eden

Of course, I scored 88% Jack Sparrow. It could be no other way.

There’s plenty of talk about where navigation should be, what it should look like, how it should perform, and so forth. Well, I’ve finally articulated in my mind an idea that I’ve had for a while. Navigation is dead. Really, it’s for the crows. Why worry about what kind of navigation you’re giving your users when you can give them something better: Search. In fact, why put more focus on navigation than you do on search? Hey, Google replaced navigation with search, and look were it got them.

Three Methods of Search

1. Let Someone Else Do It
   Ummm, can’t we just use Google’s site search? Yea, but then you’re sending you traffic away from your website. You get less control over the process, and what happens when parts of your website aren’t publicly accessible or isn’t indexed by Google? On the upside, it’s super cheap and easy to implement. Oh, and it mostly works well.
2. Custom Script
   That’s an ideal solution right? Well, they’re often difficult to write or find, and they can be inaccurate or excrutiatingly slow, but you do get all the control back.
3. Search in a Box
   Hey, did you know Google sells a standalone, turnkey box that handles search for you. Simply, hook it up to your webserver and go. However, from $1,995 to $30,000, it’s pretty expensive. You do get a lot more flexibility, power, and ability to customize.

Okay, so I don’t have any answers. I do know next time I spend a lot of time thinking about designing a website, I’m going to tackle this search thing head on.

Anyone out there have some brialliant intra-website search solutions?

Andy Rutledge has a great article discussing the unimportance of logos. No really, a designer is talking about how little importance the logo holds. I can’t agree enough. While the logo has it’s place, a super-huge, animated, flashy logo justs destroys what the focus should be on (hint: content). Actuallty, whenever more effort and time is spent on a logo, it destroys that same focus.

Here’s how Andy puts it:

I believe that the logo is the most abused, misapplied, misconceived, wrongfully distracting element of design and business today … Seriously, the logo is just the simple mnemonic that can be used to mark (brand like a cow) products and marketing materials so that people know who made them or who is trying to say something to them. The logo itself only articulates what the brand already broadcasts. That’s it … Regrettably, more than a few clients I’ve worked with want their logo and their website to say things about them that are entirely inaccurate – as if doing so will fix their shortcomings … No, this new logo will not fix your crappy company

Sigh, I just want the world to know that it’s all about the meat and potatoes (or something like that).

Ok, let me throw one more thing into the mix: 99.9…9% of the time the logo should be on the top left of a website. Here’s an article claiming that .9…9 = 1. Was that too subtle?

I hate this new format war. Mostly, because it’s completely conjured up to milk consumers out of money… Anyone remember DivX players?

Anyway, here’s a nice detailed look at why both formats will fail: 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

Here’s a great article written by one of the designers on how one of my favorite games, GoldenEye, was made. The author actually attributes much of the games success to not following the “right” way of making games.

From the article:

The level creators, or architects were working without much level design, by which I mean often they had no player start points or exits in mind. Certainly they didn’t think about enemy positions or object positions. Their job was simply to produce an interesting space. After the levels were made, Dave or sometimes Duncan would be faced with filling them with objectives, enemies, and stuff. The benefit of this sloppy unplanned approach was that many of the levels in the game have a realistic and non-linear feel. There are rooms with no direct relevance to the level. There are multiple routes across the level. This is an anti-game design approach, frankly. It is inefficient because much of the level is unnecessary to the gameplay. But it contributes to a greater sense of freedom, and also realism. And in turn this sense of freedom and realism contributed enormously to the success of the game … I should mention that the entire team was very green. 8 of us had never worked on a game.

In case you ever need it, here’s instructions on how to cook with your car’s engine (via). So, which adds more flavor, the carburetor or the manifold?

This incredibly detailed essay compares Calvin and Hobbes to Jack and Tyler from Fight Club (via).

I have a new found respect for Calvin and Hobbes now knowing that they grow up to start Fight Club.

Engadget has a great article on how you make your in-house phone jacks work with VoIP. It actually looks pretty simple too.

Great photo of the winners of a Jack Sparrow look-a-like contest. Via

My wife’s writing laptop’s hinges broke. The cheapest I found new hinges for online was $49.00. Sheesh. In the meantime, she needs a quick fix. I tried duct tape. I’m pretty sure that would fix it; I just couldn’t figure it out how. In the end, I tied a string around it… Surprisingly, the string worked pretty well. Unfortunately, I think my wife is too proud to use it.

Anyway, here’s a guy who thinks he has a solution to the broken laptop hinges problem (via Make), but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what he was doing.