About “The Whale Hunt” interface (by Jonathan Harris)
“The Whale Hunt website was developed as an experimental interface for storytelling. Given an epic real world story, with lots of content and lots of metadata, how can the narrative be faithfully retold? The project presented a number of interesting design problems, including: how to present a large set of photographs (3,214) online while keeping download times relatively brief; how to express both the topography of the entire narrative and the ways in which any single moment fits into that narrative; how to extract and reveal the many substories occuring within the context of the larger story; how to convey the many feelings experienced on the hunt (boredom, fatigue, curiosity, excitement, exhaustion, sublime beauty); and more generally how to restage an epic real world experience on the Internet.”

whale hunt
Tracing business acumen to dyslexia
“It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play on their strengths. But a new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is much more common among small-business owners than even the experts had thought. The report found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs she had surveyed — 35 percent — identified themselves as dyslexic. The study also concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to delegate authority, to excel in oral communication and problem solving and were twice as likely to own two or more businesses.”
Building a blue collar web business
“Simple e-commerce sites in small niche markets that only have a market potential of a few million dollars is not the arena for the Dagny Taggarts of the world. Most big thinkers are sitting the whole day in coffee shops trying to napkin-scratch the next wave of social bookmarking or envisioning how blogs will work in Web 4.0 on the hopes that it gets bought up by Google even though it never brought in a dime of revenue. There’s something very traditional, almost blue collar, about building a commerce site and trying to make money the old fashioned way by selling goods for a little more than you paid for them.”
Billboard uses “audio spotlight” to talk to passersby
“The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an ‘audio spotlight’ from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium. The technology, ideal for museums and libraries or environments that require a quiet atmosphere for isolated audio slideshows, has rarely been used on such a scale before.”
CommandShift3
“CommandShift3 is like Hot or Not. Except, instead of clicking on hot babes, you click on hot websites.”
Scientists develop fearless mouse
“Scientists at Tokyo University say they were able to successfully switch off a mouse’s instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats showing that fear is genetically hardwired and not learned through experience, as commonly believed.”
Astroturfing
“Astroturfing is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf. The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity.”
The Onion: These Time-Management Issues Will Be Easily Resolved With A Series Of Streamlined Meetings
“First order of business: meetings. Our meetings have become disorganized and sprawling, and far too much time is lost to non- actionable items. As you all know, production is down 7 percent company-wide, and I think we can attribute this to working hard and not working smart. I really want to get the machine running smoothly again, and the best way I know how is to get together and start shooting ideas around”
Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wii Remote