Knowledge Is Power
A Weblog exploring the repository of all human knowledge
Some blogs
WGN's Weather Blog An awesome resource for all you weather geeks out there.
The BBC Blogging the US election
Morton Aboretum's Weekly Color Report
Blogs Illustrated Illustrated blog blogring.
The Drive Around the World Journal
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau
Useful Knowledge (at least for me)
It's been awhile since I've linked to any knowledge on the Web. Here's some.
The Complete Guide to Isometric Pixel Art
A repository for every keyboard secret in OS X
Strategies for Long-Term CSS Hack Management
How to Re-create a 215-Year-Old Newspaper Advertisement I did one of these myself a few years back.
The earth is 6000 years old today
Math
Could You Pass 8th-Grade Math?
8th grade math was probably the one of the last math classes I did actually pass (barely), with the exception of geometry and a few other courses where I was allowed a calculator during the test. And I failed a lot of math courses trying to get through college.
So how am I today? I used a calculator, like most students are allowed to these days, and got 100%. Take away the calculator and I might be able to do almost as well, but it'll take me an hour and an entire pad of legal paper to do the actual math.
I know how to solve all these problems, but lack the important skill of being able to DO the math. Hopefully that skill is still being taught.
Toad
Okay, if you people don't like bugs, how about a toad?
Design links
I Hate ITC Garamond " The most distinctive element of the typeface is its enormous lower-case x-height. In theory this improves its legibilty, but only in the same way that dog poop's creamy consistency in theory should make it more edible."
The AIGA (The American Institute of Graphic Arts) has an editorial on the The Bush Guard Memos
They're also being political with 10 Anti-Buttons: Lessons in Design
Turning the Tables Using CSS Eric Meyer talks on Apple's Pro site. I have Eric's More Eric Meyer on CSS and can't recommend it enough to anyone who works with CSS. The projects in the book are not recipes, with step 1, 2, 3 laid out as procedures to accomplish, but the thought processes of setting up, building, tweaking and troubleshooting a design. You'll work better not because you'll have learned what hacks to implement when, but because you've learned how to work better.
Bug Photos
For those of you who want to know, my bug photos, in fact all the photos that appear here and on the Foodblog, are shot with my Nikon 885 which has a very capable macro. They don't make the 885 anymore, so it's comparable in size and features to the 4300. Which I have a feeling will soon be replaced by the new 4800.
I should mention that none of the bugs that appear here have been killed, frozen, drugged or bribed or otherwise coerced into getting in front of the camera, they all went free after the photo shoot.
The spider below was shot in Lake George this summer, and was the largest wolf spider I've ever seen, and I've seen enormous ones in Hoosier National Forest in IND. This spider looked like a lithe, athletic tarantula, and was close to 6 inches, from tip to tip.
The shot below shows the spider on a fireplace mantle that's about 14 inches thick. Of course my first thought was to photograph it, and my second thought was to get it out of the house since if anyone else saw it, there would be a lot of screaming. Besides I was going to be sleeping alone in that house that night, and I didn't want it to try to cuddle with me later.
So I grabbed a box to trap it in, figuring this would be easy, since it was slightly chilly, and I thought it was sluggish and slow. It didn't flinch when I stuck the lens in its face. But when I got near it with the box, it zipped the entire length of the fireplace mantle in half a second. At that point I figured it was better to not mess with it. You just don't fuck with something that big and that fast. It disappeared somewhere right before I could change my mind.