Dispatches From The Internets

A fantastic new t-shirt from J!NX.

I knew things had taken a turn for the worse when DMCA passed and media owners were discussing their desire to spy on consumers’ computers in search of illicit media, but who knew it had gotten this bad?

In hopes of stemming the massive explosion of open source database use, Oracle is preparing an “express” version of it’s Oracle Database 10g line: Oracle Database XE. Like many things on the web right now, it’s currently in beta, with a full release planned for late this year.

Andy’s beautiful standards-based design is gone, replaced by a table-based pile of (ahem) tag soup. Being the gentleman that he is, Andy has chosen to remain silent on the issue, but he has provided a forum for anyone else who wants to chime in. Molly posted an open letter to Disney which I think sums the whole thing up quite well:

Shame on you Disney.

As I mentioned to Ian earlier today, Dave and I were discussing having the jsTrace window keep pace with whatever the most current line is spit out to it. A few hours later, here it is: jsTrace 1.3. I have some other stuff (read: paying projects) that need my attention, so I am putting jsTrace down for a bit. Dave & I will be posting a few more demos of its use in different situations, but as far as further development goes, I’m gonna be hands-off for a bit to let you all get a chance to participate.

And if you’re in the participatory mood, check out this site I built with Adaptive Path. I will be posting some details about the project and how I accomplished certain design features once Kel’s campaign’s over and life gets a little less hectic.

In his most recent essay, Gerry McGovern was discussing expert opinions and voices. One particular comment he made struck a chord:

The Web is maturing. It needs more people like Jakob Nielsen who propose, explain and defend rules.

The reception for our latest script release, jsTrace, has been fantastic. From the write-up on the DOM Scripting Task Force blog to all of the emails and comments, it’s been great.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I hate debugging JavaScript. Really, it’s not the debugging, per se, as much as it’s using alert() to echo stuff out to the screen. It’s stupid and distracting and takes for ever if you’re debugging a lot of stuff.

Some interesting news on the Google front: there’s been sightings of a new Google universe which looks more than a little scary, especially in light of the mockumentary-with-a-stright-face known as EPIC 2014.

We always knew San Francisco was filled with rainbow pride, but it now seems the source was not what I expected. It reminds me of the mashed potato CN Tower scene in Canadian Bacon.