Ming the Mechanic:
Thursday, October 3, 2002

The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Thursday, October 3, 20022002-10-04 02:47
4 comments
pictureby Flemming Funch

  • My friend Paul Hersey has one of the most enjoyable user interfaces I know on his home page. Meet Electric Liz. He did both the body painting and the Flash animation himself. Click on the bullets and different things happen for each one.

  • So, what is good design for webpages? Jakob Nielsen is the guru on web usability. Much interesting stuff there. Like Don't Listen to Users. I.e. watch what people do and see what works and doesn't work for them - don't just ask them what they want. Hm, that does bring to mind a very similar principle I was evangelizing when leading a group of programmers developing a big insurance claim processing system years ago. Listen to what people do and what they're trying to accomplish, watch what they actually do, and then go off and figure out how best to serve them. How about the Eyetracking Study of Web Readers. People's eyes jump around, look at headings, graphics. People often have several windows open and jump back and forth between them. Users don't just "visit a site". They are likely to jump around between sites, and be in several sites at once. Good design must accommodate that people come and go frequently, and must make it quick and easy to reorient oneself.

  • The Internet will eventually change everything about how companies do business. But it is unfortunately still possible to trick and bully people into buying overpriced mediocre products from dishonest people. Slashdot reports how Robert Novak, the owner of Pets Warehouse, has filed a $15 mill lawsuit against some individuals who commented about his company's poor service on a mailing list. And several little people unable to mount the legal defense have been forced to settle and pay the guy money or give him their websites. Just to let you know. Shop somewhere else.

  • I noticed in my server logs that there are people coming to my personal page from The Useless Wackos site, which lists the worst wackos the guy could find on the net. Well, the list is a couple of years old, but he obviously thought I was a good candidate. I bet I know a few of the other guys too. At least I've been a member of all the three top-rated wacko religions he lists, and the creator of one of them came to one of my events once. ... Geez, and its not the only one, I'm also one of the weirdest sites on the net.

  • Well, Hahah, I don't care, because I'm the number one authority on Transformation on the Internet, according to Google. #1 out of 4,370,000 websites that say anything about it. That's actually more scary than being one of the worst kooks. I'm not sure I believe my website is really the best place in the world to go and study transformation. For one thing, most of it hasn't been updated for years. But in Google's algorithms, what makes a big difference is how many other sites are linking to a certain site, and how many other sites are linking to them. And around 900 other sites, many of them very popular, have links pointing to mine.

  • Do you remember, when you were a child, the sun was yellow? Have you noticed that now it is white?

  • Dialtones - A Telesymphony was a concert performed entirely by the audience's ringing cellphones. Through an elaborate system of hardware and software the result became something rather remarkable.


  • [< Back] [Ming the Mechanic]

    Category:  

    4 comments

    5 Oct 2002 @ 02:18 by vaxen : Also...
    right click and hit 'play.' But to get to the bullets you also must click on the 'generators' upper level sphere...first of all...but much, all, of the other things apparently are under construction. Love the animation though.

    Here is another wonderful flash animation which I think you may enjoy, Flemming, as it deals with subject matters you 'core' to.

    http://fusionanomaly.net/  



    5 Oct 2002 @ 17:01 by ming : FusionAnomaly
    Very interesting site. Yeah, I kind of like that inter-linked information soup of weird stuff.  


    19 Dec 2014 @ 20:23 by Maria @213.119.48.137 : xFDYHMTvdwtJKF
    I had evolved a siilmar scenario to help me decide:It's 17 December. The returning officer comes out from behind a red velvet curtain (I was watching Moulin Rouge) and announces that there will have to be a recount as it's too close to call. There is a sharp intake of breath, anxious looks are exchanged (this scenario is admittedly based on the entire party being gathered in one place in front of a platform, but go with it). Four agonising hours later, the returning officer comes back beaming, plays a fanfare on some sort of trumpet and sweeps back the red velvet curtain to reveal Who?  


    23 Dec 2014 @ 12:00 by Auppaumo @94.206.160.222 : jtMAJOoImafhZrPZudj
    Well RonaldB, maybe islam doesn't have college-like csalses on killing but they sure have a certain style of instruction going on in mosques. I saw a Fox special in December of 2005 (close as I can remember) of muslim jerks intently watching videos of beheadings. They were soaking it up. Hardening their hearts to the pain of another human being. Not college-like, but training none-the-less. So get off of your semantics kick and just accept the main idea. By the bye, the same sort of indoctrinating crap goes on in our prisons as the bad guys sit around and brag about their murdering and raping.  


    Other stories in
    2012-05-03 00:04: An evolving path
    2012-01-02 13:52: 2011 Accomplishments and 2012 Aims
    2011-11-17 02:20: Your inner piece
    2011-02-01 00:05: Slow Mo Flow
    2011-01-22 18:40: Recognition
    2010-08-23 00:36: Where's Ming?
    2010-07-20 14:24: Getting other people to do stuff
    2010-06-22 00:27: Inventory
    2010-06-19 23:10: Conversations
    2009-10-28 12:31: Then a miracle occurs



    [< Back] [Ming the Mechanic] [PermaLink]? 


    Link to this article as: http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-000187.htm
    Main Page: ming.tv