Delta Tango Bravo

It's getting warm outside, so maybe it's time to start planning another disc golf tournament for charity. One of my co-workers just brought to my attention an amazing collection of the art of the flying disc or frisbee^tm. There are discs promoting world championships, tv shows, movies, tournaments, food items, and music as well as a sweet midi music intro to the site. Check out the awesome Lifesaver and 1977 Western Ultimate discs (click on the thumbnails for nice big images). Time to break out the old disc and hit the golf course this weekend!

Update: Also check out this Nike advertisement featuring freestyle frisbee. (Streaming Quicktime)

Fifteen years after the original release of Weird Al Yankovic's incredible movie UHF, Rob "Flack" O'Hara went and retraced the steps of our wily hero George Newman and his unlikely sidekick Stanley Spadowski through Oklahoma City. Among other locations he visits Burger World, Channel 8 headquarters, and, of course, Spatula City! Rob has taken screen captures of various locations for the 'before' shots and his own photos that display what the places look like now. Follow the little links at the bottom of the page to follow Rob on his journey back in time.

A couple of days ago, we at silverorange launched a new website for Hampshire Pewter. It's been a great experience working with their company. This has been the latest in a series of sites for mid-sized east coast clients that handcraft fine wares. I think there's really something about working with people who understand fine craftsmanship in their own field that leads to a strong mutual understanding. Stop in at our office in a week or two to see a beautiful pewter Concord Oil Lamp sitting on the mantle in our boardroom!

The Mozilla visual identity team, which I'm lucky enough to play a small role in, has just released the new Thunderbird logo! Jon Hicks was the illustrator behind both this new logo and the Firefox logo released a few months ago.

I've been using Thunderbird as my primary mail client for the past few months and have been generally pleased overall (particularly in comparison to Outlook, which I was using previously). It's exciting to see the progress of the project as it continually improves over time.

Check out Jon's explanation of the design process.

I've been keeping my eye out for more good favicons and I've found quite a few nice additions to the original collection. Again, let me know if there are any sites you'd recommend.

Choosing which favicons to include is obviously a really subjective process, but there are a few criteria that I've been loosely adhering to. First off, icons with aliased edges for the most part have not been included. Until transparency is properly supported, these icons are only attractive on white or near white backgrounds, which isn't always the case with tabs and dropdown menus. Zeldman's favicon (in the original set) is one obvious exception because it's so freakin' nice. Simplicity and clarity are the two most important attributes of anything this small. Granted nobody relies solely on the meaning of a favicon, but the ability to clearly display a meaningful image in a 16 x 16 area is a real challenge and some of these favicons do an extraordinary job.

See the complete collection of favicons I've been gathering.

I stumbled across our local internet service provider Eastlink's terms of service yesterday and noticed some confusing and maybe disturbing points in it. I can understand them wanting to ensure people aren't sharing copyrighted material to reduce the company's liability, but does point 'e' not give them unlimited posession of anything you put online? Is this kind of thing actually legally binding?

(c) You shall not use EastLink to solicit users to become subscribers of other Internet access or online information services competitive with EastLink.

(e) You shall not upload, post or otherwise make available on EastLink any material protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right without the express permission of the owner of the copyright, trademark or other proprietary right. You hereby grant EastLink the right to edit, copy, publish and distribute any material made available on EastLink by you, and grant EastLink a non-exclusive, royalty free, world-wide, perpetual license, with the right to sublicense, to use in any way any ideas or materials submitted to EastLink.

I just received my copy of 37signals' book Defensive Design for the Web this morning. Scanning through the introduction, it's interesting to see the same comments I had made a few months ago (long after the book went to print) about avoiding referring to people as users. Matthew Linderman and Jason Fried expressed the idea more succinctly and more effectively than I did:

Users sounds like a bunch of junkies or gigolos. The people who visit web sites aren't users, click throughs, hits, numbers on a spreadsheet, or some other form of dehumanizing jargon. They're your husband, your mom, your friend, the guy who sits in the cubicle next to you. They're real people like you and I. That's why we say visitors, customers, or just plain 'ol people.

Nicely said. I really need to find more ways to work 'gigolos' into my writing...

Any true Canadian will remember with a sigh of nostalgia hearing the haunting opening theme from Hinterland Who's Who and the incredible monotone voice describing our national wildlife. Every one of the advertisements is available online, including perennial favourites like the beaver, the muskox, and the snowy owl. Apparently, the folks at the Canadian Wildlife Service also have a sense of humour as they've included some hilarious spoofs of the original series.

I had considered adding a sidebar on the right of this site with a list of books I'm currently reading or reviews of books I've recently read. Instead, I think I might occassionally write full posts about books that I'd like to recommend. If you know me and if I own the book (as I do today's recommendation), feel free to come and borrow it if you'd like.

Magnum Degrees
by Michael Ignatieff

I purchased this book at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art just over a month ago on the recommendation of my twin brother who is currently studying the history of art at university. Until recently I hadn't been aware of the Magnum group of photographers at all, but at a quick glance the book looked enticing. As Library Journal explains "Magnum is an agency of elected photojournalists who independently photograph what they choose rather than what they are assigned."

The collection of photographs in Magnum Degrees covers an incredibly diverse range of subjects, most of which are politically orientated, from a number of photographers. Photos are ocassionaly intersperced with brief descriptions of the photographer's intentions. There are some truly striking and shocking (I don't say that lightly) images. Many of the photographs are from war-torn regions and the images are incredibly raw.

There are few books I've read recently that truly altered my world perspective the way this collection of photos has. A photo of a ragtag soldier sitting on a bunkbed at the side of a dusty road in Afganistan with an AK-47 assualt rifle in his hands, certainly makes you consider how difficult it is to understand the persepctive of someone so different from yourself. A superb collection.