Wednesday, 30 October, 2002
Another Tufte favorite. He singles this site out as having exemplery design because it uses a single page that just scrolls downwards. New items are added to the top and as you move down the page, you move back in time. I think that this is not a great design. Even my weblog, which has that same format, only carries a few days on a single page and uses the calendar on the side to give you access to the other entries. And that makes sense because this is an inherantly chronological website. A site with news and ideas and more is not necessarily chronological and should be based on some more useful concept. I find the New York Times and the Washington Post to be excellent sites because they organize news by category.
Also, for a new user, A&L is quite daunting. It's information overload at its worst.
Now, all that said, I'm looking forward to getting into it. I think that if you are a daily reader, the format is quite good. Just not for the casual visitor. 10:35:19 PM 
One of the sites Tufte likes. I'll be looking these over in the coming days and blogging them as I go. 10:31:18 PM
He showed this video today. It's pretty amazing. Check out the fireball + smoke trail about 2/3 through... 10:28:09 PM
The seminar today was just excellent. On his site I found the following article which I haven't yet read. But, based on the pictures alone, I know I'm going to like it. Tufte is a big proponent of "Put the data IN the chart" rather than using a legend. This is illustrated here.
Postscript: Ann points out that when she learned GANTT charting in grad school, it was with the data in the chart. 10:22:10 PM
I'm going to his one day seminar tomorrow (er, today). I'm very excited. 12:22:35 AM
In high school, I dated a woman named Maureen (who reads this weblog from time to time and is sure to email me if I get part of this story wrong... Hi Mo!)
Anyway, we apparantly had a miscommunication when I left for College. I thought we agreed that long distance relationships sucked and that we were pretty much over. So, off I went to Dartmouth.
A few weeks in, I met Katie (who, as far as I know, does not read this weblog. OK, a brief interlude: if you are an ex of mine and you are reading this, drop me a line. I'm actually curious which of you read this!) and we began seeing each other.
I joined Marching band (see next entry for more on that) and Katie soon joined up too. Together we were part of the elite Kazoo corps. During games, the band plays, among other things, the Hawaii 5-0 theme. Those of us who played instruments small enough to get away with this got up on the benches and "surfed" and "rowed kayaks" (if you've ever seen the opening credits for the show, you know what I mean, if not, Book 'em Danno!) So, we did this.
One of the early games of the season was televised. Normally nobody but alumni and drunken students care at all about what an Ivy League football team does. In most cases it's just not that interesting. But we were playing University of Pennsylvania who, I gather, is (or at least was, back in 1986) somewhat intersting. So, the Sports Channel (this is in the days before ESPN) carried that particular game. And we hammed it up nice and good for the camera. I guess Katie and I made quite the pair. The camera seemed to be on us a lot.
Maybe too much.
The night after that game Maureen called me on the pay phone in the hallway near my dorm room.
"Who's the girl?"
"Um... what?"
"I saw you on TV with your arm around her dancing on the bleachers. Who is she?"
It got awkward after that and, unfortunately, I don't actually remember the rest of the conversation.
But there you have it: my high school sweetheart found out that I was seeing someone else by catching us on cable TV. 12:17:58 AM
Moving away from religion, let's talk Muppets.
In college I was in the Marching Band. Part of the Dartmouth Marching Band tradition is to be as silly as possible. I took that seriously. In addition to the usual green jacket all covered with buttons, I also wore a welding helmet with a Froot Loops toucan nose taped onto it and I wore Animal around my neck. I also played a giant Kazoo I built from many smaller Kazoos and a slide whistle. I still have it and I can still play it. 12:09:47 AM
Another book to add to the stack...
For those of you keeping track, I finished the book on John Adams and am now part-way through "The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin."
To make that relevant, Franklin is another man who's views towards religion are very close to my own. At least up until 1750 or so. I haven't gotten much past that yet. 12:05:28 AM
Last update: 2002/11/02; 08:36:52 .
