A theory about extreme fear of the GPL: [Dan Bricklin's Log 3/24/2005; 5:52:42 PM] I'm putting my material that is legalistic and narrowly related to Open Source and copyright that comes out of my work on my video on the Software Garden Training Video Blog. I'll try to also mention here some of the more general interest stuff I put there. I just posted an observation I made after attending a conference on best practices in standards setting.
7:22:22 PM    

T Rex tissues excavated. [MSNBC (Thanks, Alex!)] [Boing Boing 3/24/2005; 4:53:11 PM] The remains of a T. Rex with intact blood vessels and blood cells have been recovered: 

This particular dinosaur fossil was too big to lift and they reluctantly cracked a thighbone... When they got it into a lab and chemically removed the hard minerals, they found what looked like blood vessels, bone cells and perhaps even blood cells... "The microstructures that look like cells are preserved in every way," added Schweitzer, whose findings were published in the journal Science. Of course, the big question is whether it will be possible to see dinosaur DNA. "We don't know yet. We are doing a lot in the lab now that looks promising."
7:09:26 PM    

43 Folders "Life Hacks" Wiki. [Street Tech 3/24/2005; 2:53:38 PM] The getting things done gurus over at 43 Folder have just put up a Wiki for collecting "life hacks," cool little tips and tricks for making life easier and more manageable. Right now, the hacks are uncategorized -- it's just a dump list -- but they plan on
5:54:56 PM    

Dilbert by Scott Adams - March 24, 2005

12:37:57 PM    

First Impression: Conference Room Creativity. [Fast Company 3/24/2005; 6:54:55 AM] "The best ideas probably don't occur when everybody is sitting around a table." - Adrian Caddy, Creative Director, Imagination Ltd.
12:06:08 PM    

Do you really want to quit?  [Mind Hacks 3/24/2005; 6:53:50 AM] I have a question about dialog boxes on my computer. At right is a picture of a well-assembled dialog box. UI folks say that dialog box options should be verbs, not nouns, but that's not important here. (ie, you should have options "Don't save" and "Save" for the question "Save this document?" instead of the buttons "OK" and "Cancel.") I'm going to talk about why it's well-assembled, but first:

Mac trivia! While the Mac (actually, the Lisa, but the Lisa informed the Mac) was being designed, the "OK" button did used to be an action: it used to be labeled "Do It." But the space between the two words was too small, and the users read the button label as "dolt" and got kind of offended and wouldn't push it. True fact!

Back to that dialog box...
I'm trying to exit a game called "Magma Zone" and the game is giving me a confirmation dialog. The options are the way round we use in speech, "Yes" then "No." However, the button for "Yes" is on the right of the control pad - which you can see in the bottom half of the picture (I'm holding it up to the screen) - and the button for "No" is on the left. The dialog box, which you see, and the control pad, which you act on, have the buttons in opposing directions...
12:03:28 PM