The Hi-Score font "kunst" has a nice collection of tiny eight pixel high fonts.
It's just amazing how much character can be squeezed into characters just eight pixels high.
It must be the little engineer in me, but I always love to see (and do) creative work done within very tight technical (og physical) constraints. I guess it's why I love working on the web, it's so technically constrained/primitive.
Soulbath is both whitty and extremely cool. Net art at its best. (Requires Flash 4)
Soulbath is a prime example of excellent execution of the maze-site art form. It may not be as complex maze as many, but the random clicking and exploring element is still there, and the uncertainity of what comes next. Each and every screen and pop-up gimmick are engaging in some way. The attention to detail is there and it pays off. Best of all, along the way there are some seriously whitty, if not sarcastic, if not intelligent remarks that make you smirk.
Best viewed with way too much time on one's hand.
I usually hate these maze type artworks you often see on the web. They seem too much like an obvious way to go. Most of them seem like they were taken as an easy way out for the artist. A short-cut to creating art in the new medium.
It's like everyone has gone like: Hey lets do some of this really hip "interactive" art thing, hmmm... Lets see... Now I know! I'll make a bunch of web pages and create random links between them and the users will click away endlessly until they puke. Voi-lŕ! super cool interactive internet art in a can!
What most artist seem not to realize is that the maze-site is a very difficult art form. Building a good maze-site is a tough intellectual task. The artist has to engineer an engaging (if not fun or aestetically pleasing) interactive experience using an almost totally un-immersive medium, the web-browser.
Unless each and every corner in the maze is maticulously thougth out, the mindless clicking at random elements gets very tiring, very fast.
Also, placing a bunch of hyperlinks on a web page does very little to make it "interactive". Interactivity is something much more. It's the engagement of the user, it's the two way communication (the user communicates with the page through the mouse and keyboard), it's the total experience of present intelligence. Interactivity is not about hyperlinks.
I end this by linking to The Hunt from Soulbath. I just love it. So simple, so short - yet somehow - so very interactive!
The Most Painful Distance in the World is pretty and supposedly has great/beutiful sound (my sound card is not working). Requires Flash 4.
The Adobe Web Gallery is also a something that can ceep you occupied for hours on end. Collection of innovative and inspired quality grapic design on the web, in a combination of written text and interviews and examples of works.
Kudos to my mate Baldur.com for sending me cool links.
I found this at ZDNet. They have a whole section called Best Practices dedicated to usability and customer experience in e-commerce. They boldly boast: "If you're one of that new breed of IT professionals they call e-commerce architects, Best Practices will give you explicit examples of what works, what doesn't and why"
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On the methodology they use when reviewing the sites: "In ranking a site, we use a specific methodology. The methodology alone should serve as a great set of guidelines for any e-commerce architect. "
These reviews are a gold-mine for me. mmm...
Hmmm... I must've overlooked this on the news the other day.
MP3.com lost a court case aganist RIAA. RIAA charged them with copyright infringement, and illegal broadcasting of copyrighted works, because of the My.MP3.com service that allowed users to manage into playlists and listen to streamed MP3s stored at a central music repository at MP3.com - if the users could provide "prove" that they owned a copy of the CDs at home.
According to Judge Rakoff as he explains the ruling he believes that MP3.com "does not just store already-purchased compact discs, but replays music on the Internet that it has copied without permission from recording companies"
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This opinion leaves me totally baffled! Who cares who ripped the CDs and uploaded the MP3s? Would it have qualified as "fair use" if every single user had ripped their CDs at home, uploaded the songs to MP3.com's server themselves? Would MP3.com then have been required to store multiple copies of the songs (banned from deleting redundant copies to optimize disk space usage)?
Sheesh! This guy's head seems to be screwed on wrong.
It is all over the news now that the Washington Supreme Court has upheld a shrinkwrap license limiting recovery of damages due to buggy software. I recommend reading the discussion on Slashdot that followed the news there.
The big question is, should software development firms be held responsible for their bugs and, if so, how would this affect free-software licences. Incidentally the GPL includes a strong disclaimer of all liability for defects in the software. Should free-software be treated differently from commercial software? What about commercial packages such as Red-Hat Linux?
Another completely seperate question is, are shinkwrap licences a good thing(tm)? Currently on my desk there's a software CD from Dell with a shrink-wrap licence inside, but on the shrink-wrap itself there's a big sticker with a serial number a bar-code covering part of the legal text underneath. Silly!
On a side note, naturally Dilbert has dealt with shrink-wrap licences... Funny!
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Már Örlygsson
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