Size, weight, font selection, alignment, grids, spacing, hierarchy... these are tools for conveying information through text. Each tool imparts meaning in its own way, and a basic understanding of each tool's subtleties should be part of each information manager's repertoire. In thinking with type, 2nd Edition, Ellen Lupton has crafted an excellent introduction to typography, sketching out the history of the art form and packing in a host of practical examples, definitions, rules to embrace and "

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(UPDATE 8/24/10: I'm posting to a new site now: The Machine That Goes Ping. I'm also in the process of revamping and updating The New Big. See you there!) I don't intend to blog much here for the foreseeable future. I'm lucky enough to have several exciting projects to work on right now, and that just doesn't leave me much time for personal blogging. I may occasionally post a little tidbit here from time to time, but most of my attention is currently focussed elsewhere: To wit:

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Ego alert: Dave Taylor was kind enough to include my comments as part of a blog post on del.icio.us, the hella cool social bookmarking service. I think the article turned out to be a good intro to the service. There are also some insightful comments about the difficulties with del.icio.us, so be sure to read down a ways. "Interview With Experts: What's so cool about del.icio.us?" from The Intuitive Life Business Blog:

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This blog is dying. This is as apparent to me as it is to anyone who may be reading it. Frankly, I'll be surprised if anyone reads this. In fact, why are you still looking here? Don't you have better blogs to be paying your valuable attention to? Frankly, I haven't been able to figure out what to do with Stumax.com. Del.icio.us has taken over the burden of keeping all the random links I come across, so I don't feel the need to track them here so much.

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Don Adams, TV's Maxwell Smart, is still alive and planning a new series starring the dim-witted secret agent. Would you believe... that Don has a slight cough, but still plans to appear at a fan event on Friday? How about a wave from his hospital window? No? Sigh. RIP Don Adams.

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Lloyd has flattered me beyond words by making me the subject of his fourth podcast. Thanks, Lloyd. I enjoyed the hell out of our conversation.

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I am lucky enough to have met Robert A. Moog, the engineer who changed the world with his eponymous synthesizers. I was 12 years old, or thereabouts, attending a kind of science and technology camp at Western Carolina University. Bob Moog lived in nearby Asheville, and invited our class to his house for a tour of his workshop. I was too young to appreciate who I was meeting at the time, but Moog's enthusiasm and love for technology and music won me over, and I certainly have never forgot -- nor ever will forget -- the time spent in his presence.

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So I left a brief comment at Lloyd's coffee blog pleading with him to never buy anything from Best Buy. He asked, of course, the obvious follow-up: "Why not?" Since "Because" just didn't seem to quite capture the nuances of my objections to that foul retailer, I thought I'd take a moment to explain my position. Now, I'm well aware that one can Google the word "hate" AND [any store or service provider] and find blog posts, forum rants, and even whole websites full of venom.

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John F. Kennedy: "We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth." Technorati Tags: Art, Quotes

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Short review: Must love bombs. Extended review: Must love sitting in the movie theatre gnawing your fingers off. This movie was so bad... by end of the opening credits I wanted to leave. By the half-way mark, I was hoping that Sam Peckinpah would make a guest appearance as director so that everyone of the characters -- including the extras... and the dogs -- would die in a slow-motion ballet of gunfire.

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