Sent to me by a close friend, who has one or two more reasons than I do for finding it funny. Definitely not safe for work, unless you have headphones, so beware. Download it here. (1.12mb MP3).

The Station Agent is probably the best movie I’ve seen this year. It’s small, quiet, thoughtful, funny and sad.

Just for the record, section 1.2 of the MySQL Manual states…

“The official way to pronounce MySQL is “My Ess Que Ell” (not “my sequel”), but we don’t mind if you pronounce it as “my sequel” or in some other localised way.”

If I had time, I’d learn to develop GUI apps using PHP and XUL as described in title= phpPatterns() - Connecting XUL Applications with PHP”>this phpPatterns() article. It’s cool, but relatively unknown technology. And with namespaces like xmlns=”http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul”, the developers are obviously a helluva lot of fun.

CSS Best Practices, from Mezzoblue. There’s only a few so far, but they’re good. Also, be sure to read the discussion that follows.You’ll find valuable advice such as “Use functional names for your classes, avoid words that describe how they look.”

Good Experience: The ROSE framework

For years, usability professionals have concerned themselves with tactical details in the user experience (where to put the navbar, exactly how many items it should hold, etc.) and have missed the reality of customer experience: it’s strategic.

Andy Budd writes about the many problems involved in pricing web design.

xScope looks like it would be useful (If I were a designer and had a Mac, that is)

Went to a local theater tonight and saw The Darkside of OZ. Take The Wizard of OZ with the volume turned down and play Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon over it. I’ve always heard there were an awful lot of creepy moments when the music and the movie seemed to sync up perfectly. It’s true. Nearly every scene transition was timed to a corresponding song transition. The most dramatic moment was during the magic forest scene. When the song Us and Them says “Up and Down,” the Tin Man is pulled off and then crashes to the ground, as if on cue. The movie ends with the words “The time is gone, the song is over. Thought I’d something more to say…” as the credits roll.

Very cool. PBS has made the 3-hour special on string theory available online. I bought the Brian Greene book when it came out and only made it about half-way before my brain exploded. Maybe moving pictures will help.