I just noticed that my 14-year old, Jessica, is sitting quietly with a

friend of hers, playing chess and listening to George Clinton.

Yesterday, I caught her reading, of all things. No boys, Eminem, or

attitude in sight. Small treasures!

Boxes and Arrows: What Is A Controlled Vocabulary?

“A controlled vocabulary is a way to insert an interpretive layer of semantics between the term entered by the user and the underlying database to better represent the original intention of the terms of the user”

I’ve posted this before, but recent discussions reminded me to post it

again.

“This is not a new idea. But it may be the most powerfully pressing one

ever to be disrespected by the corporate world. There are far too many

smart, educated, talented people operating at quarter speed, unsure of

their place in the world, contributing far too little to the productive

engine of modern civilization. There are far too many people who look

like they have their act together but have yet to make an impact. You

know who you are. It comes down to a simple gut check: You either love

what you do or you don’t. Period.”

[Read it

again](http://www.fastcompany.com/online/66/mylife.html)

I suspect that we’re about to see a change in the top-level navigation

of many corporate web sites. Here’s what I believe could be the new

standard navigation.

Home | Products | Weblog | About Us | Contact Us

Hell, the Weblog item could likely replace both the Contact and About

links, if done properly.

[

Boxes and Arrows](//www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/visible_narratives_understanding_visual_organization.php):

“But what about the other side? Are developers and human factors

professionals immersed in literature on gestalt and color theory? They

certainly have the tools for it–programming environments make it very

easy to throw around images, colors, and fonts (of all shapes and

sizes). But with power comes responsibility. And in this case, the need

to understand how visual information communicates with your audience.”

With any luck and a little help from Vector Tobacco

, I should be able to start smoking again soon.

From the site:

“We develop and market smoking products with science-based reductions in certain harmful elements.”

Sounds good so far, but one of the news items makes me less comfortable than I’m sure they’d like:

“Study Shows That Omni Causes Significantly Fewer Tumors in Mice Than Leading Cigarette Brand”

Nothing like “fewer tumors” as a selling point, eh?

Can we put Potter back on the shelves now? The pope says it’s okay! Salon link

Via Slashdot, an article that pointed out many reasons why Mozilla

works well during the development of web sites. The nugget in the article was an add-on which displays the

raw http headers as they’re passed. That will come in very handy.

I received two PHPetal patches today. One for firing off static rendering for those using Blosxom. The other wraps the story file text. How cool is that? Thanks guys! I’ll try to get both patches integrated into a new release in the next few days.

Tori Amos is musical again! I was worried and a little disappointed after Strange Little Girls. Never fear, Scarlet’s Walk is fabulous.