INTERNET: The future of online publishing
MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | New media

Accessible Forms: Guidelines & Manipulation - webSemantics

NOVELTY: Get yourself a 12 sided calendar.
Yes, that's right a calendar, with, count em, 12 sides! One for each month of the year, genius.

ZIMBABWE: Another sickening tale of racist injustice by Mugabe's evil regime
Guardian Unlimited Sport | Cricket | Political happenings in Zimbabwe: "Bennett was imprisoned at the end of October after he was found guilty of assaulting the justice minister Patrick Chinamasa during a debate in parliament. Bennett had reacted with fury and pushed Chinamasa to the ground after being taunted by him about his farm and his parents called 'murderers and thieves'. The parliament, with an almost two-thirds majority held by Mugabe's party, sentenced Bennett to 12 months in prison with hard labour; usually a fine is levied in assault cases where there is no serious injury."

CRICKET: Andrew Flintoff, coming of age for Engalnd
The Observer | Sport | Great bails of fire: "A month later, in the sixth and last one-day international, with India requiring 11 to win in the cauldron of Mumbai, Flintoff bowled the nerve-tingling final over. He knocked over Srinath's stumps to tie the series. In relief and jubilation, he tore his shirt off and careered around the stadium. 'It was a massive release of tension,' he says. 'But after about 10 seconds running round waving my shirt I asked myself, 'What are you doing?' I had the whitest, palest body in the world and there were about 60,000 Indians there.'"

BBC: Public service broadcasting
"Details of the proposed losses come as Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell told a private meeting of MPs this weekend that the BBC's commitment to impartiality 'needed to be strengthened'.

Jowell...said it was 'highly likely' that a green paper, to be published in the new year, would emphasise the importance of 'freedom from bias' in BBC journalism. It will also attempt to steer reporting further away from comment and analysis, underlining factual accuracy as the BBC's top priority."

Well excuse me, but impartiality is a great ideal, but there is no such thing as impartial, there is always a point of view. The BBC seems the closest organisation, respected across the globe (except for countries where the truth is not welcome), that sets it sights on impartial, unbiased, quality news reporting.
But every news story is biased in some way, as humans, we all have our opinions and beliefs, the BBC is no different. As long as their underlying editorial policy is strongly outlined, then we need not tamper with that area of their output.
The Observer | UK News | BBC news in crisis as axe hits 350 staff

Play this nifty rugby game, its flash based, but it all happens pretty quick, so get your boots on and your mouth-gaurd in... Game of 3 Halves

MUSIC: My mother's got a what?! PIXELSURGEON | Interviews | Music | Goldie Lookin Chain

Many newspapers now live online, but can they survive simultaneaously in print? Wired News: Newspapers Should Really Worry: "Don't think for a minute that young people don't read. On the contrary, they do, many of them voraciously. But having grown up under the credo that information should be free, they see no reason to pay for news... And their hands never get dirty from newsprint."

OK, we may not all be happy with his main business interests, but you can't say he hasn't made an effort to improve life for those who can't even afford a PC with his software on it! About Us - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

This Ukrainian election just gets crazier and crazier. BBC NEWS | Health | Was election candidate poisoned?

ZIMBABWE CRICKET: Mugabe is getting away with murder, in more ways than one.
BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | Olonga predicts England isolation: "England batsman Graham Thorpe, who is not part of the touring party, described the situation as 'farcical'."
When will the ICC wake up and take a firm stand on this issue, Zimbabwe have been left to get away with 'murder' in cricket terms and on the human rights issue.
It is sad and pathetic that crickets governing body are willing to keep their blinkers on over the issue, leaving the indivdual criketing nations to look like fools, and the players to be torn between a blatantly clear moral stance and their duties as employees of their cricketing board.

[information leafblower]: The Top 40 Bands In America Today - 2004 Edition: Good to see some discussion about what's hot in the U.S. today, and I'm not talking about the obvious pop/r'n'b stuff thats in the media, what is really good and big news...TED LEO + PHARMACISTS? New to me, but I'll check them out, in the spirit of John Peel!! Good to see Wilco and David Byrne not far down the list.

Guide to Ease � A research agenda for information architecture

www.KMWorld.com Special Publications: "Faceted Navigation and Guided Navigation anyone?"

Digital Web Magazine - Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content: "Every time someone makes a list, be it on a blog like Kottke’s or a list of groceries, content is aggregated. The act of aggregating content (usually content that is alike in some way) makes it more understandable. Instead of looking at a whole field of information, you choose smaller, more logical subsets of it in the hopes of understanding those."

An aged but worthy and thought-provoking article from A List Apart on the meaning and understanding of web design. A Dao of Web Design: A List Apart

Digital Web Magazine - The End of Usability Culture, Redux "I value usability as much as any component of the design process. As a designer, while I strive to get the most out of form and function, I insist on function, even if to the slight detriment of form. I am not for flashy, style-for-style’s-sake aesthetic design. Usability is a critical component of design. But, as so many have pointed out, it is only a component."

Jeffrey Zeldman speaks to iStockphoto.com - royalty free stock photography community

Since when did Spain become so racist? All this cowardly chanting from the anonymity of the terraces towards coloured England footballers? I thought they were a developed and advanced country living in the 21st century? Comments please. BBC SPORT | Football | Internationals | FA to complain over racist chants

How does Web Credibility Relate to Web Design? : Bokardo.com

Steve (Stephen) Coogan and Jack White (Stripes) 'meet' via exchanging questions and answers whilst appearing in the same film... cool... Guardian Unlimited Film | Interviews | 'Can I have coffee & cigarettes with you in New York?'

London Training - HTML Dog Blog - HTML Dog - On 18th January, I'll be teaching the "XHTML and CSS" course...The next week, on the 25th January, I'll be teaching the "Accessibility" course...

London Training - HTML Dog Blog - HTML Dog - On 18th January, I'll be teaching the "XHTML and CSS" course...The next week, on the 25th January, I'll be teaching the "Accessibility" course...

London Training - HTML Dog Blog - HTML Dog - On 18th January, I'll be teaching the "XHTML and CSS" course...The next week, on the 25th January, I'll be teaching the "Accessibility" course...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Election apology starts net feud: "Sorryeverybody.com started the duel the day after the polls closed,
with a picture of its creator holding up a 'Sorry World' message."

Trying to find a cheap/decent hotel in New York for our January sales related trip early next year. Teletext - Cheap Hotels In New York

Consumer WebWatch: How Consumers and Experts Rate Credibility on the Web

Firefox has genuinely arrived on the browser scene. This Digital Web Mag article shows just how big an impact it may well have. Obviously the more web savvy people are amongst the audience for this sort of site, and the average user may be less inclined to discard IE for Firefox's superior skills, but it may well be an indication of things to come, congratulations Mozilla/Firefox! Digital Web Magazine - News - Firefox takes first place

Drew Curtis' FARK.com: "VP Cheney rushed to hospital. Bush notified, ready to assume power if necessary" The real story - Cheney heads to hospital after noticing shortness of breath

The future battle for newspapers is the balance between print and online media and how to make both viable whilst supportive of the other. The Daily Standards � Archives � How Many Editors Does It Take to Save Their Jobs? "For years, newspapers have been trying to fight off declining readers, declining subscribers, declining market share … and the thing is, they truly have no idea how to right the ship. None. Whatsoever."

New Scientist - interview with Benoit Mandelbrot: "Few people would recognise Benoit Mandelbrot in the street, but the intricate pattern of blobs, swirls and spikes that bears his name - the Mandelbrot set - is an icon of science."

Read this helpful book online for free, as if life ain't sweet enough already...Building accessible websites - Joe Clark

I don't want a to sound a sap, but reading this made me well up a little:
""I adored John and can't believe how much it hurts to have lost him. He was a one-off who inspired me greatly in the ways of music and family. I miss him now and always will." Said BBC Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley, who was at the service."
RIP John Peel, a truly memorable human being: BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Thousands mourn Peel at funeral

Digital Web Magazine - CSS Cookbook Another self-help book for CSS people

Protein Feed - Protein� Calendar Blueprint Remix: "Blueprint are *giving* away 14k of these puppies in their December/January issue. You heard it here first."

Protein Feed - Music, Sex, Chocolate and Cocaine: "What is the secret of music's strange power? Seeking an answer, scientists are piecing together a picture of what happens in the brains of listeners and musicians."

Wikipedia tells all about Cascading Style Sheets, and the difficulty with adoption. The fight continues... Cascading Style Sheets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RSS readers and news aggregators are feeding our need for news and subject specific content. Digital Web Mag reports on the growth in this area. I recommend Sage extension for your Firefox browser. Digital Web Magazine - Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content

President George W. Bush cares about money, and his financial backers.
He thinks the environment can wait, well I'm afraid George, you can't mess with nature, because it is far more powerful than all your army of bank-rollers and big businesses being pandered to by your short-sighted and immoral ignorance of the world's environment.
Chances are in decades to come, his name will go down as the one that cost us dear in terms of our planet's ability to sustain all our lives.
Protein Feed - Bush Snubs Kyoto ... Again: "'President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost,' said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality."
If you voted for him, I hope you can handle that on your conscience above all the other lies and dirty deals he has done.

Students unite to get real about the copyright law, and not before time. It could be the most important thing they learn in higher education. Wired News: Students Fight Copyright Hoarders

The Invisibility Game! Move your mouse around the maze, with an invisible cursor, genius

IQ and Politics or How come all Bush's voters in the recent election (listed by state) have an average lower IQ than those that voted for Kerry. Are we surprised? Looking at the facts of Bush's time 'in charge' how can you really have wanted him in charge for another term?

The Observer | Sport | Triumph and despair - Heath Streak interview: "Can a white person live in Africa? I think that depends on how you are as a person. There is still much bitterness about the colonial past. Too many of the colonisers were very arrogant: they didn't respect local cultures and didn't bother to learn local languages. But the majority now are a lot more aware of other people's cultures and are prepared to learn the differences between the two."
Cricket and the people of Zimbabwe are the losers. Let's hope things improve, and all parties can find some common ground, amidst Mugabe's racist regime.

Cats and George W. Bush, a seamlessly tenuous blog rant.
Allerca | The Hypo-Allergenic Cat: "hypoallergenic cats" please save us, "lifestyle pets" I mean I know the world has clearly gone mad today, as 50% of US voters think John Kerry would be a worse president than George W. But specially produced cats.
A fake war on 'terror', a ropey economy and plenty of job losses, that John Kerry, you people had a lucky escape, he would have sunk the whole continent into the sea, it's about the only thing worse than having George in charge again.
Can you all not see the man's a fat-cat pleaser, pandering to the wants of big business, they fund his campaign, he lets them do what they want, thus the lack of environmental and healthcare, wake up, oh its too late, we're all in trouble now, who knows what he'll do next...

A different, more web standardised approach to image-maps, looks good in the examples too...

As Michael Moore points out: "First of all, let’s just acknowledge what you already know: America is a country which still has a race problem, to put it nicely. Al Gore would be president today had thousands of African Americans not had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida in 2000."
Do you need to go any further down the long list of reasons to get that damn fool Bush out of the most important political and big business position in the world!!!!
Vote Kerry, if nothing else he can't be as dumb and dishonest as George W. Bush....