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MT Style Contest

Despite the release of the StyleCatcher plugin for Movable Type more than a year ago, the number of freely downloadable styles available for easy implementation in MT is tiny compared to the vast directories of installable templates for WordPress.

Looks like Six Apart is aiming to rectify the situation, leveraging financial incentives where community spirit has for some reason failed. The Style Contest is offering $17,000 in prizes to MT/TypePad-compatible style designers. In a way, it’s a shame that it will take money to do what the WP/open source community has done so well for free. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for some of the more handsome MT sites out there to get some juice for their efforts.

Music: Guru Guru :: Drumming Man
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China Sports Blog

Birdhouse Hosting welcomes The China Sports Blog:

A year ago, Shantou University in eastern Guangdong province hired [J-School graduate Nicole Nazzaro] to design an academic program in sports journalism, with the hope that some students from this program would be able to attain a high enough level of expertise in both sports journalism and English-language reporting skills that they would be qualified to work at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Music: Harry Revel :: Jet
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Miles’ Cosmology

Miles Cosmo Had never heard Miles say the words “universe,” “glacier,” or “evaporate,” but one night he just broke into this whole cosmological tale (QuickTime) about the sun, rain, and the water cycle, with an enigmatic tie-in to the universe itself. Since he has a few pronunciation issues, transcription provided:

When the universe goes into the rain, the clouds come dark and rainy, and they start to rain, then when universe drops into the air, it evaporates into the air, then the water cycle evaporates into the air, just like the sun, then the sun goes away and turns into dark clouds and it starts to rain again, then the iceberg evaporates into the sun and the sun goes into the universe and the universe puffs the sun out of its tummy then all the other universes cling to all the other universes and that’s the story!

About a month ago, an old Doors song came on the radio, and suddenly I heard Miles in the background doing this Jim Morrisson impression.

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Processing to Zero

No connection to 43 Things (other than the two sites time-sharing a prime number): 43 Folders (oh yeah, about the name) features heaps of genuinely useful articles and tips on time and stress management. That’s not a topic I generally consider an interest, but I’ve been on an approach to zero-message inbox nirvana for several months now, and it’s just amazing what a difference it makes in overall stress levels. Leaving work with nothing in the inbox makes you feel in control, less overwhelmed. Like you own the job, rather than the other way around.

Like Kirk’s “solution” to the Kobayashi Maru Scenario, there’s an easy but non-obvious way to win at this Catch-22: you cheat. You don’t answer them all. Not even most of them. You rewrite the rules. You adapt at a higher level. You have to, or else the Klingons will overwhelm you with their superior fire power and brute force — and then your email would remain unanswered for eternity. Think how sad that would be.

Other useful stuff: Building a better to-do list, learning how to write email messages that respect the recipient’s workflow, running dashes for quick productivity bursts.

Music: Joan Armatrading :: Down to Zero
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Microsoft Feels Your Pain

Well, at least we know we’re not alone. Extracted from CSS files living on microsoft.com web servers:

/* fix for the IE 1px-off margin error */
* html .StupidIEMarginHack 
{
  margin-right: 1px; 
}

* html .StupidIEWidthHack
{
  width: 100%;
}

But as we heard from several sources at SXSW, IE7 (due out soon) will improve CSS compatibility by leaps and bounds. Question then is, what happens to all of the legions of IE-specific CSS hacks in place out there? Will the fix break existing sites badly, or will MS provide some kind of mechanism to detect and ignore the mine-field of a million workarounds?

Thanks mneptok

Music: Billy Bragg & Wilco :: The Unwelcome Guest
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Cost of War, Revised

Back in December ’04, I embedded a JavaScript counter tallying the cost of war in Iraq, which continues to tick away at a rate of around $2,000/second. The topic came up with friends the other night, triggering another look into the topic. nationalpriorities.org provides a very well annotated and sourced database comparing the cost of war in Iraq to the costs of other national expenses. The trade-offs below are based on a projected total cost of $315.8 billion for the war in Iraq, which would be equivalent to:

71,717,012 People Receiving Health Care or
5,472,330 Elementary School Teachers or
41,823,351 Head Start Places for Children or
185,783,623 Children Receiving Health Care or
2,843,180 Affordable Housing Units or
37,159 New Elementary Schools or
61,230,780 Scholarships for University Students or
5,441,915 Music and Arts Teachers or
7,114,877 Public Safety Officers or
558,642,585 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
4,946,324 Port Container Inspectors

Unfortunately, the database sessions at the site time out, making the reports  tough to link to. For a current report, click Tradeoffs, then select United States | Cost of War | All.

Thanks baald

Music: Pete Townshend :: Parvardigar
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Attention or Eyeballs

Attentiontrust.Org-Badge Trying to come to some understanding of all this recent discussion about attention vs. intention vs. old-school eyeballs. Cluetrain, 1999: “We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.” Doc Searles’ wife: “Sales is real. Marketing is bullshit.” Nick Bradbury: “Right now we’re witnessing the growth of services who provide aggregated attention data, and statistics suggested by this data will increasingly impact those of us – journalists and techies alike – who hope to survive in the online world.” Mary Hodder, excerpted from notes on her decision to join the board of Attention Trust:

What’s the difference between the static web and the live web? Participation.

What’s the difference between consumers and users/amateurs? Participation.

What’s the difference between attention and eyeballs? Participation.

So as we move from an eyeball-centric to an attention-centric web, and as companies realize the value of harnessing and harvesting individual attention streams, we (users/readers/consumers) stand to benefit. BUT it also becomes critical to retain control over our own databases of intention (attention?), lest they be used against us.

Music: Cardiacs :: The Leader of the Starry Skies
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New Media Lecture Series

Gearing up for another big work week — once again we’re hosting a compressed version of our multimedia training program for mid-career journalists. Sandwiched between training sessions are a series of talks by journalists and thinkers, including John Battelle, Bob Cauthorn, Dan Gillmor, Craig Newmark, and others. The talks are open to the public and will be webcast live, with archived versions scheduled to go online the following week.