Sorry for the slowdown in posting. But hey, we’re getting long in the tooth: xBlog will be two years old on Sunday, 11 Nov 2001. A quick look around shows that we’ve posted somewhere around 2,541 categorized links in the last two years. Not bad. Thank you all.

“Gijs van Hensbergen has written a terrifically stirring biography of Gaudí. The book vibrates with empathic power. Mr. van Hensbergen makes a strong case for Gaudí’s importance to contemporary architecture and urbanism. He also upholds the right of any perceptive writer to seek autobiographical meaning in artistic form. That search particularly suits the material at hand. If the book is not a substitute for a visit to Barcelona, it is still a gripping first-hand account of Gaudí’s power to melt the mind.”

“Gijs van Hensbergen has written a terrifically stirring biography of Gaudí. The book vibrates with empathic power. Mr. van Hensbergen makes a strong case for Gaudí’s importance to contemporary architecture and urbanism. He also upholds the right of any perceptive writer to seek autobiographical meaning in artistic form. That search particularly suits the material at hand. If the book is not a substitute for a visit to Barcelona, it is still a gripping first-hand account of Gaudí’s power to melt the mind.”

XPLANEr Dan Z. made hisself a web site: “For over three generations, the name Zettwoch has been synonymous with quality. Thanks for visiting and we hope you’ll stop by again. We’ll be updating the site regularly with more cartoons, paintings, and drawings from the family vaults, including some as far back as the second world war. We’ll also be introducing new sections for inventions, whirligigs, bowling ball sculpture, and maybe a bass fishing advice column. Special exhibits in the works include a display of vintage silkscreened T-shirts for church sports teams, and raunchy cartoons drawn on the back of electricians’ schematics from the 1970s. Keep watching this space for further exciting developments!”

“First off, you have to bring LOTS of your favorite beverage (something non-alcoholic of course! tee hee) to a Styx show or four, and memorize this list to make the game easier. If you don’t drink the alcoholic type stuff, soda works well as a sugar/caffeine buzz can be just as much fun as, if not more than, an alcohol buzz. Keep in mind that 1 drink = 1 sip/gulp/whatever. Only finish a whole drink if it says ‘finish the bottle.’ Well, without further ado, here are the rules…”

“Many of us have photographs that are undated but … we have shown that it is often possible to establish the date by carefully comparing with other pictures of known date… We thought it might be interesting to show in detail how a photograph can be dated with a considerable degree of precision.”

“In London’s bus-stops, some of the finest information graphics I have ever seen are gradually being introduced… The previous map design was ‘one size fits all’ — customised to the locale by the addition of a ‘you are here’ arrow sticker applied to it… The new map design’s first advance is that they are tailored to the specific locale. So they only show the traveller information appropriate to where they are and where they can get to from that point.”

“In London’s bus-stops, some of the finest information graphics I have ever seen are gradually being introduced… The previous map design was ‘one size fits all’ — customised to the locale by the addition of a ‘you are here’ arrow sticker applied to it… The new map design’s first advance is that they are tailored to the specific locale. So they only show the traveller information appropriate to where they are and where they can get to from that point.”

“First off, you have to bring LOTS of your favorite beverage (something non-alcoholic of course! tee hee) to a Styx show or four, and memorize this list to make the game easier. If you don’t drink the alcoholic type stuff, soda works well as a sugar/caffeine buzz can be just as much fun as, if not more than, an alcohol buzz. Keep in mind that 1 drink = 1 sip/gulp/whatever. Only finish a whole drink if it says ‘finish the bottle.’ Well, without further ado, here are the rules…”

“Many of us have photographs that are undated but … we have shown that it is often possible to establish the date by carefully comparing with other pictures of known date… We thought it might be interesting to show in detail how a photograph can be dated with a considerable degree of precision.”

Our friends at Pelago get spotlighted: “A conversation with John Reeve and Braden Jones inside the Adobe walls of Pelago, a small, talented firm ready to bring intelligent design to the California costal town of Santa Barbara (and maybe the world).”

Our friends at Pelago get spotlighted: “A conversation with John Reeve and Braden Jones inside the Adobe walls of Pelago, a small, talented firm ready to bring intelligent design to the California costal town of Santa Barbara (and maybe the world).”

“On the Web today, GIF and JPEG are still the two most commonly and widely-supported image file formats. But which should you use? Well, this question is impossible to answer without a few extra considerations. In this article, we’ll look at some of the important differences between GIF and JPEG images, and how to get the best quality from all your Web graphics.”

“The Study of Design brings you articles and resources for increasing your knowledge base of design fundamentals and techniques.”