I spent some time rebuilding my portfolio website from scratch and by hand (meaning: Notepad — plusplus, to be precise), because the old site was at the same advanced (1990s) technology — think D-HTML — and absolutely ridiculous — think pop-up windows. I hope you enjoy the brand new iteration. Tips: 1. while browsing, move the pointer to the area where the image is to automatically enter a ‘theatre mode’ which hides the menu and centers the subject image; 2. you can also use the left and right arrow keys to navigate between pages.

The site is probably totally broken in some browsers, but worked fine in Webkit (Chrome/Safari) and Firefox 3, and also tested well in IE7 and IE8 (although somewhat uglier — rounded corners do a world of difference). So please, feel free to complain if something looks off — unless you’re using IE5 or something like that. And enjoy!

Someday wireless networking will need no sign. Even though I actually enjoy wifi-less coffeehouses more — I find it unsettling when a public space is full of people doing their interaction in social networking sites. (via BBG)

“Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete?” by Olaf Nicolai. (via VVORK)

Software engineer Shamus Young documents how he created a generative city. This is the sort of project I have to think about at my master’s, I wonder if you can do it in Flash (of course you can, so let me rephrase it: I wonder if I can do it in Flash). Anyway, Shamus predicted he’d spend thirty hours in this, so with my knowledge of software engineering I predict I’d take… twenty times as much? Not taking into account things always end up taking twice as much time, no matter how lenient, the original prediction, this means I’ve better be more modest in my goals… A procedurally generated house?

Via Kottke: Jane’s Brand-timeline is a portrayal of a typical day in the life of its author according to the brands used during its course. Which of course reminds me of…

I had a couple of Capsela kits when I was a kid (which explains a lot, I know), so this is the kind of things that tickles the geekiest and most obessive part of me:

Siftables, developed at the MIT Media Lab, are little bricks with little monochrome screens and a little wifi you can put together to literally build applications. How sci-fi! I wonder how many years until you can buy these at Toys’R’Us.

On the other hand you can buy the littleBits easy electronic kits right now, but it’s like comparing a MITS Altair against a ZX Spectrum. I’ll pass the Altair and wait for the Speccy.

Ten beautiful computers: Boing Boing Gadgets. My first computer was a Timex 2068, which was, by the way, the first computer sold as if “made in Portugal”, like this one. Anyway, even though the Timex was actually better than the original Spectrum, the 48K Speccy will always be the coolest-looking computer ever. If only the Amiga 500 looked as cool, Apple would’ve been dead in the water and Commodore would still exist.

… and Penguin-style book covers for films. J. Kottke takes a look at media packaging mashups.

I always felt that the works of art we call movies consist of more than just the sound and the visuals in a stretch of film, but also of their entire promotional material — trailers, posters, etecetera — because this material too manipulates the viewer’s perspective and expectations, just the thing the art of editing is all about. It’s as if, even though you don’t judge a book by its cover, the cover does influence how you’ll read the book, just like an opening chapter.