Left Brain Right Brain

At the end of last month, Martin was wondering what happened to old designs:

What also happens to all the great designs that last just a while before their owner get an itchy mouse finger and decides to redesign. Some of these sites deserve to be seen a little more than they are. There are some sites that seem to have changed everytime I go back – and yes they are more often than not an improvement. But what happens to the old design?

Its a good question. And so, in that spirit I’m going to release an old design into the wild. The site I designed it for suffered from that most pernicious of designer problems: never really getting round to it.

The design is live here for you to have a look at and decide if its something you fancy. I ain’t going to make anyone jump through hoops for it – email me and the first person to get through gets it. One proviso: No hate sites or sites that promote intolerance can be used with this design. If I check on what you’ve done with it and there’s a hate site up there I’ll feel obliged to tell you to make the design available for someone else to use. Anything else (including porn, blogs, adult humour, whatever) is fine by me. Its valid XHTML, CSS and passes A/508 compliance. Integrated style sheet switcher included but I’m afraid I’ve misplaced all my PSD’s – the main image is from stock.xchng though so you’ll have no trouble mocking it up again.

First up Absolution Gap by Alistair Reynolds.

This is part 3 of the Revelation Space trilogy and thus the concluding volume in what has been a truly epic Space Opera in the grand tradition of Sci-Fi. It wraps the existing storyline up very neatly, gives us a few nasty surprises along the way (but no spoilers here!) and introduces another level of desirable complexity on what was already a pleasingly complex (but not overly complex) storyline. If you like your Sci-Fi grand, epic and story-driven then this series is for you.

Next up is The Way The Crow Flies by Anne-Marie McDonald (please note: link goes to Amazon.com not .co.uk).

This is an exceptionally well written book revolving around (at first) eight year old Madeline whos Dad (a Canadian Air Force officer) has just been posted back to Canada. By turns funny, touching, horrifying and tense this is a book that reminded me very much of Peter Straubs Koko which is another novel with really well drawn characters and a sad yet always engaging plot.

I’ve never read anything by the author before but I’ll be looking out for her back catalogue from now on!

After talking to the wise people on Autistics.org and Aspies For Freedom who have the dual benefit of both being on the spectrum themselves and in some cases having kids about Megans age on the spectrum, we’ve decided to give Melatonin a try.

Melatonin is not so much a drug as it is a hormone. Its produced naturally in the body and regulates sleep in all of us. We have lots as kids and production tapers off as we get older.

Its thought that up to 80% of kids with autism over-secrete Melatonin…

triggering a chain of hormonal and biochemical reactions affecting opioids and neurotransmitters that act on the brain. Yet some studies have observed that nightly melatonin supplementation in children with autism and other neurological and developmental disorders appears to improve sleep patterns in up to 80% of these children.

http://www.gsdl.com/home/assessments/finddisease/autism/melatonin.html

Sounds odd doesn’t it? That increasing Melatonin supply to an apparently over-secreted brain should help it, but it seems to work well for lots of autistic kids.

So, we’re giving it a try. Megan doesn’t really respond much to the Vallergan she’s been on since the age of 3 any more so we thought it was time. Besides, I’m much happier giving her something that is produced naturally in the body and that the body is wired up to deal with than giving her something that isn’t produced naturally.

Guess we’ll see how it goes.

Keep your eye on the IE Blog. Dean has said that:

I wanted to recap the main themes I read in the comments and use them as a roadmap for the topics that we will post about over the next few weeks….snip…. 3. Standards, standards, standards… say something!…snip…

So, keep your eyes peeled because we’re going to find out soon, one way or the other!

Version three of Googles toolbar beta has the ability to rewrite your page. A friend of mine who’s very wise in the ways of anything search related has written the following. He’s Liverpuddlian so imagine this in the voice of Paul MCartney ;o)

“Ever since Google released version 3 of its Toolbar last week, there’s been a growing storm developing over one particular new feature; AutoLink.

Admittedly, I’ve been following industry reaction with an, ’… it’ll all blow over attitude’… afterall, Microsoft tried writin links into our pages with its ‘Smart Tags’ technology some years ago, then withdrew it.

(Incidentally, the guy responsible for Smart Tags now works at Google… and yes, apparently it’s his brain behind AutoLink too!)

Anyway, was thinkin about the bigger picture last night and started gettin quite angry about it all. There are several contentious issues as I see it…

Advertisin largely exists because of content (to hook onto). TV is the obvious and simplest comparison; The channels seek to commission content that’ll attract a sufficient audience for advertisers to target. It’s a one-way deal in a sense because the writers don’t have a say on what type of advertisin goes with their works, but they in turn however, enter into that understandin as part of their fee/contract. Similarly, the audience have no control as to what advertisin they will see.

The web however, is slightly different in that the publisher (us), up till now, had control over whether advertisin would be shown at all. Furthermore, if we do choose to serve ads in the hope of financial gain, a decent ad-provider allows us to exercise some control over what type of advertisin is delivered around our content – This is quite a good and fair exchange of services ‘cos it means we can make the overall content relevant, ie… content + ad symbiosis. Plus, various browsers like Maxthon allow the user to block ads with various degrees of control. So all in all, there is an exercisable choice throughout the chain.

So what’s this got to do with Google(G)? Well G now has the largest share of publically accessible websites in its database – That’s content you and I wrote. That’s content indexed by G with our implied permission by default… in other words, they take without askin first. They then scrape and serve a modified version of it from their servers and also display our pages in their full entirety in its cache (modified). They’re profitin from our content by servin ads next to our content. They (arguably) aid and abet others who use either its free API (for developers), or its general index to steal and re-use our content as their own, which… G indexes again! (‘er… more ads over here pls!’).

Now, ya know, we’re already in deep legal waters here really but now we have AutoLink; The feature within v3 of its toolbar that rewrites our content to kindly display links to external sites it feels we’ve “missed out”. Now, AFAIK, even the most basic Statutory copyright clause includes the ‘Not reproduce or alter without express permission’ paragraph?

(NOTE: I haven’t even mentioned Adsense – A recent French Court case ruled that G had to stop others bidding on the Appellants trademark name in its Adsense network)

Ironically, G despises SPAM – It works its algo to try to defeat it afterall!! It also acts upon DMCA notices. Basically, it doesn’t want you to do what they do. But if ya do, they at least don’t want you to do it on, or from, “their” (scraped) “property”.

OK, I did say I was thinkin about the bigger picture. Up to now I’ve basically just repeated the common rants people have regardin G; copyright and SPAM.

For the bigger picture however, we need to look at the other parts of its business too. Some of you may know that last mth (Jan 05), G imposed an Adword restriction basically aimed at reducin the number of affiliates advertisin the same product for the same merchants. There are some valid reasons for doing this but I’m lookin at the bigger picture here, ie… the effect. One of which is that it undermines the whole affiliate business model and places a huge burden on merchants to somehow take-up the slack.

Movin on, G introduced a pop-up blocker in v2 (I believe) of its toolbar. Again, you can argue valid reasons for doin it but once again, its effects were felt by affiliates and merchants.

Movin on, G launched Froogle as a central “repository” for businesses to ply their wares so to speak.

Movin on further, G is workin on developin Local Search – Again, valid reasons for doin so but the effect will make it harder for legitimate “outsiders” to target that market.

Movin on more, GMail! (Somehow, they’re managin to persuade folk that Google-controlled spam is good).

Movin on (to admittedly shakier grounds), there is the belief that newly-launched sites enterin the competitive commercial SERP’s are being “Sandboxed” until quality is affirmed.

Now I dunno, but it seems to me that they’re almost tryin to “funnel” the pathways into which advertisers can sell their goods, ie… Whilst they “deny” the uses of some delivery channels, they’re makin others available, except under their terms.

But here’s the punchline: Where G can’t persuade webmasters to display their ads on our sites, G will now write links into your pages – client-side (via the toolbar) – regardless! Thus providin another channel for its advertisers and, once again, under its terms (Note: At the time of writing this, it has to be said that G has denied it has received, or asked for, any money from the beneficiary sites that AutoLink currently points to… but the feature *is* still only beta).

So lets look at how just one example may typically, and wholly plausibly, play out for the vast majority of webmasters out there.

You build a rich and informative resource. Your passion for the topic means that you’re current, and you know who and what matters. You don’t wanna steer your visitors a bum lead so you prefer to have control over where, and what people should consider. Therefore, you choose not to have 3rd party ads served from outside. You provide direct links, whether an affiliate link or not… doesn’t matter really, to external sites of worth. Your site is a natural authority and regarded highly by the community as one that’s trusted.

Along comes a visitor with the toolbar installed and where once they would’ve been clear, now they’re confused. Maybe G wrote a link that gives your visitor a bum steer. Maybe it just writes even more links on your page that not only eventually arrives at the same site you already have links for, but they’re also misleading and slower. Misleading because the status bar shows a link to Google (its proxy tracking server) and slower because the user has to go through *it* first.

If your site is financed by an affiliation, now it’s sufferin. If you happen to also be one of the affs that now cannot bid on adwords, then you’re startin to feel like someone’s tryin to put you out of business. If you’re a merchant reliant on affs, you’re probably not-so now. If you’re just a small but successful online distributor in your own right, your competitors may now be using *your* content to show *their* links on *your* pages.

It all makes me start to wonder, who’s spammin who here?

… and legally, who has editorial control? Who ultimately has responsibility for breach of contract (Links are rewritten client-side don’t forget!)?… Does Google even care now they have deep pockets?

In the future, will G close other commercial avenues outside of its control and then introduce other replacements under its terms instead?

What’s happening?

I’m not convinced we’ll ever find out given that they’ve rarely, if ever, stated the rules AS FACTS (instead of void inference).

… And given that whilst they’re buildin its empire in spite of the rules of law… And whilst they’re basically achievin all this by basically usin the same techniques as SERP spammers (but better)… One conclusion you might draw is; ‘… If they’re spammin and puttin me out of business. And if I’ve always strived to stick within the vague guidelines they give, so as to avoid being seen as, what they consider to be, a spam site, for fear of death. And if all that effort is now workin against me, then I might as well do what works for G… SPAM! SPAM usin other peoples content!”

Its pretty bad behaviour on Googles part IMO. Fortunately, one of Mikes friends at <searchguild has already written a bit of Javascript to kill this if Google decide to proceed beyond the beta with it.

I have a bit of a temper on occasion. I also have high blood pressure. I suspect the two are related.

One of the things that is certain to get my blood well and truly boiling is comments being passed on either Megan or us when we’re out and about. Autism isn’t well understood by the general public and the behaviours and conditions associated with it can lead to a lot of assumptions which a certain type of person is unable to resist vocalising in my presence. Picture a middle class young hausfrau out and about with their own funkily attired kids, replete with 3-wheel cross terrain pushchair or maybe a pushing 70 OAP with grim outlook and idiotic attitudes popular around the time Palmerston was Prime Minister.

So, I’ll outline a few scenarios, what was said etc.

The scene: Pushing Meg to school in her pushchair (although she’s 5 Megan needs a pushchair).
Idiot: That child’s too big for a pushchair.
Me: Is she really? Funny thing but due to her autism she has no real sense of danger and would run out into the road if she wasn’t in a pushchair and I don’t know about you but I didn’t bring the mop and bucket necessary for removing my daughter from the inner wheel of the truck that would run her over with me – did you? Whats that? You didn’t know she was autistic? Didn’t stop you opening your great flapping gob though did it?

The scene: Sainsburys, shopping. Meggy like to sing loudly in Sainsburys as it echoes really well. It also helps her cope with the colours and lights.
Idiot: Can’t you control your children?
Me: I sincerely apologise for my daughters expression of happy, contended sound. Surely at some point a law will be passed to stop children enjoying themselves in this irrresponsible manner. By the way, she’s autistic and at this point unable to stop the information overload that is causing her to try and contain the emotive responses by vocalising them. I’m sure as a renowned expert in autistic behaviour you’ll be able to offer me a solution to this. No? How surprising.

I could go on and on but Im sure you get the idea. As well as the vocalisations there are ‘the stares’ to contend with. I have no intention of apologising for my daughters mannerisms. She flaps her hands, she rocks back and forth, she sings loudly, she babbles away but this is who she is. Its not exactly akin to skinning a cute kitten with a blunt spoon now is it? I love who she is and whilst I don’t expect others to love my daughter as we do, I do expect a little bit of courtesy and acceptance of difference. If you have questions – ask me. I won’t be offended and neither will Megan. But don’t assume or generalise and then pass judgement otherwise you’ll find a very rude, beardy, big bloke being extremely sarcastic to your face.

In the fight against comment spam, WordPress has always been very good. Now Eric Meyer has made WordPress even better in the fightback.

He released Gatekeeper as a beta last month which inserts an additional field into the comment form. This field requires an answer to a very very easy question – easy for any human to get but, if you enter enough challenges, virtually impossible for a spambot to guess at.

I’ve just installed it very easily and if you have WordPress I suggest you do the same.

Issue 1 of Project: New has just gone live – it starts what I suspect will be a fairly busy writing period over the next few months!

Many thanks to all the contributors for both their quotable words and their quiet ones in my ear about my terrible typing and grammar!

You can get to Project: New by following the link on the Home page or by going straight to the Project start page.

Naomi’s 20 week scan came up today so of we both went to the hospital. Looks like we’re having a daughter :o) – the scan lady said she was at least 95% certain it was a girl. Its a bit weird really as prior to Megan there hadn’t been any girls born into my side of the family for nearly 90 years. They’re like buses – two come along (almost) at once.

We decided we would ask for Freddie Foetus (as she’s been known up till now) to be gendered as it would save people (read: grandparents, the only people who really care about this stuff) the dilemma of buying pink or blue. Anyway, we wanted to know.

Anthony is bound to be thrilled we’re having another girl so I’ll take great pleasure in ringing him tonight to tell him.

So, as from now we’re studying girls names lists. Any suggestions (especially slightly out-of-the-ordinary/non-celeb/old style) you may have, dear reader, would be appreciated.

Two word review- get it.

Longer review. This book elevated itself neatly and easily straight into my non-fiction top 10 where it nuzzles comfortably alongside my beloved ‘Cascading Style Sheets – A Definitive Guide’ (thank you again Sam) and Schama’s ‘History of Britian’.

Bill Bryson is an ambling, genial host of ‘nearly everything’ pointing out the obscure, demistifying concepts and explaining the previously interminable. Take this brilliantly cheerful bit of prose.

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each of us it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespear. A billion more each came from Bhudda and Ghengis Khan and Beethoven and any other historical figure you care to name.

How can you possibly dislike a book that is full of such happy thoughts?

Bryson takes us through a dazzling amount of subjects that are crucial to our understanding of how we came to be and how life has somehow managed to keep us alive. From Astronomy through Chemistry, Physics, Paleontology and extinction theory as well as a vast array of others, he keeps you interested and keeps you informed.

Go order it right now before you talk yourself out of it, you won’t regret it.