Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

Archive for the ‘Legacy’ Category

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Daily Delicious – Social Data through Microformats

Microformats are becoming hotter topic with each passing day. With Firefox 3 supporting microformats, web designers/developers are suddenly going to have many more tools hanging from their belt. I understood the gist of microformats, but it was not until I read a great brief on microformats that I understood the depth and power of what they make possible.

Semantic code now has a whole new layer of meaning and functionality with microformats that we currently have only scratched the surface of. In addition, those features will theoretically be easier to implement. The elemental microformats are where things get very interesting for me. Social features such as voting, personal connection and tags can be published and parsed through simple semantics. These features give the potential for any site to participate and contribute to socialized information. The next-generation social bookmarking/aggregator sites could be merely a centralized hub of otherwise decentralized information. This theoretically lessens the the need for behemoth all-in-one social sites such as Digg. This gives web publishers another tool to both contribute and tap into a stream of information to make data more rich and connected. Very exciting.

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Daily Delicious – Second Life Gets Nuclear

The whole Second Life phenomenon has been quite interesting to watch evolve. For those of you still somewhat ignorant to the game, it centers around the premise that its world is completely flexible – with users able to create new content and interaction for the Second Life world. Hell, it even has its own monetary system, the Linden. What is so compelling about the concept of a completely free world is when people try to take the world in a completely different direction. Recently, long time gamers decided to nuke two corporate-owned stores (American Apparel and Reebok).

The person responsible for destroying these two stores is not too happy about the direction the game’s world is moving and came to the conclusion that blowing some things up was a good solution. This same person apparently wants the creators of Second Life to give his army (yes, he had an army) the ability to vote on future changes. Through this little experiment, “citizens” have begun to rebel and ask for more democratic power. I find this all extremely interesting. I am quite curious how these same people will react if they do not get what they want. It could soon be a very unhappy (not to mention radioactive) world in Second Life…

I am not a gamer myself, I myself look forward to seeing how this pans out. This has to be the first case where violent actions in a game’s world impacts they way that world works.

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Daily Delicious – A Black Google Saves Energy

TreeHugger has an excellent article about how a website’s color scheme can actually impact power usage of its audience. Actually, it makes perfect sense, I just had never really thought about it. If Google switched their background to black, it would have 750 Megawatt-Hours a year. According to the Department of Energy, this would roughly be enough to power the state of Pennsylvania for an average month of consumption. Frankly, I never would have thought the numbers would be so staggering.

As can be expected, some eco-minded folks are already changing their bright-color-schemed ways – such as ecoIron with an energy efficient color scheme. Even the slightest glance at this blog’s design shows how energy inefficient it is. White is by far the highest consumer of energy with red not too far behind. All of this is spelled out very clearly from another DOE page. Some Random Dude is the web equivalent to the Hummer. Yeah, this all sounds funny to myself as well.

So what to do? Do we all change our vibrant ways? I would like to scale things back a tad from this site, but I am very cautious of ruining the site’s identity. Either way, this is an interesting topic in the theoretical sense. Does design on the web need to start accounting for energy efficiency for the end user? Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that with every passing day, web design becomes more and more like industrial design.

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Design Open Discussion – What is Your Design Style?

The topic is fairly straight-forward. Are you more digitally or traditionally inclined? Is there a genre that your work always seems to fit in? If you do not know what style you follow (if any), explain what direction your work leans towards. Please be descriptive and explain why you think you got there to begin with. I know it is a Friday and everybody’s head is already in the weekend, but if you could, spend a couple minutes and share your thoughts – this could be a fun one.

Daily Delicious – Nine Inch Nails New Album Spawns Abstract Web Sites

Here I was, just about to write about microformats, when this came along…

A new Nine Inch Nails album is coming out in April. Thanks to our good friend Kellie, and her great link comment, I learned about a series of abstract websites pertaining to the theme and (from the rumors) storyline of the new album. To say the new album is political is like saying the sun is warm – just a warning to those of you that do not enjoy politics. Yes, I know, this has been done before. Yes, I know, this is a form of marketing. Still, the tone and the way it comes off just seems different than other viral marketing campaigns.

A lot of people are not big fans of viral marketing. I, however, see a great beauty to it. Most viral marketing I have been exposed to is quite creative and engages the user’s imagination. On top of it, it is much less money-driven than traditional advertising methods. With viral marketing, success is dependent on the individual to appreciate it enough to want to share it. Traffic and buzz can be artificially generated, but I have noticed that method tends to fizzle out very quickly if there is not a genuine interest from the public. I rather like the idea of marketing that is depends on the public’s interest rather than cash. I see how this project can turn people off. Still, for myself, I find it absolutely fascinating.

UPDATE – New Nine Inch Nails song found on a usb drive in a bathroom in portugal. This is getting cooler and cooler by the minute. In case the URLs hosting the MP3 die, you can download it from Some Random Dude (sorry, this is absolutely killing my bandwidth).

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