Tuesday 29 September 2009

The Painter, The Shoemaker

I am a painter, but my house has no paint.
I am a shoemaker, but I cannot make shoes.
I am a web designer, but I cannot design.
I am a software engineer, but my start-ups often stop.

A painter has paint
A shoemaker makes shoes
I am painting my shoes
and shoe-ing my paint

All for the sake

of loving you.

Filed under:   blogging, community, creativity, humor, just fun, personal
Posted by:   Molly | 07:28 | Comments Off

Tuesday 26 August 2008

When You Met Nick Drake

BY THE TIME I’d “met” Nick Drake he was already long dead.

I believe it was after the “Pink Moon” Volkswagen commercial that aired in the United States. It’s possible I’d heard him before but I’m pretty sure I’d remember.

I’ve been listening to Nick Drake now nearly 10 years. What about you?

When did you see/hear/learn about Nick Drake?

Perfection has no stopwatch.

Filed under:   blogging, community, creativity, cults of personality, molly asks you, music, poetry & fiction, pop culture
Posted by:   Molly | 21:09 | Comments (32)

Saturday 23 August 2008

Web Standards is a Goal

Interview with me about Web standards and design at Design Interviews in which I mete out advice I should apply to myself (isn’t it easier to give it?)

“Embrace change, value life-long learning, allow your passions to show and if at any moment you are no longer having fun or gaining something personally important from doing this important work, step back for a bit and re-evaluate.”

There’s some other interesting material up on the growing site that is really useful for Web designers and developers, too.

Filed under:   community, creativity, general, professional, standards, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 14:17 | Comments (24)

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Jewish Milestones Along my Way

So in the basement of the Ala Moana hotel, owned by Outrigger, there is a storefront where each morning 3 Jewish men daven.

It was a completely unexpected view of Orthodox Judaism in practice. I asked a hotel staff member and she told me that the Outrigger chain is owned, at least in significant part, by Jews. I’ve been to Honolulu SEVEN times and this is the first time I saw religious Judaism in Hawaii.

Then, on a shuttle bus at LAX from overseas back to mainland I met a young woman with a Hebrew saying and a star of David tattooed on her arm. Of course I had to ask. She was with her Mother and half sister, and said it was in honor and remembrance of her Jewish father, passed.

She told me she works at Trader Joe’s and gets asked the same question a lot. Many older women tell her, apparently, “your grandmother is rolling in her grave!” (That was my first thought, To Be Honest. )

I wonder sometimes what truth the “faith” I was born into holds for me. I know this: I love that Judaism has no mediator between the self and G-D. I also love the idea that G-D does indeed watch my every step.

Travel. Live. Talk to people. It doesn’t make you smarter, just more aware of milestones along the wayl

Filed under:   community, conferences, creativity, cults of personality, faith(less), family
Posted by:   Molly | 01:45 | Comments (18)

Friday 15 August 2008

The Frightening Reality of Who You Are

I will never understand why people think I’m “Too Intense.”

What’s that about?

I live and walk through this world, and there are two responses always:

1). Go Away
or
2) Talk to ME!

I have this thing where I want to be hospitable to everyone

And yes, I prefer talking to real people. I always learn something that I hope makes me a better person.

Including the frightening reality of who you are, whoever you are.

Filed under:   community, creativity, cults of personality, faith(less), humor
Posted by:   Molly | 05:02 | Comments (37)

Sunday 6 July 2008

To Challenge and Frighten

Challenge and sometimes frighten people.

Filed under:   creativity, cults of personality, faith(less), how we will be, microthought, nmby, policies, revolution, society
Posted by:   Molly | 02:44 | Comments (19)

Thursday 3 July 2008

The Morris Law of Standards

I read this at Tom Morris‘ site and had to quote here:

“However fucked up and crazy something is, someone, somewhere in a standards body is writing a parser, schema or proposal for it.”

Some things are true because they’re funny. But most funny things are just quite simply true.

Filed under:   community, creativity, humor, innovation, society, software, standards, w3c, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 06:09 | Comments (13)

Monday 30 June 2008

Microformats: Machines Must Do Irony

We were just toying with the idea of a non-serious microformat about attitudes called “Microtude.” Some pointed out that defining attitude for verbal human language as a microformat couldn’t possibly stand; others saw its merit. Then someone said “machines don’t do irony.” Which got me thinking about the semantic web. Lowercase or uppercase, this comment disturbs me.

Semantics means “meaning” – it’s that simple.

If I say “pop” it’s up to you to determine whether I mean a soda or a sound. Semantic differences abound in every language, every culture. Meaning is layered, and that’s part of the beauty of individual languages, whether spoken or programmed. If a semantic web is to succeed, semantics for machines MUST include irony, negativity, or any other negative emotion of the human process.

Yes, I am well aware that the microformats community has worked exceedingly hard to leave out some of those aspects and I applaud that idealism. And I applaud it again.

Still, I maintain that approach is unrealistic. If machines are meant to express ideas to each other as humans might, then our flaws must be introduced to those machines and the software that runs them. Isn’t the idea “human first, then machine?” What I come up with is this: Unless we’re trying to try to make an artificial intelligence define Utopia, I believe we’re stuck solving human problems in human ways. Technology can help, but cannot replace.

Therefore, all that is human must be acknowledged.

Filed under:   community, creativity, innovation, professional, society, software, standards, w3c
Posted by:   Molly | 04:07 | Comments (21)

Sunday 29 June 2008

Molly’s New Microformat: Microtude

In order to make online communications more meaningful, I propose a new Microformat called “microtude” that, using the class attribute, will have a number of values to enhance the semantics of a given communication.

Let’s say you want to make a sarcastic comment. Knowing that most of your friends and colleagues understand you often keep your tongue in your cheek, it’s not necessary to wave a sarcasm flag in front of them. But what about those folks who don’t know you, and only have your text to help them understand the full impact of your comment? Microtude to the rescue! Consider the following:

<p> Wow, your code is so clean I can eat off of it! </p>

Using Microtude, you’d simply add the class with a value of “sarcasm” to clarify your intent:

<p class="sarcasm" > Wow, your code is so clean I can eat off of it! </p>

Pretty clear. Now I’m starting to work on the full range of allowed values for Microtude and this of course is where you come in. Suggestions and examples most welcome.

Filed under:   announcement, creativity, humor, just fun, molly asks you, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 04:56 | Comments (43)

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Microsoft and Me: Project Wrap-Up Preview

Well, the Microsoft project I’ve been working on for 1.5 years wraps up this month! It’s been a whacked, wild and wonderful ride.

I will be writing a few blog posts over the next several weeks talking about the technical and personal experiences of my recent time working with Microsoft. I was offered so much insight, access to great people and some influence as to IE7 and IE8 as well as other products and processes.

And, for some crazy reason, all this despite my known outrageousness.

Please look forward to more posts from me as I clarify the most educational information, interesting anecdotes and inside scoop from this truly life-changing experience.

Filed under:   WaSP, announcement, browsers, community, creativity, ie8, innovation, microsoft, professional, society, software, standards, w3c, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 18:24 | Comments (21)

Saturday 17 May 2008

Musing About Online Laughter

Amusing, isn’t it, to think about what makes us laugh? Humor (Humour?) relies on so many facets of human emotion and experience. It gets even more complicated when multiple languages and cultural references are involved, as so often occurs in online discourse.

I’ve been dissecting puns and humor (humour?) in my latest posts and Tweets. I can see why some of them would make absolutely no sense to someone who didn’t have the linguistic and cultural references of which I’m aware. Yet, others will, and do. And of course, I amuse myself a lot, even if others find me overwhelming, brutish, unladylike or god-forbid, boringl

Let’s dissect some of your puns and humor (humour?) Please share a quote from something you yourself wrote or said via online means that you find funny. All languages welcome.

Let’s have some fun!

Filed under:   Twitter, community, creativity, humor, society
Posted by:   Molly | 15:12 | Comments (71)

Monday 14 April 2008

What About Those Handles and Nicks?

DID YOU THINK I MEANT A SHAVING ACCIDENT? I’ve had a few of those, due to certain handles, nicks and other slips.

This evening the discussion is about our online nickname stories. We all have them! My very first online handle/nick was “guitargirl” on the “Q-Link (Quantum Link)” service, offered to Commodore 64 users (some Apples, too, and later Amigas).

I had an external 300 baud Hayes modem. It was the size of a large tissue box.

Over the years I’ve had a bunch of other “Handles and Nicks” – from BBS silliness on to whatever forms of “molly” I could grab.

So what about your handles, and your nicks? Good stories always welcome,

xoM

Filed under:   creativity, just fun, nmby
Posted by:   Molly | 17:22 | Comments (44)

Tuesday 8 April 2008

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

You know you have one. Or twenty.

Admit it.

Unless you live in a rural area, never travel, see few people, and even then . . . many humans have signs of OCD.

Some years ago at SXSW a fantastic group of friends had lunch at P.F. Chang’s and talked about our unique Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.

It was such a funny and enlightening conversation, I’d like to jump-start it here.

Mine? Pillowcase openings must point to the left; I can’t leave an empty cardboard toilet paper roll on whatever that thing is (the roll?) that we put it on. I have to either replace it or leave it empty.

Other than that I’ve only a few inconsistent quirks.

How about you?

Filed under:   creativity, humor, molly asks you, pop culture, society
Posted by:   Molly | 18:50 | Comments (77)

Monday 7 April 2008

Design Coding: Rap for The Rest of Us

The very awesome iJustine posted this like ten days ago, but I can’t stop watching it, it’s just that yummy.

Just(in)e case you haven’t seen it, I’m re-sharing it here and hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

BTW, who did this bit of brilliance? Where was it filmed?

Comments are open, I want to know.

Enjoy:

Design Coding

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration

a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information

display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation

every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination

but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction

follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time

make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat

tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate

check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox

title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong

when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker

design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter

if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

Filed under:   browsers, creativity, humor, innovation, music, pop culture, society, software, standards, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 19:27 | Comments (22)

Saturday 5 April 2008

Change In The Wind

There is a change in the wind.

Who feels it?

Here in the Sonoran Desert we’re in full spring. Citrus trees have blossomed and the scent is exquisite.

Sweet and intoxicating to breathe.

The wind is changing now, coming from the north. It still is cool, belying the desperate hot summer that surely will descend. Another spring soon turns to summer.

Feel it now, this, change in the wind.

Filed under:   creativity, poetry & fiction
Posted by:   Molly | 16:10 | Comments (10)