the mental case

2003.11.30
In yesterday's comment section people asked some interesting questions about the visual design of this site...I started typing up answers for inclusion here, but it got rather long and not-general-interesty-enough for a daily update so I made a stand alone page of questions and answers, on the visual design of kisrael.com. (My favorite: "Why does grey seem to be the feature colour on the site?" "It's not; black and white are. The grey is just there to liven up the place.")


Observation of the Moment
[On why the universal programmer's task of breaking up a problem into smaller parts is difficult to learn] Personally I think this ties into a fallacy the vast majority of us share, that we are essentially rational beings, that all of the things we do in life could be traced down to logical decisions, maybe even the binary firings of clusters of neurons. Really, I think we're just gigantic cluesters of ad hoc heuristics, and attempts to describe our thoughts as logical processes are just optimistic, post facto mappings to what we would've done, if we had the time to think about it. (And there is some experimental/clinical evidence for what a great after-the-fact story teller/rationalizer our brains are...)

Image and Article of the Moment

--from a review of DOOM: the comic book. Great game. Awful comic. Actually, I wonder if they could have made a better comic by going to the original DOOM bible, which envisioned DOOM as having a much more complex story, or if that would just make everything incosistent with the game everybody knew and loved. Though I guess according to the article, it couldn't have been much WORSE of a game... (via Bill the Splut)


Definition of the Moment
Death wish, n.: The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it to.