The really scary part is the budget required to build this white elephant: $900k for construction with an additional $50k a month in maintenance and utilities.

[Via Gizmodo]

Websites utilize all manner of multimedia to advertise services, evolving from the classis banner ad to more advanced flash-based motion imagery. Most of these forms of online advertising are just plain awful, but the worst by far is those darned annoying Flash-based ads that spontaneously blast you with audio. I can't even begin to count the number of times I was startled out of my chair (and underpants) late at night when loading some random webpage, when suddenly a voice comes blasting through my speakers..."CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE BEEN SELECTED TO RECEIVE A FREE IPOD!". Scary.

It's bad enough when this happens while I'm using a Mac, forcing me to turn down the volume settings from the keyboard. But on a typical PC I scramble to find the volume knob on my external speakers before arousing disapproving looks from nearby co-workers.

What really irritates me, aside from the annoying nature of these boisterous ads, is how ineffective they serve their functions. Advertisers foolishly assume such ads will entice viewers to click on them and read more about the services they offer. WRONG! What happens with most users, such as my case, is they simply move on to another webpage. In fact, annoying web ads have the exact opposite intended effect upon casual viewers. Instead of luring customers, they detour them. And yet advertisers still pursue us with noisy animated Flash-based ads.

Will they never learn?

What happens when a fetish becomes obsession, then turns into a life consuming preoccupation that drives friends and family away, compelling you to alter your physical environment, modeled after your Apple addiction? You turn your dwelling into an Apple store, of course!

I applaud this fellow’s creativity, it really is brilliant. But, still. Jesus!

Apple has begun emailing .Mac subscribers (myself included) announcing a soon to be released makeover that will transform the tired .Mac mail interface, as we know it, into a Web 2.0 clone of OSX Mail (based on AJAX of course). I'm not sure a desktop UI is well suited as an embedded interface, but we shall soon find out. Considering I access my .Mac account through Mail as an IMAP account it really makes little difference to me. But hey, you do it your way...I'll do it mine.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mail, .Mac

I just discovered that my blog has been featured in three prestigious CSS designer galleries. CSS Mania, CSS Remix, and CSS Import have listed Elitist Snob among their galleries of creative websites, and I must say I am extremely flattered to have been chosen. Thanks to everyone who submitted my site. Be sure to visit each of these galleries and admire the work done by all the many talented designers.

In case you're wondering why various sections of the blog don't look quite right, this is because I'm in the middle of implementing a new tempate design, but I still haven't fully formatted all the various Movabletype core template files. I should have the entire process complete by later tonight or early tomorrow. My ultimate goal is to migrate over to Wordpress, but that's going to take some time to delve into.

In the meantime thanks for visting and mind the wet paint. :-)