Rebecca Blood points out that society has moved from a being an oral society to being a literate one in the (comparatively) recent time. She also suggests that we are now moving towards post-literacy.

This is resulting in Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder. I know exactly what she's talking about here...

The Internet, we all know, is flooding us with information. Rebecca points out that this isn't all bad, but that it's giving us problems with focus.

(Post-literate doesn't mean that we can't or won't read, BTW. Read the article.)

(Also BTW - is Rebecca Blood a real name? It's too good to be true for a goth to be born with 'Blood' for a surname.)

Avoiding the GridBag: The GridBagLayout is kind of the brocoli of the Swing layout managers. It's good for you, there are people who seem to really like it, but it's brocoli. Hmmm - I like broccoli.

Anyway - this reminds me of Tk's pack geometry manager. Which is probably no coincidence.

I've not used Packer, so I may be talking out of my, uh, hat. Let's face it - it wouldn't be the first time. But I think I prefer the approach taken by RelativeLayout, very much a layout manager for the rest of us. I've used Tk's pack geometry manager, and while it worked, it was awkward.

Via Java Today.

Update 23rd July: An SWT port of RelativeLayout.

First it was red wine, then curry, then wanking, now pizza.

All I need now is for beer to be healthy, especially in megadose quantities, and I'll probably live forever.

ZMatrix is a Windows active desktop, displaying Matrix stype streaming characters replacing your wallpaper. Totally useless, totally cool.

Via Ned Batchelder.