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This Principles of Graphic Design site by Mundi Design Studios was a bronze winner in the recent ID magazine Interactive Media Design Review. Clean, well-executed, and free.

Here

are some nifty applets by an Italian gentleman named Fabio Ciucci. These things are usually incredibly annoying, but his are well enough done to be compelling, particularly the ones that pick apart images pixel by pixel, like the water applet.

Two useful free services: QuickTopic and Spyonit. QuickTopic is the new name for the extremely useful service formerly called TakeItOffline. Within seconds, you can spawn a free discussion group. Spyonit watches websites, among other things, so that you don’t have to visit a site often in order to find out that it’s changed. Somebody else watches and then tells you.

I’m not sure why this retro architecture is so interesting, but it is. And here is an entertaining article on opium.

Many of the applets at bewitched are beautiful, but
the shortcut wins the prize. It’s visual treat that keeps you watching till the very end. Incidentally, the guy behind the work (Martin Wattenberg) also does the SmartMoney Map of the Market visualization, which is an honest-to-goodness jewel of interface design.

Along the same lines as the bewitched.com site, here are some of my favorite visual dynamic toys:
Motion Sketch and
Gravilux, both by Scott Snibbe, and the ever popular
sodaconstructor.

It has now been four years since the Star Chamber began broadcasting on this frequency. We opened our offices for business on April 16th, 1996 and have been publishing more-or-less whatever more-or-less weekly since then.

Groundhog Day is my favorite day of the year. Regardless of what the rodent predicts, we’re halfway through winter. T.S. Eliot said that April is the cruellest month, and that makes perfect sense to me. The tragic puzzle of ripeness is that it is followed so quickly by rot. To me, the saddest day of the year is Memorial Day, because thereafter you are using up the summer days at the inexorable rate of one every 24 hours, and to the extent that you don’t fill each one with laughing happiness and carefree leafgreen remembrance, you are squandering wealth. In short, the goody clock is running. Barren February, by contrast, presents challenge instead of wealth. If you happen upon goody, it’s like stumbling across an oasis in the desert, oil on the North Slope. Three cheers! Look at you!

So here is homely Groundhog Day squatting in the middle of the winter. It is too silly to be taken seriously even by the marketing wizards at Hallmark. It persists only because it mocks itself so affably. But from an archaeological point of view, if you knock down the modern convenience store called Groundhog Day, you find some solid foundations. The season is turning. The light is returning. The quickening is underway and the long march toward ripeness has begun. There’s goody enough in that.

I love the summer, but I trust the winter.

Those of you who read this space regularly you will recall a discussion of
cheesecake, loneliness, and the internet from earlier this month. The premise went like this: the internet is lonely. Does anybody out there really connect? (Note: I know the answer is yes, but I was exaggerating for effect.) To show that people really can connect with one another, send me a postcard and I’ll send you a free cheesecake. As of this writing, the cake is still unclaimed. Now how’s that for irony, eh?

Actually, as a result of reading that piece, one loyal Star Chamber reader was inspired to order flowers for his wife. Now if that’s not reaching out and touching, I don’t know what is.

By the way, it’s not too late to get yourself a free cheesecake.

Another part of the Star Chamber community has been active. We are delighted to report that as a result of our listing his artwork on this site, West Coast artist John Lynch has sold two of the original paintings first displayed on this site in September.

In an effort to provide more information about the Star Chamber site and its cast of characters, we have assembled a short but we hope useful list of Rarely-Asked-Questions.

Wally is a close friend from high school. You may remember his elegant description of a Coke can getting flattened in Nevada during the last installment of Travels with Wally back in May.

Wally’s back, and he’s got an even better story this time around. But don’t take my word for it. Read about the carburetor that saved his life.

Also, we’re thrilled to have a Web premiere showing of the paintings of John Lynch, an artist currently working in California.

Finally, Paracelsus has made some changes to his index page that should make it a little easier to find that special back issue you’ve been trying to track down. Collect ’em all! Also featured in this listing are all the authors that Paracelsus has sponsored in this space, including not only the illustrious Wally, but also Anne Onnamus, Gecko,
Ortelius (winner of the cool signature image award), Pandora, and three-time contributor St. Frank.

And now, on with the show.

Does it bother anybody else out there that after you mess up your room, the next thing you do is clean it up? You see the problem: they both go up. This means the room keeps going up and up forever, as though rising on an endlessly telescoping hydraulic lift. Eventually something has to give way and topple. It’s unnerving.

The signs of millennial collapse are everywhere.

For Paracelsus this year, spring cleaning is giving way to summer moving. As the new owner of a house (he’s upgrading), he has to clean up the old apartment, pack up his belongings, and then set them up in the new place. He’s not sure if he’s up to the challenge. “Cheer up!” you may advise him, but a mild fear of heights has him wondering if things will ever calm down again.

To help us all stay down-to-earth, Wally, a great good friend of Paracelsus from Way Back When, tells us a story this week about rolling down the highway.

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By the way, were you aware that you can now read your favorite Star Chamber pieces on a PalmPilot?

Peanut Press is now selling a compilation entitled

The Star Chamber, Writings from the Web which can be downloaded for convenient reading on a palmtop platform. Check out our exciting
excerpts from the book, and then take home a few copies today!

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