walkah: terminus1525

I read this morning over on bopuc's blog that Flickr is patenting "interestingness". I realize this was probably yahoo's lawyers' idea... but I have to say it sucks. -1 Yahoo.

Why does it suck? Well, in general I don't believe in patents - I don't think they serve the intended purpose of "protecting" the idea and have several negative side effects. However, this particular patent hits a bit closer to home for me. I have been closely involved in the Terminus 1525 project since its inception. In it's latest revision, Terminus 1525 introduced "terminosity" as a method for better finding good artwork on the site that we felt was otherwise getting lost in the noise. It was one of the main features of the new explore tool.

Now, it's perhaps premature... it's not like Yahoo! has served terminus1525 with cease and desist orders or anything and, realistically, they're not likely to. But in a web2.0 world where we need to get better at filtering through all the "stuff" (call it media) that we've gotten good at getting out there, I don't see a whole lot of good coming from this one.

i was digging through some old unread feeds when i came across this post over at urlgreyhot.com. it's rather flattering:

"terminus1525 is a Canadian collaborative work space for young emerging artists. It is perhaps the most visually stunning Drupal design I've seen so far."

besides making me blush, michael's post made me realize a couple things:

first, i've never actually said anything here about my involvement with terminus. i'm the one that hacked and slashed drupal to pieces to make it look like that (i'm even uid #1 ;) ). it is one of the more fun and challenging projects i've worked on, and i'm proud to say that i'm involved.

the other thing, though, is i must admit that i didn't actually have anything to do with the actual design of terminus. the real credit goes to the fine folks at zincroe (specifically jason and luke). they're pretty darned creative guys and fun to work with too :)

so, what are you waiting for? head over to terminus, sign up and post your art!