Design | Tropophilia

Here we are again, another week and another link-thread to kick things off. Back on our regular schedule, so grab your coffee and let’s get started:

Sometimes a simple trip down memory lane can remind us of the astounding pace of change online. This gallery, courtesy of Gizmodo, shows websites from corporate giants like Apple and Reebok back in the mid 1990s. My how web design has evolved.
I’m always wary of any seemingly progressive sound bytes originating in Bentonville Arkansas, but Wal-Mart execs are saying all of the right things about sustainability and supply-chain management innovation leading to increased energy efficiency and (surprise!) larger profit margins. Certainly something to watch based purely on the power Wal-Mart wields across so many industries. EcoGeek blogger Hank Green puts it well: “I don’t think the Wal-Mart model is a good model. But I do believe that, since they’ve pretty much taken over the (retail) world, when they do good things, it has gigantic impacts.”
Speaking of EcoGeek, here’s a really cool resource they featured last week: a mapping tool that assesses the feasibility of wind and solar power for any location in the U.S. Did I mention that it’s free? I love the Internet.
Sometimes change arrives by freak accident. Mental Floss directs us to 10 Accidental Product Discoveries. Still no indication of why “Silly Putty” was a good idea.

Good to see the GiveWell crowd back at work after their kerfluffle a few weeks back. Their two part discussion on evaluating charter school programs speaks eloquently to the difficulty of measuring impact in education programs.

Finally, on a lighter note, Turbo reminds us that “back in [his] day, being an American Gladiator actually meant something.”

Enjoy your week, and keep checking back for new material and the debut of Joel’s (super secret) Wednesday afternoon feature.

One last note: if you notice the stat counter on the bottom right corner of our sidebar over there (–>), we’re nearing 1,000 unique visitors since the site launched 3 weeks ago. Leave a comment if you’re lucky visitor #1,000 (or the first after 1,000 to comment) and maybe we’ll hook you up with something cool (Tropophilia t-shirts? no?)

What follows is not as off-topic as you might think. In preparation for Macworld Expo 2008, I have sought here to reconstruct the events that last year led me to “make the switch” from PC to Mac. I ended up not making a “switch,” in fact - I made a “leap.” I’m a shameless Apple fanboy now. This anecdote not only chronicles personal changes I’ve made, but also documents how a company like Apple can so inspire change that it creates a cult, a movement, even an identity. That’s some powerful stuff, and something worth bloggin’ about.

About a year ago, I was sitting in my house in Alabama, enjoying the last few days of what had been almost a month off from school for the Christmas / New Year / Martin Luther King holidays. Man, I wish I was back in school so I could have long breaks like that again. Anyway. It was 11:00 am in Alabama, which just so happened to be 9:00am in San Francisco. I was reading the “live blog” of Macworld Expo 2007, the annual convention where Apple and its developers show off new products. The highlight of the event, the Christmas Day of the Apple calendar, is what has become known as the Stevenote — the keynote presentation by Apple CEO Steve Jobs where, without fail, he unveils new products or features that change the playing field. I was in my pajamas, eating waffles and sipping coffee, with my Dell laptop in front of me. I was captivated, transfixed in a state of what Fake Steve Jobs correctly terms “childlike wonder”.