redesign

 BBC.com has redesigned. Interestingly, the site takes on a look similar to International Herald-Tribune (which would get my vote for best overall media website from a design and usability standpoint). The navigation strategy, however, is straight outta the portal play book. (The Guardian discusses.) In other BBC news, the company is launching a controversial online news service soon.

 A decade ago, I discovered what would become the world wide web via Gopher. And, somehow, I didn't realize until now that it was a homegrown product. The Strib has a good article with the University of Minnesota inventors. (See also: The Gopher Manifesto.)

 Art historian E. H. Gombrich died Saturday.

 The great music critic/fan Camden Joy has a web site. Camden's fame arose in the late '90s when obsessive scrawlings, such Yo La Tengo Is Good To Eat, were found hanging around NYC. (Check out the This American Life interview.)

 Already, e-tailers are pulling out the bells and whistles for holiday shopping. ("Gee-whiz features such as gift-finders, interactive pants-sizers and customer-service instant messaging are some of the ways e-tailers are hoping they might turn virtual window shoppers into paying customers.") Correlationally, here's the argument against 3D online shopping.

 Dead dot-com du jour: L.A.Insider.com

 Human are such puppets (flash).

 Doesn't get any more blunt than this: Stephen Hawking Is Wrong.

 Yeah, yeah, of course Buffy was awesome. Everyone's IMing me!