Mmmmmmm…. bigtime thunder and lightning. I love rainstorms.

Weird, exemplified: when your brother, who only discovered your website and the whole phenomenon of weblogs a month ago, starts introducing you to weblogs that you’ve never read.

Joel Spolsky’s new book, User Interface Design for Programmers, is now listed on Amazon. It’s backordered for three to five weeks, but given what’s available online, it’s something that most designers and programmers will want to have on their bookshelves. And, if you live in the U.S., you can just pay Joel directly and receive an signed copy, if that sort of thing appeals to you.

I got a new flatbed scanner this week, and damn if I don’t love the thing. It’s a CanoScan N1220U, and the best two things about it are that it’s small (10” by 15” by 1.3”) and that it gets its power from the USB cable, so it is truly a no-hassles, plug-and-play device. Put this one in the highly recommended column.

Funny: modern technology is a big source of stress to writers who are trying to come up with believable modern-age suspense stories. In the books of yore, being stranded and unable to call for help was plausible, but now, readers would be asking, “Where’s her cellphone?”

Just like I rediscovered DPR the other day, RobGalbraith.com seems to have gone through some huge changes since I last saw the site. It’s dedicated more to professional digital photojournalists, rather than all digital photographers, so it’s a great place to get information about the higher-end equipment.

Something that I read a bit about on the message boards at RobGalbraith.com is how Major League Baseball (could that website be any uglier?) has changed its agreements with photographers this year. Credentials now read that there is a limit to how many images can be electronically posted on a website while a game is in progress and press organizations can no longer sell images taken at MLB games, among other changes; some photographers have refused to sign the credentials, claiming freedom of the press violations. This is the NBA vs. New York Times situation all over again, but unfortunately for the photographers, that one was settled out of court, leaving there no precedent (other than a moral one) to depend upon.

Cool — there are two plug-ins available for Word 2002 that perform automatic document translation; one uses WorldLingo, the other uses Mendez. (Of course, there’s probably a finite amount of time before the kooks and crazies latch onto this one and start whining about it being another example of Microsoft forcing something they don’t want down the world’s throat.)