Is this really Nerdheaven or just the outer edges of experimentation? It may seem like a dumb question to wonder how long, and big, you can make a world wide web page but it is consuming our everyday life. It is pressing on our consciousness_________  as we try________ to_______ ____ imagine the outer ______limits of webmania.  _______ _What are the limiting factors to how big a web page is?-------------------------------------  Hmmmm. Is it a person's patience?After all a huge page will take longer to download. How many bytes would the biggest page be? How big would the pipe have to be? Would you follow a line just to see how very far it goes, and if it might just be into infinity, but then perhaps you would lose patience and decide to scroll down to find more info and more  pictures just in case there was something of value--------------------------------- _because we're all in a quest to add value to our lives, our brains, our bodies, our souls (now that soul part just kinda fell in there, but for some they may see themselves adding value to their souls. it is a comforting thought in some ways. But we digress, we are on a quest to see how big a world wide web page can be - we have read many rules that say a world wide web page should not be any wider than 479 pixels - and we gasped in horror because although we are diehard Macintosh lovers we know that an IBM monitor is much wider - you can throw even Macromedia 640 x 480 pixels out the window because the IBM monitors are wide and skinny... it gave us pause to question who really knew.So, we asked ourselves what if the page were designed to be modular so that whatever screen dimensions a user has it will look right. Of course we patted ourselves on the back because this is a very smart and ideal way to design in such flexibility but can it be done? After all we have been raised in the school of graphic design where an image moved even a fraction of decimal can cause any self-respecting art director to experience heart palpitations. Now the dilemma is can we really allow the images to float around in some kind of loose and unrestricted ether - where the user is in control by virtue (now that's a nice word for Nerdheaven, have you heard the sound file yet. It is the computer talking geek. Really quite wonderful. i would look for it if I were you. But then i'm not. And i already got all charged up about it so it woke me up at night and i rhapsodized how powerful it would be when it hit your ears. But then perhaps you will not be so impressed. (I am easily impressed by some very techy things) of how they position the screen and the parameters of their browser window. Nerdheaven is our place to explore ideas about technology and art. And we can ask ourselves why a push/pull script is so fascinating when full motion video is available - is it because it is a new art form? One that demands something more of the viewer? Perhaps. And thinking of that you might also want to consider that the very act of downloading is an opportunity to grab the viewer's attention- we could fill our computer screens with repeat images tiled to inifinity. But netscape in their wisdom has burst the bubble and taken away some really wonderful features like animated titles and fade-ins. I shake my head in disbelief. I'm sure they had a good reason - not html 3.0 compliant or whatever but it really was quite wonderful and....Yes. Now we are pondering navigation. The horror of headers and footers replicated on web pages all over the world breeding and copying faster than "xerox" machines. Of course we understand the strategic decisions behind this simple and logical form of navigation. The strict thinking of "Give me the information now, and only the information I want" has distinct appeal to business-minded folks all over the globe. And yet in our hearts and minds we think there is room for a looser, more intuitive form of navigation. The critics will lambast it for being indulgent time-wasting "crap" however if we pause for a minute and think of the possibilities.we can see that  many new things can be experienced and appreciated. For example we have the opportunity to really use suspense and timing to our advantage---------------------------------------------and perhaps  a little sense of dislocation and confusion will result. But that is all right. We must be careful not to draw the lines so sharply at this early stage of webdesign  when it is still so exploratory! And of course ever-changing. The continuous rush of change we might say wil make the "learners" in our society more adaptable and hence more successful than those who resist new ideas and innovations. Keeping a curious mind as Tom Peters says will reap many rewards for businesses all over the globe. Now as we meander on and on down this very big web page it is clear that the size may only be limited by the patience of the viewer (or the person doing the coding, for as we wrestle with IBM vs. Mac platforms it is frustrating to see the differences - though perhaps this is just a Netscapist glitch, bug so to speak, where pre tags and nobr tags wreak havoc with text. Why are we limiting ourselves to narrow widths when we can play and romp freely across the universal space of the electronic frontier.....  Now can we grab their attention and force them to click and go where we want? This is a puzzle indeed. And it creates a website which is more like a real spider "web" than a restrained header/footer/links sort of page - not that the web doesn't need pages like this. I hasten to add we do! In fact we have designed many such pages. But perhaps we can think of the difference in information and use that as a guide. After all if the phone book were organized any other way but alphabetically we could really have a problem. So we do "respect" more straight-laced modes of navigation and yet we long for any opportunity to break free and explore alternative ways that are more like theatre. And now as another experiment in how we access information I am inserting an interview we did with the rock band Crash Vegas. It is a cheap trick to use up more space and push the limits of this page and perhaps tweak your interest to click and explore in that direction, but it also has interesting ideas about creativity and of course you can go and read this interview for yourself in an easier format, so without any more ado here it is: Michelle: "I like it" was a complete improvisation so it's.. nerdheaven: I really "like it", but I was puzzled 'cuz you didn't choose to print the lyrics. Michelle: Yeah, I got into playing with the lyrics. And not having them scanned like follow the dot. It was more like treating them as their own entity rather than how they are printed on the page. It was like that for Scarborough where I just wrote another piece completely. Again those lyrics aren't printed either...nerdheaven: What's that sound in the song "I like it"? Michelle: It's a guitar, yeah.nerdheaven: ...there's that, there's one particular thing it's got a real crackle to it...Colin: It's a guitar. nerdheaven: And then it comes again but it doesn't come right when you expect it.(laughing)Michelle: Exactly...nerdheaven: OK, here it comes I'm ready for it this time. ;-) You have a really interesting layering of sounds and imagery. I keep on thinking of the water and then you hear this crackle and it sounds like electricity, you put the two together...Colin: That's what it was...electricity. nerdheaven: Neat. Do you see yourself experimenting more with unusual sounds? Like bringing in sounds which are not conventionally heard in music? Colin: Well, I think the approach is not calculated. A lot of it is inspired. Yet from my point of view you usually have a  core. If you break a song down to the fascinating basic core, like rhythmic or rythmic and chordal and a voice...I don't necessarily have a specific plan all the time. I think we talk about things in terms of colours and moods and perhaps an instrument that might be the best at being able to communicate that. I try and be creative and create a sound that's  not necessarily reminiscent of the instrument but that's maybe representative of a mood or a certain energy.Like y'know,you said it sounded like electricity, well that's what  it was. And that's more what I'm interested in. Whether you use a guitar, or a drum or anything that has some sound to it. You get ideas, they're spontaneous so you try stuff. I don't always know what the sound is going to be until I'm actually in there and I'm doing it. And I go 'Oh, yeah, OK, well, um, if I do this to the amp or if I put this pedal on and I hit that button, here's what's gonna come out'. And that's a lot of what's on Aurora - stuff that wasn't preconceived. And was more about,'What d'ya think of this?' 'Whoa, that sounds great,' y'know, so...Michelle: The great thing about Colin's playing is we like to leave the sort of standard guitar-based kinda stuff, like it's not what we always wanted to be. And by virtue of the way Colin plays, he can get so many sounds that you wouldn't even know whether it's a guitar. We like to just experiment with different sounds. In 'Beguiling' for instance, I kept saying in the chorus, 'let's have something that sounds like a plane,' yknow, 'Whaaaa.' And Colin's like a 'plane?' So he went out and fooled around and eventually this sound happened that was like 'Whaaaa, boom, boom, boom boom boom,' which to me sounds like a propellor plane landing.nerdheaven: What I wonder is ifyou hear sounds in the everyday world and go 'That is such a neat sound. That's a sound that I gotta have...'Michelle:Completely...nerdheaven: And then you get really excited and go 'Alright, this is it,  this is the inspiration' or perhaps it's not sounds. Perhaps it's something visual...Michelle: It's all of those things really...Colin: Well actually, it's all of that. I mean we have a song called 'You shine bright'...We had this impetus of a song using an acoustic guitar. It was almost like I didn't want to be 'rock guitar-guy'. I wanted to create this real supportive soundscape to the lyrics and the mood of the song - - which was about light, energy, electricity and friction and all those things. So for me that track was more about trying to make the guitar be like electricity and saying, 'What does light sound like?' and that's not to sound lofty about it, but when I listen to that track now, I don't really hear electric guitar anymore. It sounds like electricity to me and light. So that's more the kind of place I like to get to with sounds. And hopefully, that's what people get from it. nerdheaven: Do you feel pressured by deadlines? Forcing creativity...Michelle: I like deadlines. There's something about them. Suddenly it's like I know that part of my process is anxiety, y'know. And then I get all freaked out. I've succumbed. There's this friend of mine that's like 'Don't worry, that's part of what you're doing,' I'm like 'Really, really?', 'cuz I always get to the point where I think 'How did I ever do anything before, I'll never do anything again. It's sorta like stalking yourself in a way, or hunting yourself, y'know...Colin: I think it definitely contributes to your being motivated. But I think it is a double-edged sword, 'cuz 'if you feel you've failed in the attempt that sorta compounds your neurosis. 'Oh my, I didn't get anything I must be a pile of shit and I'm not ever gonna be good  again. And then get this little seed and it's like 'Thanks god, I just got it back.'Michelle: But it's never calm. It's never like 'Sure, I'm very relaxed and I'm just writing something', y'know there is always a certain amount of  (hands grabbing throat). It's like this gestation thing, whatever it is (choking sound). Colin:  The process we've usually done it [songwriting] in has been  relaxed.Like we'll sit and do some shit for a couple of hours. And it's like 'Oh, okay, well, let's go and eat something,' rather than  'We've got to work for six hours a day'. It's like, we get seeds of stuff that's on this record [Aurora]...Michelle: We get one seed then go and eat...(laughter) Colin: It's like you wouldn't necessarily have heard [the seed],  if you listened to the song as it was in the first couple of hours of creation and then the end result. You'd go 'How did you get from there to there?' And that amazes me sometimes, but I think that I've become more trusting. I really used to worry about that stuff, like  Oh, here's this thing, I really like it but is it actually gonna ever go anywhere?' and 'What is it going to be?' And now it's like I know when we get something it's gonna be good. It's gonna have a life, whether it'll be amazing or whatever. I'm not as anxiety-ridden. I'm not as neurotic about it all because I know.  [end of Crash Vegas interview]If you are still with me thank you for reading along. Write to us. We love all sorts of ideas and hope you  will come here again to play with some very abstract notions of right and wrong in the world of webdesign. As an art director named Carson says, I think he said it but, I could be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt, he said it's not brain surgery like there is a body on the table and life is hanging from a thread. And i think that is true. So, we must have courage and forge ahead on new ideas fearless and firm in our resolve to fight boring, sameness and dullness. Oh yes and the status quo. And the page wasn't really that big was it, (but you got as far as here, congratulations) and you could have done better and made it bigger and everybody would have read along right to the bitter end? So, we must have courage and forge ahead on new ideas fearless and firm in our resolve to fight boring, sameness and dullness. Oh yes and the status quo. And the page wasn't really that big was it, (but you got as far as here, congratulations) and you could have done better and made it bigger and everybody would have read along right to the bitter end? Good.