Jesse James Garrett's Hidden Agenda

So I decided I'd aim for the low MeFi user numbers. The lowest numbered user I could find who also has an associated webpage is jjg (user #16). And this is where he keeps his hidden agenda. It is a site that really works, fulfilling his strategic objectives while meeting the needs of his users. (OK, I just lifted that off the page that hawks his excellently-reviewed book, The Elements of User Experience.) But really, the "Hidden Agenda" isn't hidden too well; I found it, and it's full of useful aphorisms.

Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD—Blogborygmi

borborygmi's (user #19030) Blogborygmi is subtitled, "A digest of developments in the life of an emergency medical resident." Which is funny because borborygmus (n. pl. -i) is the SAT word for stomach-growling-sound. Hence, a "digest." ahem. It's also apt that his latest entry has to do with the physiological side of competitive eating. The rest of the blog does what it says on the bottle, and more.

Danae Shell -- Knickersblog

ukdanae (User #38639) is the editor of Knickers, a lingerie weblog. I have actually never seen a lingerie weblog before. This one has great photos -- yes, of women in their underwear -- and a crisp clean design. The writing is informative, a little funny but not always-on-ribald. There's even a subsection of the site called "Ask Knickers" with questions about bra sizing and tracking down tough to find underwear. While the photos may be strictly speaking NSFW, Knickers is full of solid information on good underwear.

bigdumbHoosier—big eastern

bigdumbHoosier (User #2792) has a very comprehensive blog about Indiana environmental issues called big eastern. The reporting is good and the writing is also decent. He only ever made one comment at MetaFilter, that closes a thread about the bursting of the dot com bubble.

TheLastPsychiatrist—The Last Psychiatrist

TheLastPsychiatrist (User #46425) publishes a refreshing website called The Last Psychiatrist. I like many of the small essays he writes. Psychiatry, at least the many psychiatrists that I work with regularly (at a very well respected teaching hospital which prides itself on its Department of Psychiatry), suffers from both an inferiority complex and an undeserved self-assurance. Many psychiatrists don't seem to take the time to read or understand the literature central to their field; and, much worse, they frequently don't take the time to understand patients, relying on fuzzy and unproven notions about the biology of mental illness. In general, the epistemology of psychiatry is so muddled that psychiatrists don't even seem to have the conceptual tools necessary to seriously think about mental illness and mental health treatment. (There are many reasons for this muddle, and I don't think it's ill-intentioned, but that's a discussion for a different sort of blog.)

TheLastPsychiatrist's website, is quite good, even if I don't agree with everything that he writes. Sometimes his tone is a bit reductive and dismissive, but that seems to be mostly a symptom of his general frustration. His essay from July about Seroquel does a great job of describing why failing to understand a medication's mode of action means that doctors prescribe it incorrectly. His essay on what the Number Needed to Treat is and why it's important is great (here's a similar essay from Slate last year), and I quite like his longer essay on the future of psychiatry "The Massacre of the Unicorns." Although most things on the site are worth reading, his analyses of medication studies and trends in psychiatric diagnosis and prescribing are very strong.

(I saved this in draft as I was writing it, to see an actual patient for actual psychotherapy, and an essay on his site got posted to the front page.)

cstross—Charlie's Diary

cstross (User #20966) is the username of the SF writer Charlie Stross. His mefi page points to a blog that hasn't been updated in a year, but that's just because he forgot to update his profile to point to his new blog url. His Published Fiction page points to a lot of free stories on the web, and if you poke around you can get to the site for his novel Accelerando!, where you can download that whole novel for free.

I've read a bunch of Stross stories, and two of his novels. The first (Singularity Sky) I picked up off a sale rack in Brussels on a whim, and I loved reading such an excellent book about which I had known nothing.

jennydiski—Jenny Diski

jennydiski (User #56747) is a British author who has a pretty standard author's website. It's well designed and shows the many praises she has received for her eight novels and several books of non-fiction. The Recent Journalism section has a couple of book reviews to read, including one of a biography of Martha Freud, and there are a few interviews, too. It's neat that she's a Mefite.

(She also happens to live with Ian Patterson, whose translation of Finding Time Again is fabulous, and made my last reading of Proust more fun.)

woodblock100 -- woodblock.com

woodblock100 (User #53371) has one of the nicest looking user sites I've seen since I started this blog. David Bull is a woodblock printmaker living in Tokyo. His blog shows off his work (too many examples to list, but I like the scroll project and the Hanga Treasure Chest). David also has a woodblock webcam and a lengthy subsite about the progression of his work.

snofoam -- everyone loves free stuff

snofoam (User #29097) came to my attention via his amusing entry in the snake music challenge. I went to his blog Everyone Loves Free Stuff (hey, I sure do) and found it much more fun than your usual marketing and schwag linkfarm. In fact, Mark's been at it two years as of this week and posted 600 entries which is damned near one a day. Lots of neat stuff in here, dig around.

christine—maganda.org

christine (User #639) has a sweet little website called maganda. I like the design, which isn't a surprise, as she also runs Darling design & illustration. The nicest parts of her website are her link to her Flickr stream, and her intermittent and brief blog.

miss lynster—The Patron Saints of Graphic Design

miss lynster's (User #20640) site is a cute send-up of the notion of the patron saint. There are six saints represented here: Anxiete, Concepta, Exacto, Pantone, Pixela and, my favorite, Typo. The stories and pictures are well-done, and there's a cafepress store for your reliquary needs. You can even get the saints as a desktop icons for a free download.

freudianslipper—Joey Trimmer.com

freudianslipper's (User #20325) site chronicles his travails as a working actor. He does a good job of describing the joys and pains of trying to get acting gigs, from getting a call to perform in an Arthur Miller read-through, to flubbing a line at an audition.

thomas j wise—The Little Professor

I may be in love. thomas j wise's (User #1296) site, The Little Professor, is excellent and far exceeds the diminutive. Much of the blog is outside of my expertise, but it's still well-written and interesting to read. The personal touches (blogging about cats, turning me on to another great crime writer) are judiciously spaced and worth searching out. Check out this cool Victorian Halloween post; and this advice to grad student book buyers is commonsensical but good. I'm charmed by the whole extensive project. The side-bar is also fabulous.

algreer—Al Greer Imaging

algreer's (User #35289) site is the portal to his photography business. As with all such businesses, the prosaic predominates. However, his music portfolio, and especially his breakdancing portfolio, are worth a look.

mosspink—^^osspink.demystified

A combination journal and professional website, mosspinks' (User #9977, coll number!) ^^osspink looks defunct. The last journal entries were in March of 2006. The design is nice, and some of the side-barred art projects look good. A lot of the portfolio comes back 404, but I quite liked this "I will not hurl!" concept for a barf bag.

Rawhide—Covert Designs

Rawhide's (User #18465) professional site, Covert Designs. A functional and clean professional site. Anyone looking for a web designer around Charlottesville, VA? The first of what will probably be many professional sites. I like the cool graphs and graphics on his CardioVillage design. (PDF)

I almost forgot. The best thing about Rawhide's user page is this explanation of his username: "My nickname comes not from the song or TV show, but from my favorite character in Buckaroo Bonzai, the only movie you ever need see." That's so true about Buckaroo Bonzai. Why don't I only ever watch that?