Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Is Apple “sabotaging” an open standard for digital books?
In response to an internal thread on this article…
I’m right there with folks crying foul when Apple does wrong, but I don’t buy this one. Apple’s “bastardization” of the ePub format helps push the format forward, just like Opera and Mozilla’s modifications to HTML yielded HTML 5, Microsoft’s modifications led to OpenXML and practically everybody’s Wi-Fi implementations led to 802.11n. I’m not saying it’s on as grand a scope as that, but I do think it’s a small part of that same sort of momentum. All Apple did was add some extra CSS tricks that weren’t present in the ePub standard and then tweaked the MIME type so the files identify themselves as being slightly different than standard ePub files. If nobody built on top of open standards like this, then nobody would use open standards because they would develop uselessly slowly.
And while e-ink displays are indeed better for reading than LCD’s, I take issue with the headaches-because-of-refresh claim. There is no refresh on LCD’s, just per-pixel changes when the image changes. Tablet LCD’s are the same as your desktop display, which folks read on all day long without issue.
I still prefer a tree-killing paper book to both, though!
A Eulogy for the Visionaries
The computer arts and sciences lost another visionary with the recent passing of John McCarthy. Indeed this year seems cursed for the field, with the passing of Dennis Ritchie, father of the C programming language and the operating system UNIX, and Steve Jobs, whose aesthetic and ideological influence on computers drastically reshaped several markets in his too short life.
The effect of these visionaries on how we use computers cannot be overstated. While we encounter the works of great inventors, thinkers, and intellectuals on a daily basis, it is uncommon to have so many of them still alive, as is true with computers. The fact that we are only now losing these people to time speaks to how young this field is, and how quickly it enveloped the world.
I can only imagine that this is what it felt like to be alive in the early part of the last century, when now-legendary people like Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Enrico Fermi, and Werner Heisenberg greatly advanced the study of physics, producing the time honored works that they are now famous for. Singularly their names command respect, but the thought of them working side by side as contemporaries is truly awe-inspiring.
Not to be presumptuous of how history will remember our own times, but I’d wager that school children a century from now will read of the golden era of personal computing and how we created the first public world wide network. To them, a world without such advances would seem inconceivable, but we ourselves are witness to the times and people that pushed the state of the art. I am simply glad to be along for the ride.
– Ivan Wright, Server Engineer
A. Piccard, E. Henriot, P. Ehrenfest, Ed. Herzen, Th. De Donder, E. Schrödinger, J.E. Verschaffelt, W. Pauli,W. Heisenberg, R.H. Fowler, L. Brillouin;
P. Debye, M. Knudsen, W.L. Bragg, H.A. Kramers, P.A.M. Dirac, A.H. Compton, L. de Broglie, M. Born, N. Bohr;
I. Langmuir, M. Planck, M. Curie, H.A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, P. Langevin, Ch. E. Guye, C.T.R. Wilson, O.W. Richardson
(Photo Source: bit.ly/sQ2Eph)
Spotlight: Kurtis combines his love of soccer and ink
UX designer Kurtis Powers moonlights as an executive soccer fan. As head of Arsenal America’s NYC branch, he organizes events for 400 active supporters around the city.
This past weekend Kurtis organized a day of “Gooner” ink at Three Kings Tattoo that left over 140 people with AFC tattoos. At least 10 people received their first tattoo that day. Now that’s dedication!
See Complex Magazine’s coverage of the event:
http://www.complex.com/art-design/2011/10/alex-mcwatt-inks-125-years-of-tradition-at-arsenal-tattoo-event