super-structure

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Autodesk recently announced they will be shipping AutoCAD 2011 for the Mac (and iOS) sometime in the next couple of months. I think this is great move for them. Perhaps this relys a bit much on some old stereotypes of Mac vs Windows users, but I see this is Autodesk’s greater push beyond their traditional users into the more “creative” roles (the implication being that artsy-fartsy types use Macs). With their establishment of their Media & Entertainment vertical in 1999 and subsequent acquisitions, particularly that of the animation platform Maya in 2005, they have become a major player in visual creative services. While AutoCAD (or any 3D CAD platform for that matter) isn’t a traditional tool of many creative types, that doesn’t mean that it won’t find some interesting applications. [0 # ]

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I took today off and spent the morning finishing the backyard swingset

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

A view of the structure which supports the dome ceiling over the lobby of the hotel which once served as the train station for Chattanooga.
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So Alan Moore says that he doesn’t even want the rights to Watchmen back after DC approaches him with a deal. So, no more Watchmen stories. Normally, I find myself always wanting more from a world so rich as that created by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. However, for some reason, I cannot imagine wanting anything else of this storyline. It stands so complete on its own, it just doesn’t need anything else. It feels as if every loose end – every last molecule of story – is completely tied down by the end. [0 # ]

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

deafmac.org on the WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs yesterday:

The “one more thing” from Steve Jobs was something we all expected – video calling on the iPhone 4. What was not expected was how it put American Sign Language users in the spotlight, at the very end of the FaceTime video.

Of everything in the (nearly two hour) presentation, this caught my attention the most. Most of the examples of how Apple thinks iPhone 4 owners will use FaceTime were everything you’d expect (except for that; you do that that on your own time). However, showing a conversation taking place over the phone in ASL was a moving way to showcase how this phone can really do something no other can.

Will the iPhone 4 be the first cell phone that supports communication for the hearing impaired with no configuration or third-party applications?
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

This presentation by Matthew Ellison [Goog docs] given at last year’s Australasian Online Documentation and Content Conference (AODC 2009) has some excellent points on how to craft online help for context sensitive calls. This is something Bentley uses (a lot) and I’m trying to catch up on. There are really a lot of excellent points in these slides. I believe that even if you aren’t employing context-sensitive help, structuring your help as though you were is just as likely to get your users to their answers faster.
Also, the slide in this photo (from the same conference) made me laugh out loud (literally, not in a LOL sort of way).
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USA Today‘s Dennis Cauchon:
Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

“The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts,” says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Who was in charge when the country had its last budget surplus? Bill Clinton (D). Who was in charge when it (quickly) ended and we reached the highest deficit in history? George W. Bush (R). Who is in charge now that we have the lowest taxes in six decades? Barack Obama (D).

Who nearly bankrupt the Commonwealth of Virginia with spending? A long line of Republican governors. Who slashed spending and got the state back in the black? Mark Warner (D).

So do we all understand the notion of ‘tax and spend liberal’ is a boogeyman? I sure hope so. (via Gruber)
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

As a liberal who grew up with, works with, and lives with great people who are conservatives, this piece by the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, Jr. speaks volumes about how I feel about them. Which is that conservative voices are an important party of a progressive society. Unfortunately, as Dionne points out, we haven’t seen that kind of conservative in the past year when discussing the current administration or health care reform:
Many who call themselves conservatives propose to cast aside even government programs that have stood the test of time. They seem to imagine a world in which government withers away, a phrase that comes from Friedrich Engels, not Buckley. Or they tie themselves up in unruly contradictions, declaring simultaneously that they are dead-set against government-run health care and passionate defenders of Medicare.

And while modern conservatism has usually supported the market against the state, its oldest and most durable brand understood that the market was an imperfect instrument. True conservatives may give “two cheers for capitalism,” as Irving Kristol put it in the title of one of his books, but never three.
The world and this country desperately needs both liberals and conservatives, but those who truly champion those values and can peacefully and constructively reach a compromise. [1 # ]

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Yesterday, Canon announced they were acquiring the generic top level domain .canon. I predict as this practice becomes more commonplace, it is going to result in a web-browser security nightmare. There are already plenty of people who don’t understand how to read a web address to comprehend if they are actually at the site they think they are. This is going to open up a whole new world to shady folks who use confusion and social engineering to pull off all sorts of bad things. [0 # ]

Monday, March 8, 2010

I don’t have a really good solution to what Ars Technica’s Ken Fisher describes as devastating to websites (ad funded sites, anyway). However, I don’t use ad blockers myself. I’m a big fan of ad-supported, freemium versions of software and sites, and it’s my way of supporting those which I am not willing to out-right pay for. It’s not that I don’t know now to install or use these, I just choose not to. Frankly, when a site, application, or even a television program offers relevant ads, I’m often thankful to have seen them. I subscribe to the idea that effective advertising is just seen as information, not a sell. [0 # ]