July 2009
Acts of Volition Radio: Session 34
Posted by on Friday, July 31, 2009 in - 12 comments
A mid-summer session of Acts of Volition Radio full of eleven great songs from Polaris Music Prize winners, nominees, and others. • Acts of Volition Radio: Session 34 (61MB Ogg Vorbis) (or 93.6MB MP3) • Eleven great songs -. Recorded Sunday, July 26, 2009 by Steven Garrity. Run time: 61min …
“my challenge as a parent…”
Posted by on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - 2 comments
““my challenge as a parent with the Internet isn't keeping my son away from porn or violence, it's keeping him away from capitalism”” • ― Peter Rukavina, July 21, 2009
The Emperor’s New Close
Posted by on Monday, July 20, 2009 in - 5 comments
A quick tip for those designing web interfaces with an “X” icon for a “Close” element. Rather than the letter “x” (or capital “X”), use the multiplication (U+2715) or heavy multiplication (U+2715) symbols. • There’s no semantic advantage as neither the letter X nor the ✕ symbol have the …
Out of Reach
Posted by on Friday, July 17, 2009
This photo of the daughter of a dead US soldier reaching for him in his casket is one of the saddest I’ve ever seen.
Firefox at the State Department
Posted by on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 in - 1 comment
In what sounds like the worst meeting ever, the US State Department’s Town Hall Meeting to Announce the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) (that’s really what it’s called), a State Department staff member asked this question: • “Can you please let the staff use an alternative … read more »
Fashion Advice for Nerds
Posted by on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 3 comments
As an occasional nerd, I’ve learned a fashion tip over the years that would have served me well had I learned it earlier in life. • “Wear clothes that fit.” • It may seem obvious, but it wasn’t to me. When something is too small, it's obvious - it's tight, uncomfortable, or you can’t even fit …
The Creepy Canyon
Posted by on Friday, July 10, 2009 in - 1 comment
John Gruber suggests that the common Linux desktop interfaces of Gnome and KDE fall into the uncanny valley - similar enough to Windows for you to expect similar behaviour, but different enough to be problematic: • “By establishing a conceptual framework that mimicks Windows, they can never …
United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s guitar, so he wrote a song and filmed a video about it called United Breaks Guitars.
Posted by on Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Technology Freedom in Metaphor
Posted by on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 in - 18 comments
Twitter • If Twitter were a phone company, you could only call people who used the same phone company as you. • iPhone • If the iPhone were a desktop computer, you could only install applications approved by Microsoft (or Apple). • DVD • If DVDs were books, you couldn’t read a book from …
Garrity’s Law of Icon Metaphors
Posted by on Monday, July 6, 2009 in - 2 comments
A rule of thumb I try to use when looking for visual metaphors for actions or elements in an interface: • “If an element does not have an obvious visual metaphor, then it should not have an icon.” • I'm also working on a law that governs how to name laws after oneself, but I don't have a good …