SuperDuperMan
Words to live by
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Latest Entries
Today’s pens 07/23
Left to right:
Aero 51
Pel m600
Swan self-filler
Blackbird
- Posted using MobyPicture.com
But only to each other
They’re private conversations.
- Posted using MobyPicture.com
Update: it’s since been corrected. Thank God for screenshots.
Tintin & Captain Haddock
Was looking for a Capt Haddock icon for avatar purposes and ran across this. Way cool.
BBEmacs Watch Part 1000
Daring Fireball Linked List: BBEdit 9.2:
My favorite new feature is the Sleep command, which lets you quit the app while saving state. When next you launch BBEdit after sleeping, all open windows and documents are restored, including untitled documents.
I wish every app had this feature.
You’ll never guess which prominent multiplatform editor has had this feature for some time, and didn’t even need to give it the throughly stupid (as well as completely inaccurate) name “sleep.” Which editor is left as an exercise for the reader. Is BareBones just working their way through the *info* screens?
Update: desktop-mode can also be set to auto-save the desktop while you’re working. What happens if God forbid BBEmacs crashes?
Work the samovar
Adventure Advice | Outside Online:
If the samovar won’t draw, some old guys know to take an old boot with flexible uppers and fit the top over the samovar chimney and work the boot up and down like a bellows to encourage the fire. They believe, correctly, that you can’t have too much hot tea or coffee when the place you’re in is really cold. Needing their wits about them, they drink alcohol only in moderation, and never on an empty stomach (rules often more honored, as they say, in the breach). They know it’s generally a good idea to bring presents, slather on the sunblock, set the parking brake, swallow three witty remarks unspoken for every one they say, keep a life jacket handy, check for ticks, make sure a squirrel is dead before picking it up, and never let a blister go all the way to the bone, because then it can take months to heal. Old guys recall that left makes loose and right makes tight. They phone home. They understand that if they don’t, and then they return, and they find their spouse out of sorts, and they ask what’s going on, and their spouse says, “All right, if you really want to know—” they won’t really want to know.”
Nice. Carry a knife, too.
Compare and contrast, dude.
The Royal Tenenbaums and Infinite Jest:
Rather than provide a close reading of all 1,079 pages of Infinite Jest, I will look here only at those sections pertaining to the mirror-image of the Tenenbaum family, mostly the Incandenza family.
Is this the only term paper you have for sale? Admittedly, not by Kottke, but the writing is stilted and awkward.
Some deal, Amazon
From an Amazon “deal” in my inbox this morning:
So the Mac version of PShop Elms costs more? The version that’s a full point behind the Windows release? How can I resist. Not. Almost makes me want to buy the PC version and run it in VMWare Fusion. But then you have to deal with Windows “UI.”
Head smack interfaces
WARNING: A long, rambly exploration of the state of computing with no real conclusion…:
It takes two seconds to learn pinch-to-zoom, but if you handed an iPhone to someone who had never seen one and said “zoom in on this web page”, they’d have no clue how to do it. They would likely not even know it was possible to zoom unless you had told them.
However, once you showed them, it would immediately seem natural, and it’s hard to conceive of a more efficient way to perform zooming with human hands. Like the Newton’s “new note” separator, it provides functionality with no screen space required for controls, and provides a tactility that is extremely gratifying at what must be a very low level of the brain.
The benefit of pinch-to-zoom over previous zooming methods is so immediately apparent that it justifies the learning curve. That the learning curve is extremely small also helps. I find it fascinating that a huge portion of iPhone usability training is done via the TV ads, pre-sale. They’re both marketing and instruction.
Very interesting article and a good riposte to the idea that interfaces always need to be immediately and completely obvious-sometimes also called the “naive user” interface. Interfaces need to be consistent, progressively rewarding, and easy to discover. Doesn’t need to be completely called out from first glance, but does want to be apparent rather than obscured.
We have been trying to strike a balance at work between the need to describe and desire to not make a brochureware site. We offer a great number of resources and are working on presenting them clearly while not overwhelming the user. I’m going to send the article around. Read it.
(Via ~stevenf.)
Herbin Green Ink Review
I have a very belated St Patricks Day review of J. Herbin Vert Empire and Vert Olive inks up at FPN.