Monthly Archives: June 2013

The Space Between the Notes | Jason Santa Maria

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The Space Between the Notes | Jason Santa Maria

Jason Santa Maria, looking forward to the expected announcement of iOS 7 next week, discusses skeuomorphism and flat design.

Instead, skeuomorphism is a mode of design and a metaphor for function. It’s a spectrum, not a binary between being either “skeuomorphic” or “not skeuomorphic.” This is helpful, since interface design is rarely about black-or-white scenarios. Good interfaces blend the most useful and appropriate pieces along the spectrum, allowing users to build on the familiarity they have with other objects and experiences. It’s absolutely true that minimalist designs can declutter interfaces, which can help solve some interaction and usability problems. But the lack of clutter itself is not the innovation; it’s still the veneer. If innovation does happen, it’s usually in the ideas, language, and interactions that lie beneath that exterior.

(via Shawn Blanc)

First Wave at Omaha Beach – S. L. A. Marshall

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First Wave at Omaha Beach – S. L. A. Marshall

S. L. A. Marshall was a combat historian during World War II. This essay is taken from his notes of the Normandy invasion:

Unlike what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.

This fluke of history is doubly ironic since no other decisive battle has ever been so thoroughly reported for the official record. While the troops were still fighting in Normandy, what had happened to each unit in the landing had become known through the eyewitness testimony of all survivors. It was this research by the field historians which first determined where each company had hit the beach and by what route it had moved inland. Owing to the fact that every unit save one had been mislanded, it took this work to show the troops where they had fought.

How they fought and what they suffered were also determined in detail during the field research. As published today, the map data showing where the troops came ashore check exactly with the work done in the field; but the accompanying narrative describing their ordeal is a sanitized version of the original field notes.

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Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Order of the Day — June 6, 1944
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Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Maurice Sendak (via Three Books a Night: Maurice Sendak And Fan Mail)
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The White House is defending the practice of gathering telephone records from American citizens while neither confirming nor denying a report that the National Security Agency is collecting records from Verizon customers.

NBC

File under newspeak.

The Launch is Dead

cameronmoll:

Kelly Sutton:

Launches … are a poor representation of how great software today is built. It’s a holdover from the days of boxed software, where supply chains had to be managed and masters golded. The same that is true then is still true now: great software is the result of continuous refinement. The only thing different today are the release schedules.

Software today is developed on a continuum. The discrete measure of software progress is a commit.

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It’s not that a G rating gets in the way of making money. Pixar-Disney has figured out the formula. They’ve had the top-ranked G-rated film every year but one in the past decade — from Ratatouille and Wall-E to The Princess and the Frog and Tangled.

But other studios aiming at kids’ audiences have done just as well, if not better, without the G. Every one of the big animated franchises not made by Pixar-Disney is rated PG — including Despicable Me, Ice Age, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar. And Pixar goes there, too — with the likes of The Incredibles, Brave and Up.

G may still mean suitable for general audiences, but parents seem to have decided it means suitable for babies. And that means even animation is trending away from the G.

When ‘G’ Movies Are For Kids, Do Kids Avoid ‘G’ Movies? : Monkey See : NPR (via npr)