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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.

President Obama Comes Out Strongly Against Patent Trolls; Here Are The Details | Techdirt

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President Obama Comes Out Strongly Against Patent Trolls; Here Are The Details | Techdirt

That said, get ready for the pushback. Pharmaceutical companies, giant patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures (and some other legacy tech companies who are long past their innovation days) and a gaggle of people claiming vaguely to represent “small inventors” are about to go ballistic over these proposed changes, and will seek to block any real progress, while simultaneously looking to water down the proposals as much as possible. It’s what they did the last time, and it worked. Of course, the problem has only gotten progressively worse since then, so hopefully people realize that their complaints are really more about protecting their own chosen business models, rather than innovation as a whole.

Nice to see the President come out against patent trolling. Though it sounds like the most beneficial elements will require Congress to act. Let’s hope these efforts won’t be watered down as they wind through the sausage-makinglegislative process.

As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show‑Offs – NYTimes.com

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As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show‑Offs – NYTimes.com

It was the latest example of a trend that has been unnerving park officials from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado to Arches in Utah and Joshua Tree in California. Just as drought and rapid development have caused a rise in encounters between humans and wild animals on the edges of many American cities, the wilder side of urban life — vandalism, graffiti and litter — has found its way into the wilderness.

This is truly sad. I don’t understand this lack of respect for our public lands.

You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster — Lift and Drag — Medium

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You’re Too Cheap to Fly Faster — Lift and Drag — Medium

But there’s a big difference between this hypersonic flight and the ever faster computers that have penetrated nearly every corner of society, and now travel everywhere in pockets and purses, and even on some people’s faces. We don’t get to use the really fast airplanes. We’re actually flying slower than we were 50 years ago.

It turns out we’re just too cheap to fly faster.

Bootstrapping the Industrial Age — Editor’s Picks — Medium

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Bootstrapping the Industrial Age — Editor’s Picks — Medium

Let’s take a very sophisticated item: one web page. A web page relies on perhaps a hundred thousand other inventions, all needed for its birth and continued existence. There is no web page anywhere without the inventions of HTML code, without computer programming, without LEDs or cathode ray tubes, without solid state computer chips, without telephone lines, without long-distance signal repeaters, without electrical generators, without high-speed turbines, without stainless steel, iron smelters, and control of fire. None of these concrete inventions would exist without the elemental inventions of writing, of an alphabet, of hypertext links, of indexes, catalogs, archives, libraries and the scientific method itself. To recapitulate a web page you have to recreate all these other functions. You might as well remake modern society.