Speak UpA Former Division of UnderConsideration
The Archives, August 2002 – April 2009
advertise @ underconsideration
---Click here for full archive list or browse below
  
Quipsologies
~ Vol. 25 ~

In this edition of too-hot-and-muggy-to-resume of Quipsologies, the following:

~ M. KINGSLEY ~

Michigan J. Frog, age 49, has croaked.

~

On the strategy of @ and * in avoiding gender.

~

“Are we not yet adult enough as a culture to acknowledge that the arts are not for everyone, and that bad art is worse than no art at all; and that good or bad, art’s exclusive function is to entertain, not to improve or nourish or console, simply entertain. And in this, Moby Dick or Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” are not different than the movie Cat in the Hat or Britney Spears wiggling her behind on stage; the former being more complexly entertaining and satisfying, but only for those who can appreciate the difference, and they are the minority.”

— August Kleinzahler on Garrison Keillor [via NYTimes]

~

Mr. Sam Potts writes about the geekiest item of last week:

“I am assuming these are all thermography, but what’s up with Kirk only getting one color while Spock and Kang get two? Must’ve been because they blew the budget spot-glossing the Federation’s annual report that year.” [Via the clusterlink highway: Kottke; from Boing Boing; from Christophe in Spain]

~

After the Civil War, Timothy O’Sullivan made a photographic survey of the American West for the U.S. government — important images in the history of photography. In 1977, Mark Klett, Ellen Manchester, JoAnn Verburg and a team of others “rephotographed” O’Sullivan’s work in a project known as Second View; locating the sites of the original images and marking their passage in time. Recently Klett, writer Rebecca Solnit and photographer/designer Byron Wolfe have re-rephotographed some O’Sullivan sites (along with Eadweard Muybridge, Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins and Edward Weston locations) for a Third View. Selections from this series are currently on exhibit at the University of California’s Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Theater Gallery). Yosemite In Time runs August 10-December 23, 2005.

~

Currently displayed at three different locations in Prague:
Czech Photography of the 20th Century

~ JASON A. TSELENTIS ~

Paula Scher’s Make It Bigger has been released in paperback with a burst on the cover proclaiming it “NOW EVEN CHEAPER” [capital emphasis appears on book].

~

Expect the usage of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to drop even further. The latest chatter suggests that version 7 will not meet the compliance standards set in a test known as Acid2. Although the browser does not meet these standards at present, Microsoft officials feel they will in due time. [Techworld]

~

The driver who cares about corporate identity will love the Rolls-Royce 100 EX Centenary. The RR logo on the wheels has a device built in to keep the mark readable at all times instead of spinning into a blur like most.

~ ARMIN ~

One of the few web sites devoted to Saul Bass’ work: Not Coming focuses on his film titles. [Via Kottke.org]

~

If you care to hear me blather on other web sites that are not Speak Up, feel free to read the following interview by Justin Goodlett. [Via Self-promotion]

~ BRYONY ~

The New Yorker to try something new: One advertiser, many pages. The first one to do this will be Target with illustrations by Milton Glaser, Robert Risko, Ruben Toledo and many others.

Maintained through our ADV @ UnderConsideration Program
ENTRY DETAILS
ARCHIVE ID 2392 FILED UNDER Miscellaneous
PUBLISHED ON Aug.15.2005 BY The Speak Up Authors
WITH COMMENTS
Comments
Justin Goodlett’s comment is:

Armin -

Thanks much for the link and for answering my questions!

On Aug.15.2005 at 09:55 AM
Mr.Frankie L’s comment is:

Target is to design,

what the Container Corporation was,

back in the 1950s/1960s.

On Aug.15.2005 at 10:36 AM
Su’s comment is:

People continue to make way too much of the Acid2 test. IE's browser share will probably drop more as a result of Opera no longer defaulting to identify as Internet Explorer(A ridiculous act Opera was called on after repeatedly whining about their share being misrepresented. Well, duh.) than because of it not passing Acid2. And it's not chatter: The IE7 team publicly stated the browser will not pass weeks ago, and gave a fairly detailed explanation as to why and why it's not that big a deal.

The first paragraph of the Techworld article is grossly misleading. "Will not be fully compliant..."(Um...with what?) has absolutely nothing to do with Acid2. They specifically said so. No browser is currently fully-compliant(Yes, "with what?" and let's never mind the "they're not standards, they're recommendartions" retort.) The problem here is people fixating on their pet thing that they want browsers to be compliant with.

Acid2 is a deeply technical test(as in technicality: "We do not envision or recommend that normal Web pages should be written this way, but it is appropriate for a test page.") that was never intended to be anything remotely like a real-world example. While there are some immediately important bits, there are good chunks of it that apply to you about as directly as particle physics.

On Aug.15.2005 at 12:13 PM
m. kingsley’s comment is:

Let it be known that I hereby claim authorship of the word "clusterlink".

Thank you.

On Aug.15.2005 at 01:22 PM
Kyle Hildebrant’s comment is:

Su,

Thanks for that insight.

On Aug.15.2005 at 01:37 PM
Darrel’s comment is:

I like the @ = a/o

Too bad that's not as easy to implement in english.

On Aug.15.2005 at 05:14 PM
Tselentis’s comment is:

Well said, Su. The Acid2 test is comprehensive, and nearly impossible to hit a 100% score on. That said, it's just comical how much attention IE is getting because of Microsoft's past experience with compliance issues. While I don't expect them to clean up the browser so it meets the Acid2 standards, I would like to see them be a little more progressive in how their browser operates. At present it's the worst performer on the Mac end, furthermore it's a shame that XP users don't realize they have a choice. Mac users seem better informed about the browsers they can choose from. Most of the designers and programmers I know insist on Firefox or another Mozilla-based app.

It's an interesting study in brand loyalty—if you can call it such a thing. IE owns the browser market. But why? Because most users don't have a choice and aren't educated. And on the Mac side? Take a look. Safari and IE are installed (probably dating back to the agreement betweenn Gates and Jobs in the 90s).

On Aug.15.2005 at 10:36 PM
Su’s comment is:

Jason: "At present it's the worst performer on the Mac end"

It's officially dead in terms of development; happened a little after Safari was released, and it no longer ships installed as of Tiger. From what I can tell, developers are dropping support for it unless specifically requested. It does well enough in general that it's usually okay as long as you're not doing any DHTML stuff, which it always kinda sucked at.

On Aug.16.2005 at 12:48 AM
Darrel’s comment is:

IE Mac shouldn't be on your computer if you are running OSX. ;o)

As for IE marketshare, that won't be affected at all. Marketshare really has nothing to do with standards compliance.

IE7 *will* have a lot of major CSS issues fixed, however, so it will be an immense improvement. Alas, it'll be years before web developers see much benefit from it, as the legacy IEs will be around for some time.

They haven't been able to fix all the CSS issues because they've been desperately trying to fix all the security flaws. *sigh*

On Aug.16.2005 at 10:37 AM
Armin’s comment is:

For more on Byony's mention of Target ads in The New Yorker: Michael B. is on the case.

On Aug.16.2005 at 11:12 AM
m. kingsley’s comment is:

> Michael B. is on the case .

Yes, and the comments link to a site which links back to his post —

ergo: a nascent clusterlink. ;)

On Aug.17.2005 at 04:03 AM
Patrick’s comment is:

>I like the @ = a/o. Too bad that's not as easy to implement in english

While I applaud the the ingenuity behind these typographical solutions to the communications issue of gender, I wish the language could adapt a bit more, rather than the typing. Fortunately, in English, our nouns - such as the example of "students" - are not gender-specific. And for the other example of the gender-specific "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" there are plenty of non-gendered synonyms that can be used should one desire, such as partner, lover, etc. Just takes a little creativity. There have been numerous suggested alternatives to gendered singular pronouns, but alas, none have cought on beyond sci-fi and activist communities.

On Aug.17.2005 at 05:44 PM