As a visual designer, I have to disagree. Trying to work on an iPad is a complete waste of time. Sketching/prototyping by hand is orders of magnitude faster than on an iPad, and it wouldn't even be worth it to try to produce anything resembling deliverable work. The required depth of interaction, breadth of options, and fine-grain control just isn't there.
For musicians, I think it's a different story because the iPad usually augments an existing setup; it can be integrated with other devices to fill a specific need that can be solved by a touch interface into highly customized software. In this case, the iPad is actually allowing totally new interaction that wasn't possible before. This is much more useful than the visual designer's case, where previously established modes of interaction are simulated in an interface they weren't designed for.
I, and quite a few colleagues, find it really good for ideation, and not too shabby for finished work. David Hockney's recent exhibition at the Royal Academy featured iPads heavily. Anecdotal, perhaps. My point was that to say that iPads are just for consumption is wrong.
So much is dependent on the app. It's hard to discuss the iPad without tacitly including the entire associated software ecosystem (without really being conscious of the scope of that oversight).
I agree with your main point, and I have no doubt that as the medium continues to expand, the quality of the software and interaction will also grow.
Just curious, what visual design apps are you using / would you recommend?
Paper from FiftyThree[1] is very good. Omnigraffle is a useful tool to, but pricey. Photoshop for ipad looks promising too. Matt Gemmell recently wrote a blog post about using the iPad from a UX designers point of view[2].
>As a visual designer, I have to disagree. Trying to work on an iPad is a complete waste of time. Sketching/prototyping by hand is orders of magnitude faster than on an iPad, and it wouldn't even be worth it to try to produce anything resembling deliverable work.
YMMV. Other's have no such problems. Not to mention that it can also do wire-framing, it has tons of apps for professional photographers when combined with the camera connection kit (from going through your shoot to check for keepers and apply keywords, to tethered shooting), and when painting or sketching you can export your graphics work in PDF, PNG, layered Tiff and other formats to finish off on your Mac.
>For musicians, I think it's a different story because the iPad usually augments an existing setup
Same thing can be for visual designers/illustrators/information architects/writers etc whatever. Parent said it can be used for creation, not that you have to ONLY use that from zero to finished output.
No, I just said that ONE of his points is YMMV-kind-of-correct. What I'm saying overall is that this doesn't make working with the iPad a "complete waste of time" --it just makes it complementary. Not to mention that people have created works entirely on the iPad too (like several "New Yorker" cover paintings).
I also address this in an other part of my response: "Parent said it can be used for creation, not that you have to ONLY use that from zero to finished output."
Just saw an awesome documentary on Anonymous at the Slamdance Film Festival (Sundance's indie younger sibling). Interesting and well made. Would recommend it for anyone who is interested in Anonymous/Hacktivism.
Initially, I also thought the spiders were a bit too "human"... however, in thinking about the way Vinge portrays them, it was important for me to realize there's a point later in the story where he reveals that the focused translators are heavily anthropomorphizing everything they relate to the rest of the crew. I think this is a really strong suggestion that everything told from the point-of-view of the spiders is passing through the same narrator. There's a point where he specifically mentions that the translators seem to know about events and conversations they shouldn't, and we can infer this is because they've been covertly communicating with the Underhill for a long time and he's given them the back-story.
Also important, I think, is that a huge contributing factor to events and technologies developing similarly to those of human civilization, is that the humans were actively manipulating information and events on the planet from the moment they arrived.
I agree with you about Stephenson being fantastic; his books make you think. While I've enjoyed what I've read from Vinge, in some sense it feels much closer to the fantasy genre.
I'm curious as to what folks here thought of The Baroque Cycle. I loved Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Anathem... but Quicksilver seemed to drag, and I didn't have the heart to pick up the next one in the series.
> I think this is a really strong suggestion that everything told from the point-of-view of the spiders is passing through the same narrator.
This is explicitly hinted at when, uh, Vinh finds papers in Trixia's room that are identical to the first chapter from the point of view of the spiders. The point is that everything written about the spiders/from their perspective is actually her "novelization" of what happened.
There are at least three more different hints about the translators than you've mentioned -- Vinge is so great at embedding little insight-bombs in the narrative, like Godel, Escher, Bach. In fact the whole translation subtheme strongly reminded me of another Hofstadter book, Le Ton beau de Marot.
The Baroque Cycle was among my favorite books of its years, FWIW.
I couldn't even finish Quicksilver when reading it as a book. However, the unabridged audio-book version that Audible has of the Baroque Cycle is extremely good - I love listening to these books!
No, thanks for this! I just found this image while poking around and I reposted it because I thought people would find it meaningful (every startup has to figure out its branding).
I had no idea it would go to the top of HN... Its only my second post.
No worries :) Saw this on Reddit yesterday and spent an hour looking through the rest of the posts on the blog; some interesting graphic work curated there.
Including a colophon is a fairly common practice, especially in the world of print design, when a publication has been artfully assembled and polished by a professional designer. I hardly think it's fair to use this as a point of criticism; it just means they have a designer on staff who:
a) might have a history in print design
b) knows his typography
c) was thinking about the culture of the business when making design decisions
It's no mistake that all the typefaces they've chosen have long, strong histories firmly rooted in England. They are Bulmer, Baskerville, and Underground (of London underground fame - most of us have seen the old signs from the subway).
Furthermore, wccrawford's earlier assertion that their name and typeface choice has nothing to do with the business is obtuse; if you check out http://quid.com/team.html, you'll notice that most of the hackers involved are either from, or studied in, England, which makes their branding choices eminently appropriate in the context of their shared history.
The page is titled "the quid story". If the best you can do there is some branding drivel, then that's a huge red flag. The quid story should tell us something about the company, what it's goals are, why it was started. Not why some branding consultant chose a god damn font.
These guys are killing it. A variety of quality game content, bundled, cheap, and well marketed on the web, via platforms like steam and email (I open their newsletter every time it shows up, which says something about how they connected with me as a customer). Just when I was feeling that pc gaming was dead, this kind of distribution (steam especially) is reinvigorating the platform in a way that makes a lot of business sense.
Another great example: steam shows me a game that's 18 months old for 10% of the original retail price, I buy it on their platform and instantly download/install it on a whim and in one step, and I'm a happy customer. I never would have purchased it if they hadn't dumped it in my lap... but when I can get at least a few hours of (perhaps questionably good?) entertainment and new gaming experiences for the price of a pint or two of micro, that B-game I wouldn't otherwise have purchased starts to look more attractive.
