Blayne Sucks

Unless you’ve been living under a rock on another planet in a parallel universe, you know by now that LeBron James will be playing basketball for the Miami Heat next year. The story is on the cover of basically every newspaper (Favorite: The Cleveland Plain Dealer). ESPN did an hour-long special for the announcement, but I really wasn’t all that interested. The NBA is less fun to watch than college basketball, and since the Pacers weren’t even in the LeBron sweepstakes, I was even less interested. For me the most interesting part of this story is how LeBron James’ decision has devolved into a debate about typography.

One person who probably watched the announcement is Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron’s former team. He took the news particularly hard and wrote an epic letter expressing his feelings. The letter is a study in how to take the low road. It’s basically a psycho ex-girlfriend letter. More importantly, it’s written entirely in Comic Sans, a surprisingly hot trending topic on Twitter.

When I first read the letter, I thought it was fake entirely because of the font choice. However, the letter is hosted on NBA.com and it’s been covered by ESPN. Thus, it has to be a legitimate letter. Of course, the big question is why did Gilbert choose Comic Sans? It’s such a silly font to use for such an important, multi-million dollar topic. Further, many type designers hate Comic Sans and wish it could be uninvented. There’s even a website about this: Ban Comic Sans.

Vincent Connare, the designer of the Comic Sans typeface, has been giving radio interviews about the choice. When asked about why he though Gilbert picked Comic Sans, Connare said, “You don’t know if he’s being sarcastic, if he’s being angry, or if he didn’t even think about it.” He does think the font choice could work for this kind of letter because it epitomizes the lack of seriousness that the Cavs have for LeBron James now.

I guess I’m left kind of dumbfounded. I sort of thought that Comic Sans on the Internet had gone the way of the blink tag. Let’s hope this doesn’t resurrect it.

Amazon.com recently acquired woot.com. Normally, company acquisitions result in rather mundane press releases. That did not happen this time. Woot’s CEO wrote an absolutely hysterical post about the acquisition on the woot blog. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth reading.

Woot’s blog post was quoted by the Associated Press, which is where things get even more interesting. The Associated Press don’t seem to understand the world they live in. For example, they have been trying to control “the bloggers,” which is about as impossible as it sounds. One of their proposed methods to control bloggers was to charge them for quoting AP stories. After all, they have the copyright, right?

Woot decided that turnabout was fair play. Since the AP charges $17.50 for quoting up to 50 words and since the AP quoted Woot’s blog post liberally, Woot wants their $17.50. (Note: this link is part of Woot’s daily deal. I’ll update the link here when it hits the archives in case you’re not reading this post on the day it was posted.) Hey, if you’re going to ask people to ignore Fair Use, you should expect that people will ask you to do the same. I hope the AP actually pays up here. It would be a great mea culpa.

I have two fantastic political ads to share. The first is fake, but it’s frighteningly real. The only thing missing is the mandated “I’m so-and-so, and I support this message” quote.

(via Spaf and Political Wire)

The second is a real ad that is, well, also frighteningly real. And extremely funny. Enjoy!

(via Daring Fireball and HuffPo)

I know this is a rather popular TED Talk that has gotten a lot of links online since John Wooden’s death ten days ago. I am getting it from Michael Graham at Modern Pensées, who got it from The Evangelical Outpost, who probably got it from somewhere else. Regardless, John Wooden was an unbelievable coach, teacher, and Boilermaker. This is a must watch. It’s only about 18 minutes long, so you should be able to fit it in somewhere today.

If you haven’t seen OK Go’s latest video, it’s an absolute must-see. I tweeted about this when it was somewhat newer, and it holds up as entertaining many viewings later.

I’m posting about the video now because I just stumbled upon an interview with some of the folks that designed the contraption. It turns out that three of them work for NASA JPL:

• Mike Pauken, Ph.D., a senior thermal systems engineer
• Chris Becker, a graduate student at the Art Center College of Design and a JPL intern
• Heather Knight, a former JPL engineering associate (instrumentation and robotics) who is now preparing to start work on a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University
• Eldar Noe Dobrea, Ph.D., a planetary scientist working to study landing sites for the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory.

The interview is short and worth reading.

It’s probably not a stretch to imagine that few people are interested in watching a movie about cryptography. Cryptography isn’t exactly a sexy topic in pop culture, but then again almost every element of World War 2 except cryptography has its own movie. This is somewhat ironic given the huge number of movies set in World War 2 and the incredible importance of cryptography during the war. Enigma is an attempt at a cryptography movie set in World War 2, and I had the opportunity of watching it this past weekend.

Engima is a mixed bag of incredible accuracy and complete fantasy. Perhaps the best example of this is the setting. Although Enigma is set in Bletchley Park, which is where Enigma was actually broken during the war, they don’t even use the actual Bletchley Park Mansion in the film. Almost the entire plot is fictional, but the details about the Enigma machines themselves are extremely accurate. There are a couple of scenes that quickly explain the purpose, construction, and use of the Enigma machines in a concise and easily understandable manner. If you’ve ever tried to do this, you probably know that isn’t easy. The depictions of the huts, bombe, and other elements of Bletchley Park were similarly well done. For example, the windows were shuttered at night to ensure that Bletchley Park wasn’t visible to the Germans from the air. The movie uses this during an excellent depiction of an all-nighter at Bletchley Park.

The main character, Tom Jericho, is based on a real person, Alan Turing. In the movie Tom’s life is turned upside down by a romantic relationship with a Claire, who disappears without a trace. Tom spends most of the movie trying to figure out what happened to Claire, and he ends up falling in love with his primary collaborator in the search. I hesitate to give away much more than that because the movie is primarily a mystery involving spies, codes, and secret love. It’s a fun little movie if you like guessing at what really happened.

Tom’s real-life counterpart, Alan Turing, proposed to Joan Clarke while at Bletchley Park despite being a homosexual. Turing was also famously eccentric. For example, he was an avid runner, but he would sprint anywhere he needed to be regardless of the distance or circumstances. He even ran the 40 miles to London from time to time. As you might imagine, this doesn’t always create a socially pleasant appearance. Alan spent the rest of his (short) life struggling with society’s treatment of his homosexuality. He committed suicide at age 41 in a strange and ambiguous fashion that might best be described in film.

Although I really enjoyed Enigma, it mostly left me thinking that someone desperately needs to make a movie about what really happened at Bletchley Park. So much has basically been forgotten or overlooked simply because it is so hard to describe to folks who aren’t mathematically inclined. There’s a common cliché in science fiction films where a geeky guy does some indescribably hard fictional math and saves the day. This usually occupies a tiny slice of the films in between insane computer generated fight scenes. This cliché applies to World War 2 films with two important exceptions. First, the cryptographers at Bletchley Park actually solved some incredibly hard problems. Like, it really, truly happened, and it actually saved the day. Second, World War 2 movies usually don’t even give Bletchley Park a tiny slice of the film in between computer generated fight scenes! As a result, pop culture is ignorant of one of the greatest stories of World War 2.

In short, if you’re interested in a fun, fictional mystery or if you enjoy cryptography at all, then Enigma is for you. However, if you’re looking for a movie that will accurately represent the reality of Bletchley Park’s role in World War 2, then you’re going to have to make it yourself. I recommend starting with some sort of combination of A Beautiful Mind and Saving Private Ryan.

Jeanette DeMain, over on Salon.com, has taken it upon herself to investigate the Amazon.com reviews of classic works of literature. Unsurprisingly, many of them were given horrible one-star reviews. Her thoughts on her findings:

I really have to wonder about these folks. Are they disgruntled students? Trolls? Malcontents who have nothing better to do? Do they think they are tilting at windmills and bravely swimming against the tide of conformity by warning others not to read texts that are universally acknowledged as classics? (In which case I might recommend that they read Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” but then I’d be afraid to see their reviews of it.)

The more of these that I read, the more I became desperate to find at least one book that would be impervious to the one-star brigade.

She provides several examples in her article. They are quite entertaining if you enjoy the irony of the barely literate trashing generally well-respected works of literature.

Interestingly, a one-star Amazon.com review plays an important role in Surveillance, which I recently reviewed. Lucy, one of the main characters, uses a one-star Amazon.com review as a critical part of her analysis of Augie’s memoir, which is a central element of the plot. Heck, Amazon.com reviews played a role in my review of Surveillance. Thus, the coincidental timing of DeMain’s article amused me.

Beyond entertainment, I have begun wondering about the role of book reviews. I have written numerous reviews for this blog, but I haven’t really considered what role they play. How do book reviews affect the way we think about books? Or the way we choose what to read? Authors don’t really have any control over these things. I had never heard of Giants in the Earth until Allison chose it as her April Great American Novel. She hadn’t heard of it until it was recommended by her father. As a computer scientist, I know that recommendation systems are active areas of research, and I may survey this a bit more after the Spring semester is over. I’m sure if I had studied literature in college this would have given me a much different perspective. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Surveillance by Jonathan Raban is a book that I wasn’t planning on reading. I saw it at Von’s Books last week when I was at Purdue for the CERIAS Symposium. I have a list of books that I look for at used book stores, but Surveillance wasn’t on the list. I saw it on the shelf and thought, “Why not give it a chance?” I’m glad I did because it is an excellent book.

Raban’s writing is fluid and quite fun to read despite the political content, which might otherwise be dense and evoke unthinking knee-jerk reactions. He used a third-person limited omniscient viewpoint throughout the book, but did so in a way that felt very close to the characters. The narrator almost sympathizes with each character in a completely genuine fashion. In addition, Raban’s colorful phrasing made the story vibrant and engaging. His writing style stood out to me as exceptional, which is rather hard to do with fiction.

The story follows five characters as they live their lives in a highly charged political atmosphere. Tad is a HIV-positive homosexual actor who is angry with the government’s recently enacted policies aimed at preventing terrorism. Augie is a Holocaust survivor, professor, and author of a popular memoir of his boyhood years in a concentration camp. Lucy is a freelance writer working on a piece about Augie’s book. Alida is Lucy’s 11-year-old daughter, who loves math and is trying to make sense of the world around her. Charles Lee is a Chinese businessman and owner of several parking lots and the apartment building in which Lucy and Tad live.

The primary plot of the book is Lucy’s investigative reporting of Augie and his memoir. Augie’s memoir is being made into a movie, and little is known about Augie, who is perceived to be a recluse. The circumstances surrounding the publication of the novel open up interesting questions about the nature of history, eye-witness reports, and how our motivations and experiences influence our perspective. Lucy plays the role of an interested, left-leaning investigator while Tad and Augie represent the liberal and conservative perspective in the broader debate that underlies the entire novel. Tad comes off a bit more rabid in his politics than Augie, but they are worthy foils for one another. Charles Lee’s position of power as the landlord for Tad, Lucy, and Alida provides another interesting conflict for discussion.

The book explores numerous smaller subplots to further dissect the politics of terrorism, security, privacy, and freedom. For example, each major character gives their opinions on which publications and newspapers are worth reading and why. This alone would make for an interesting discussion. Also, everyone in the book is portrayed as seeking information about someone else. Lucy seeks info on Augie. Tad on Charles Lee. Charles Lee on Lucy. Alida on her mother and her classmate, Finn. The way the characters approach their quest for information provides yet another discussion point.

The ending of the book may actually provide the biggest discussion point of them all. If you read the Amazon.com reviews for this book, then you’ll see that almost everyone disliked the ending. I hesitate to talk about it much because to do so gives it away. I will simply say that I absolutely loved it. It couldn’t have ended any other way, and it speaks volumes about our current political approach to terrorism, security, and privacy. I’m not sure why other folks didn’t like it, but I suspect that they are missing the broader political statement.

Lastly, this book provides so many fascinating inroads for discussion and paints such a vivid picture of post-9/11 politics as well as the nature of security, privacy, and freedom that I’m going to make a grandiose claim: This could be one of those books that becomes much more popular after its initial release because it so essentially encapsulates the politics of the moment. It has some edgy scenes that might make it too strong to be required reading at a high school, but few other works of fiction so concisely introduce and define contemporary political problems as well as Surveillance does. In addition, the literary risk of the ending and the impressive writing style could easily support a high school level English class discussion. I strongly recommend reading it, particularly if you have a regular book club and enjoy discussing books and politics.

So, apparently my last update on the Great American Novel Challenge was a bit prophetic. Things have only become crazier over the last two months, and I have now missed my third month in a row. I am still planning on finishing the challenge, and I’m aiming to finish by July 4th, 2010. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post a review today, and I likely won’t be able to post one until after my upcoming paper deadline. In lieu of a book review this month, I will leave you with this hilarious, truly American video.

Last week, Apple announced their latest creation: the iPad. For those who have been living under a rock, it is a handheld computer that looks like something straight out of Star Trek. The iPad is a 9.7″ multi-touch display backed by Apple’s custom silicon, the A4 processor. Depending on the exact model purchased, it comes with a 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive and 802.11n wi-fi with 3G support. There are six models with prices ranging from $499 to $829.

There are two big questions to ask of this device. First, what does the iPad mean for the average consumer? Second, how does the iPad change the way we interact with computers? I’m more interested in the second question than the first, but since most people are more concerned with the first question, I’ll start there.

The first rule of buying Apple products for the average consumer is: wait for the second version, and that is my only piece of advice for the average consumer regarding the iPad.

Apple has a history of disappointing early adopters, and there’s no reason to think that won’t be the case with the iPad. Despite Apple’s incredible design team, there are inevitably missing pieces that are corrected or resolved in the second versions of their products. The iPhone 3G was much better than the first version. The MacBook Air prices dropped dramatically in subsequent versions of the product. Even the iPod, which was an almost instantaneous success, improved greatly in subsequent versions. I can’t say specifically what is missing on the iPad. I haven’t even used one, but it’s such a different piece of technology that there are certainly things that aren’t quite right. Here are a few potential examples:

1. No web cam.
2. Not enough storage.
3. No USB ports.
4. No HDMI ports.
5. No multitasking apps.

Now, some of these “obvious” omissions may eventually prove to be brilliant design decisions. Remember: good design is more about leaving things out than cluttering your product with too many features. The problem for early adopters is that we don’t know yet. If you’re an average consumer, then I would hold off.

Of course, if you’re not an average consumer and you have a few hundred bucks to burn on something that might revolutionize the way you live, then suddenly the second question becomes important: how does the iPad change the way we interact with computers? This is an extremely difficult question to answer with any certainty, but we do know that answers to this question boil down into two broad categories: (1) the iPad improves computing and (2) the iPad is a setback for computing.

There are a few important ways that the iPad improves computing. First, as a recovering hardware geek, I was most excited to see Apple use their own silicon on the iPad. It’s nothing all that revolutionary in terms of hardware, but it’s definitely not x86. I generally disfavor computing monocultures. It’s not always that simple (PDF), but the general principle holds up pretty well because nothing innovative happens when everyone makes the same assumptions.

Second, I believe Apple is right there’s a need for some kind of computing device between a smartphone and a laptop. I don’t think Netbooks are the answer simply because they are too similar to laptops. This similarity narrows the utility of a Netbook. I can’t imagine myself reading an electronic book with a Netbook, but I could imagine it working well with the iPad. I’m not sure if the iPad is the answer, but the fact that it is distinctly not a Netbook and distinctly not a smartphone are proof that it’s headed in the right direction.

Third, Apple didn’t include Flash on the iPad. This is the most important argument in favor of the iPad improving computing. It is a sign that openness is winning the web. Adobe Flash is a proprietary, closed-source product that requires a browser plugin to run. Unlike most of the web, you cannot see the source used to render the page you’re viewing if you’re on Flash-based website. View-Source is a good thing. Closed-source development for non-differentiating infrastructure is a bad thing.

I’m not saying that no one should ever produce closed source content because it is somehow inherently evil, but I am saying that it’s just not a good idea unless you know that whatever you’re spending money on will actually increase your net revenue compared to your competitors. It makes sense to ensure that whatever you’re spending resources to produce is actually a business differentiator. For web-based technologies, Flash is no longer a business differentiator. As Gruber says here:

Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells. [...] Developers go where the users are.

—John Gruber

Flash used to enhance the web experience by creating interfaces that weren’t otherwise possible, but now open technologies have basically caught up. YouTube and Vimeo were previously the quintessential Flash-based websites, but they are both already offering HTML5-based video. Heck, there’s even an open-source Flash runtime written in javascript. (It’s called Gordon, as in Flash Gordon…)

Most of the geek backlash against the iPad focuses on things that are missing, like Flash, but one of the key arguments geeks have made against the iPad is that it has a closed-app ecosystem. This is the key, critical way that the iPad is a setback for computing. As Tim Lee points out, closed-app ecosystems are top-down approaches that go against powerful economic forces, which favor an open development environment.

It’s interesting that Apple got open development 100% right with their more traditional computers. While Microsoft forced developers to pay for Visual Studio, Apple ensured that every developer who wanted the best available Mac development tools could do so by registering on their website and downloading the tools for free. This is still true for the iPad. The SDK is available now. The problem is in the installation process. Apple’s more traditional computers can purchase and install applications from anywhere on the Internet. (Also, the actual installation process is much easier than Windows. There’s no registry, and applications are almost always completely self-contained and installable by dragging and dropping them somewhere on your file system.) However, this freedom isn’t available for the iPhone and the iPad, which are stuck with the bottleneck of a top-down app store.

When I talk to non-techies about things like the iPad’s closed-app setup, their response is usually something along the lines of this: “But I’m never going to build my own applications, so why do I care?” This is a fair question to which there are a couple of important responses. First, users still care about the applications they use, but the closed app store model puts the actual decision regarding what’s available in the hands of Apple rather than the users. Even if you never actually build an application that you would use regularly, you still want the pool of developers who might to be as large as possible because someone else might.

Second, the closed app model doesn’t just restrict applications; it also restricts data use. The iPad uses digital rights management (DRM) to ensure that the books, movies, and other content users enjoy has been legitimately purchased. In an ideal world, this would be a good thing. No one wants thieves to prosper (except perhaps the thieves…), but the problem is that DRM doesn’t actually do this in the real world. In fact, DRM breaks more than it fixes because it restricts the rights of legitimate users. It enables censorship, limits free-market competition, and even allows Apple to delete content off your device without notice. Don’t think something like this could happen? Think again. For these reasons, Defective by Design has a petition against the DRM restrictions on the iPad. If you’re interested in more information on the perils of DRM, then I would recommend reading some of the more than 200 excellent posts on the topic by the folks at Freedom to Tinker.

So what’s the overall verdict? One thing we know for sure is that the iPad is distinctly different. Consider this quote:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

—George Bernard Shaw

Steve Jobs is a famously unreasonable man, and as a result, Apple has had some mega-hits, like the iPod, and some mega-flops, like the Lisa. The iPad is destined to be one or the other, and that’s far better than just another boring computer gadget.

We also know that the iPad influences two separate platforms: an open web platform and a closed hardware platform. If you think the open web aspects of the iPad is more of a benefit than the closed hardware, then this is a great development for open technologies. However, if you think reverse that opinion, then the iPad is definitely a bad development for open technologies. Currently, I’m leaning towards the latter, but that’s more of a prediction than an actual opinion. We may have to wait and see what changes Apple makes in the second version of the iPad before we really know how this device will affect computing.