Language, by Stephen Fry

The second in my language related series of found videos. This one is purely about making a point, but I also really like how Matthew Rogers arranged it. Good words and excellence of design.

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.

Ninja Say What?!

Today I am in a language related mood. Here’s the first of two videos I find entertaining and, if you’re in the mood, it may produce some discussion.

Website Changes

The new home for this website is WorldWideWilly.net, the old site is WorldWideWilly.ImmortalKeep.com. Many of you probably never knew WorldWideWilly.ImmortalKeep.com existed, this is the official announcement that it is deprecated. For the time being the two sites will most likely look similar. I’m starting a complete code overhaul on WorldWideWilly.net. I’ve learned a lot since the inception of this site, time to apply it. Most likely there will be another grand update when I learn php, I plan to convert my site over to that before the year is out.

Computing Thoughts, etc.

I came up with these ramblings about half a year ago. I haven’t organized them into anything coherent. Take what you will from this, it’s just raw ideas. If you have any thoughts reply in the comments. I would like to flesh some of these out… some day.

Google Chrome is Internet Explorer
All Programs will be sold, traded, distributed, etc. online
The iPad is the future, but not yet, this is the beginning
Why hasn’t Mac developed a layer to process Windows
Separate keyboards, mouses, etc. should no longer be required
We need a new form of Wireless network, on which all peripherals operate
iPad can be either the main monitor, or you can connect it to other monitors and it becomes a tablet (like what graphic artists use) but also beyond an ordinary tablet
We should be able to use all our fingers for manipulation/in programs, not just two (for the mouse)
Microsoft is doomed if Windows 8 doesn’t begin redesigning the way in which we work
Most people don’t need a laptop, they just need an iPad with better extensibility
Notice that Google is testing fiber optic cables to individual households
What is beyond the interface of the iPad, can we just skip there or do we need to do things in a progressive order (maybe in order for society to adopt and cause money to be put towards further developments)
All games can run if given a layer between the game and the iPad, this layer makes gestures, actions, and overlays on the screen that are translated into mouse and keyboard inputs.
We are entering a realm where there are programs and their are apps. Apps are for small screens, programs are for big screens.
No longer do we have desktops, we begin having workspaces
The Macintosh and Linux organizational schemes are best suited towards the coming interfaces.
Explorer.exe and the like will begin to disappear, the command line will resurface with origins in spotlight search and ubiquity.
Can everything be done with an index of the computer and the command line, no explorer.exe
Computer manufacturers must change their interfaces, or they will be replaced by apple’s 2.0 interfaces (touch)

Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. might do too much in house product construction. Whenever one of them makes a physical product they design the product, then have a large number of companies make the components and put it together. If they used the wider world more they could produce products faster and with much greater polish. But do we have enough individual software developers out there. The answer is getting to be a yes, Songbird is both open source and doing things for Philips. Ubuntu is an example, they design the interface, then pick what third party programs go in. But now parts of the interface need to become more outsourced. Precedent shows outsourcing works.

Styles:
Microsoft- Allows greater extensibility, one system for many hardwares, closed source
Apple- Smooth integration between hardware and software, allows innovation on both sides, closed source, closed environment
Google- Free, no hardware, web deployment, open source

Market Cycle:
Innovator -> Flooder -> Open Source-er, becomes a right, given to everyone (normally the government, but now Google and Co. are stepping into this role also)

We are always in a progressively more socialist society, but the socialism is not pervasive because we need the market system to innovate. Things we take for granted today are the socialism of yesterday. Socialism is the natural state of society once the market is saturated with that product. Just as software development needs to further diversify, hardware development needs to approach open-source. The disconnect (why we can have open source software, but not open source hardware) is we can give time from anywhere to anything without measuring its value, while physical stuff is limited (this is not quite it, think more). Is time a form of energy?

Transportation system that does away with much of the need for cars, must be feasible, start out in a few cities, takes a lot of capital, expand from there. Replace RTD. We don’t really need cars anymore and we don’t really need houses, just apartments coupled with really good city planning.

Domestic Transformer

Maestro Hughes

Better Forums

I recently had an idea for improving the forum system. Many websites have forums where conversation can take place. The problem is, many times the same question is repeatedly asked and the forum is generally hard to search. My idea transitions forum content to a more concise reference format, the wiki. For the most part, this only applies to forums trying to solve a problem or address an objective fact.

1. Forum

a. Question (the asker specifies certain categories/key words/topics for question)
b. Discussion
c. Question Solved (when marked “solved” a summary of the original question and solution is provided for Q&A)
2. Forum reduced down to a Q&A, a link expands the original discussion
3. Wiki Manual

a. Using question specifications the Q&A is automatically associated at the bottom of a wiki page in a queue, so that contributors can pull from it, writing it into the page (it is possible for one Q&A to be associated with multiple articles, in order to find a match).
b. Contributors for the wiki can mark a Q&A relevant or not to the wiki page, after reading it. If not relevant, the Q&A is no longer associated with that article. If relevant the Q&A moves up in the queue for that page.
c. The Q&A can be marked “included” for the wiki. It then ceases to be part of the queue, and becomes part of a source material list.
d. All changes and processes kept in a page history so other contributors can have oversight, just like in Wikipedia.

The discussion has become a document

Implementing OpenID

Try it out using the “Register” and “Login” links at the right. Currently it looks like it only works for registered users. I’m working on making it possible for users to register using OpenID. Any usability thoughts, let me know.

Blog Setup Complete

As of today all the layout kinks should be ironed out of this blog. In the comments, let me know if you see anything acting as it should not.