Today marks the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Antietam, whose 23,000 casualties marked the bloodiest single day in American military history. The American Experience film on Death and the Civil War (based on Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering) focuses on the scale of the death, and the corresponding lack of societal structures to manage death logistics …
Forget luck — focus on the final 10%
Digital projects, like all software endeavors, are easily derailed. Developing a site or application is initially seductive — the discovery phase presents a green field where all frustrations about your existing or missing capabilities can be magically erased by the New Thing. The early vision is grand — the stakeholders are picturing the end result …
Why 90% is not enough
Don’t do something 90 percent well and hope that it’ll slide through. Don’t rely on luck. You have to make your own luck. The only thing you can do is try your absolute best to do the right thing. And then if it doesn’t work out, you know there’s nothing else you can do –New …
Quick takes: Apple vs. Samsung
Round up of interesting opinions on last Friday’s decisive victory (see this comprehensive count-by-count summary in the Wall Street Journal) for Apple in the patent wars: Get ready for price increases, but maybe some great alternative designs from Android per Wired. Despite some gloating Microsoft execs, PCWorld thinks this may not automatically constitute a win for Windows …
Is that social account legit?
The GSA announced the launch of an official registry of government social media accounts. Their goals were to help users understand which accounts are legitimate in an era of phishing; offer a series of APIs for agencies to pull data back out of these burgeoning social accounts; and make the registry itself available to agencies, …
Closing statement in the trial of Russian punk band Pussy Riot
It is the entire state system of the Russian Federation which is on trial and which, unfortunately for itself, thoroughly enjoys quoting its cruelty towards human beings, its indifference to their honour and dignity, the very worst that has happened in Russian history to date. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s closing statement in the trial of Russian punk …
Down and out (of access) in Paris and London
Was lucky enough to get a little time away this summer — never enough — and sneak off to London and Paris. Managed to avoid the Jubilee and the Olympics for the former, and all the Parisians (and, regrettably, their best boulangeries) for the latter. It was eye-opening to me how much more digital and …
Personas for a 21st century media environment
Conjure me up a guy who talks science winningly, who shows you that everything is transparent, and does it in a self-help-y spirit,” Gitlin said. “In our age, a guy who looks cute and wonky is better positioned to get away with this than others. Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia, …
Weekend reading: Just My Type & my fascination with fonts
Ignore the chick lit title — Just My Type is a wonderfully informative and gossipy exploration of fonts (thanks, Cesar). If you’re eager to learn why Garamond left an indelible mark on 16th century Paris, how Caslon cut the finest ampersand, or which master of the sans serif had a taste for ceaseless sexual experimentation, give it a …
Is technology ruining language?
Many a linguistic commentator would have us (misleadingly) believe that technology is ruining language. Every mangled text message and misspelled Facebook status update, they cry, is a dagger through the heart of proper usage. But such grousing ignores increasingly symbiotic ties between linguistics and technology: Some of the most exciting developments in the use and …