Ouverture

At Punch Party #13

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Ciel

On Independence

On 10gui.com there is a new concept that argues traditional UI be replaced by a more intuitive multi-touch UI, claiming that the old is less intuitive, therefore inefficient. Judging from the trend, multi-touch has gone from the iPhone (mobile) to the MacBook Air, to the MacBooks and finally the desktop Macs. A glimpse into the Apple-supported, open-source WebKit project echoes this trend: CSS transitions and transformations are also coming to the desktop. I do sense that the thematic concept here is direct manipulation:

a. Personal empowerment is at its all-time high; trivial emotion is getting its place, and the ability to scribe and record is now widespread.

b. With personal empowerment comes a wider dialogue, which in reverse empowers more individual to come and contribute.

c. The world is therefore transforming from bivalent to omnipotent, from narrowness to broadmindedness.

d. With great change strikes a greater sense of weird, joyous uncertainty; the arts is getting its place, figures leniently ceding their thrones.

e. The Web is a very young medium, but this time there are way more people defining their own pieces of, and contributing to it.

f. People will get dumbed-down and be conquered by their rabidly growing collective consciousness.

The world is getting more and more interesting a place. Let’s see what comes along in the next year.

ps Weeks ago, finished Loos’ essay on Ornament and Crime; would not take back my early words. He really sounds like a Protestant, yet is also sharp-witted.

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Nota

Technologies invented to help mobile users do better are going all the way to invade desktop computing. Personal empowerment is the oath to mobility; this trend denotes the imminent demolishment of institutional atrocity. Reading and writing is the only convenient way to conquer the vagueness and impreciseness of human memory; everybody acquiring these skills mean that physical and institutional limitations are no longer hinderances; souls can finally be set free.

On glancing into the past

I just bid yesterday farewell; spent approximately one month lingering over this dying project. It might be resurrected someday, but I am not so sure.

Pros: learnt JSON and JSON-based programming; learnt XML-RPC and how to give WordPress a plugin; got a fresh hands-on glimpse of object-oriented programming; learnt how to properly CSS cross-platform; got a lifetime hatred of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Fate bestows.

Next: the data project, which is a fairly small one. And a photo visualizer. Computer Arts and New Media is a fairly interesting subject, but I am still shopping around for one right for me.

Redesigned CV

Visit http://monoceroi.com.

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Redesigned Custom Plurk CSS

“Spot-on”, I said shamelessly. Google for “Plurk Interface” to see how it might look like before this customization…

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Quotes From the Great Storybook on Silence

It costs to be extraordinary; the major lesson is in learning to cope with it.

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; — Isaiah 54:2 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. — Isaiah 54:3 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. — Isaiah 54:4

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Nota

You’re in deep trouble not being — or, aspiring to be — great. The richest and the poorest people (or, the ones on the very top and the poor ones down under) get to re-create history; others get to reproduce.