Category: Uncategorized

Helvetica

helvetica Last night I went to see Helvetica, the feature-length documentary about typography and the most famous typeface of them all, Helvetica. I had been looking forward to the film for quite some time, and was really excited to hear it was coming to Edmonton. The event was put on by the Alberta chapter of The Society of Graphic Designers of Canada.

Every review I had read about the film had been glowing, so my expectations were pretty high. The film wasn’t disappointing, but I have to admit, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting either.

I think I was anticipating something like Freakonomics but for typography, a fun and interesting look at the impact of Helvetica on our daily lives. Instead, the film focused more on the history of the typeface, and really only discussed the impact of Helvetica on the design industry. Designer Paula Scher made the bold claim that Helvetica caused the Vietnam and Iraq wars, but that was a close as we got to the impact outside the design world. There were one or two segments with company logos, but the discussion of corporate adoption of Helvetica was fairly limited.

All of the people interviewed in the film were in some way involved in the design industry. I think it would have been much more interesting (and entertaining) to have balanced the interviews with some “outsiders” who could comment without really having a position. The designers seemed to either love or hate Helvetica.

That said, as a documentary about a typeface, Helvetica was quite good. A little long for those of us who are not enamored with design, but still quite good. I particularly liked graphic designer Michael Bierut, who always had the funniest comments and anecdotes. Without his segments, the movie would have been seriously lacking in the chuckle department.

Bottom line: if you’re interested in design, you’ll probably enjoy Helvetica. Otherwise, you might want to think twice.

H.M.S. Pinafore

On Thursday evening Sharon and I went to the Edmonton Opera’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore. The two act comic opera is a famous one by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. I’d never been to the opera before, so it was definitely a new experience for me. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I have to say I’m incredibly grateful that there were subtitles. Here’s the Edmonton Opera’s teaser:

Renowned Edmonton playwright Stewart Lemoine teams up with Edmonton Opera to create a brand-new production with a brand-new take on Gilbert and Sullivan. Join Little Buttercup, Ralph, Josephine, Sir Joseph and the sailors of the high seas in a comedy that sings the songs of love and silliness, and pokes fun at society too: British satire at its best!

haslam in pinafore
Jeff Haslam as Sir Joseph Porter

Sharon is an Explorer’s Club member which means that first and foremost, our tickets were cheaper! We also got free pizza and beer during the intermission. Before the show we went to a thirty minute “introduction to the opera” session where we learned a little about the plot in Pinafore and some of the history behind it. That was really helpful, and definitely interesting.

Only one cast member, Monica Huisman who played Josephine, was what I would call “over the top opera.” I couldn’t understand a word she was singing, and her voice was incredibly shrill. My favorite was definitely Jeff Haslam who played the crazy Sir Joseph Porter. I’ve seen Haslam act many times here in Edmonton, and he was excellent again in the opera. He stole the show, without a doubt.

I’m sure opera afficionados would gasp at the idea of subtitles, pizza, and beer, but it made the experience much more enjoyable for a first-timer like myself. Opera is kind of like a musical that you can’t understand, and I’m not such a fan of musicals in the first place.

I never would have guessed that the experience would be educational, but it was. Not only did I learn a bit more about opera in general, but I never quite realized the impact it has on our culture. Heck, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry dedicated to the cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan. And I learned this popular exchange:

“What, never?”
“No, never!”
“What, never?”
“Well, hardly ever!”

Just as funny now as it was a hundred years ago! That’s probably why Pinafore is still popular – it’s timeless entertainment all around.

Daryl Katz wants a new arena in Edmonton

rexallDaryl Katz, founder of the Rexall pharmacy company, announced yesterday that he had acquired 100% of the outstanding shares in the Edmonton Investors Group (EIG), making him the new owner of the Edmonton Oilers (pending league approval which is widely expected to come without any problems). Here’s what the somewhat reclusive Katz said in yesterday’s statement:

“Like the EIG and all Edmontonians, I want what is best for the team, the
community and the city. I want to help secure a world-class building and
continue the EIG’s legacy by bringing the Cup back to Edmonton.”

Today he held a press conference with select members of the media, which I listened to on 630ched. It was the first time since he started pursuing the Oilers last March that we’ve heard him speak about his motivations. I found most of his answers to be fairly simplistic, without much meat behind them. He said “I can’t comment on that” quite a few times.

One thing he did make clear, however, is that he is eager to see a new arena built in the heart of downtown. He wants the Oilers to play at the centre of the community.

Katz has suggested he’d be willing to commit $100 million towards the construction of a new arena. With estimates for the project ranging from $250 million to over $500 million (and possibly as high as $1 billion depending on the scope), there’s a lot of funding that will need to come from somewhere else. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe it should come from taxpayers. All Katz said today was that “there are lots of ways to fund real estate.”

I’m glad Katz is the new owner of the Oilers. Almost everyone associated with the team seems to like him, and I don’t think there’s any question that he’s got Edmonton’s best interests at heart. He also seems fairly level-headed about things, making clear today that he wants to read a pending report on the feasibility of a new arena before making any decisions.

That said, I hope his eagerness to build a new rink in Edmonton’s downtown does not turn into blind determination. Katz needs to be able to say no if it becomes clear that a new arena will only happen with significant public funding, at the expense of other, more important public projects.

Fifth undersea cable cut

inet cable With each passing day, another undersea cable serving the Middle East is severed. At least that’s the way things are going right now! Slashdot reported earlier today on the fifth incident, originally suggesting that it resulted in all of Iran going offline. They later backtracked as it became clear that Iran was still on the grid.

Not surprisingly, there is a Wikipedia entry up with information on the 2008 submarine cable disruption. It includes a timeline with details about which cables were damaged. In case you’re wondering, there’s a list of international submarine communications cables at Wikipedia too.

The cable known as SEA-ME-WE 4 has been affected the most, which is significant as it provides the primary connection between Europe, the Middle East, and South East Asia. Combined with the FLAG cable cut, the BBC has pointed out that only the older SEA-ME-WE 3 is currently connecting Europe and the Middle East, with capacity reduced by about 75%. This cable has experienced a couple disruptions of its own in the past. The first was in July of 2005, which mainly affected Pakistan. The second was back in December of 2006, the result of an earthquake known as Hengchun which occurred off the coast of Taiwan. Perhaps there are more that I haven’t found yet. Heck, portions of the cable have even been stolen and sold!

In my post yesterday, I expressed hope that the recent incidents would result in some action to prevent the situation from getting worse. The more I read about undersea cables however, the clearer it becomes that these events are certainly nothing new. It seems as though cable disruptions aren’t as uncommon as one might think.

Certainly the fact that five cables have been cut in less than two weeks should raise some eyebrows, however.

Here are some additional resources:

Undersea cables carry 95% of the world's telephone and Internet traffic

internet cable On Friday I posted about the three undersea cables that were cut, disrupting Internet access in South Asia and the Middle East. Since then, another cable has been cut, and the story is finally starting to get some coverage. The BBC posted about the issue today, and included a really interesting diagram that explains the parts of an undersea cable.

The most interesting article however, comes from the International Herald Tribune:

Most telecommunications experts and cable operators say that sabotage seems unlikely, but no one knows what damaged the cables or whether the incidents were related.

According to the Egyptian government, no ships were in the vicinity of the cables when they were cut. Seems suspicious to me that four cables have been severed in such a short period of time, but who knows. It seems that this bit of Internet infrastructure isn’t as sturdy as one might think.

“This has been an eye-opener for us, and everyone in the telecom industry worldwide,” said Colonel R.S. Parihar, the secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India.

Let’s hope the recent incidents result in some action, before the situation gets any worse. Traffic has been re-routed over the last week, but how well would that work if many more cables were cut, say during an attack?

Maybe you’re not convinced that ensuring the safety of undersea cables is important. Consider this:

Undersea cables carry about 95 percent of the world’s telephone and Internet traffic, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, an 86-member group that works with fishing, mining and drilling companies to curb damage to submarine cables.

Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!

Read: International Herald Tribune

Super Tuesday 2008

imageToday is the big day! Twenty-four states are holding their caucuses and/or primaries today in the United States – it’s known as Super Tuesday. The results have already started to come in, and if you’d like to follow along, here are some handy online resources:

Be sure to check out my post on using Twitter for Breaking News too.

Of course, you could do it the old fashioned way and turn on CNN, but where’s the fun in that?!

If you’re trying to figure out which candidate is the most tech-friendly, here are a few resources:

Happy Super Tuesday!

Windows Vista SP1 RTM

winlogo This is very, very strange. Microsoft announced today that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been released to manufacturing, which should mean that it’s ready to go. Yet for some reason, they have decided to not make SP1 available until March:

In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com.  Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1.

The post talks about some driver issues, but as Long Zheng mentions, it doesn’t sound like they are going to use the extra time to fix those issues. You would think they could at least put the download up at the Download Center. I’m really hoping that SP1 will have a positive impact on performance and battery life and I’m eager to install it!

In other "RTM news" today, Windows Server 2008 was also released to manufacturing! That’s about on schedule. Don’t forget the launch events are happening later this month.

Read: Windows Vista Team Blog, Windows Server Division Blog

Maybe Microsoft should buy Amazon instead

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal continues to be the hot topic in the blogosphere right now, with Techmeme still dominated by related discussion. The latest news is that Google has posted an official response to the proposed takeover. In general, discussion has moved from “can you believe what just happened” to “this deal with fail/succeed because…” If you read only two posts on the topic, read this one from Fake Steve Jobs and this one from Henry Blodget.

I really have no idea how this is going to play out. Based on what I’ve read, it seems pretty likely that Microsoft will successfully acquire Yahoo. Many think the deal is as good as done. Far less certain, however, is whether they can make the acquisition a success. It could go either way.

I think what’s clear is that this is a strategy change for Microsoft. A bold recognition that they need to succeed on the web. They trail Google in both search and advertising, and it makes a certain amount of sense that combining with Yahoo will create a stronger competitor.

Microsoft is a platform company. Their cash cow is Windows, the most widely used technology platform in history. They are good at platforms. If the strategy shift is to the web, shouldn’t it be slanted towards a great platform?

amazonawsSuch as Amazon’s Web Services platform. On Wednesday Amazon announced their fourth quarter earnings, and shared this tidbit about Amazon Web Services (AWS):

Adoption of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) continues to grow. As an indicator of adoption, bandwidth utilized by these services in fourth quarter 2007 was even greater than bandwidth utilized in the same period by all of Amazon.com’s global websites combined.

ReadWriteWeb has a good discussion of what this means.

Obviously Microsoft isn’t a retailer, and owning Amazon.com itself probably isn’t in the company’s best interests. It could acquire the company for AWS and spin off the rest, however. I suppose Microsoft could just try to duplicate what Amazon has already accomplished with AWS, but why bother? Grab the early market leader and take it to the next level.

I think AWS is an indication of what the platform of the future will look like. Microsoft would be wise to pay attention.

If I were a terrorist…

…I’d launch an attack on undersea cables around the world.

On Wednesday, two such cables near Egypt were cut resulting in a major disruption of Internet access in south Asia and the Middle East. Today, another cable was cut near Dubai. In both cases the cause remains unknown, but ship anchors seem likely.

Why bother with bombing train stations when you can disrupt global communications, apparently by dropping a few anchors? Maybe it’s sick that I thought about terrorism when reading the news, but seriously, it seems to me that this could be a real threat. And I haven’t heard anything about preparing for it.

The image above gives you a good overview, but this very detailed, up-to-date map of the globe’s undersea cabling is better (and much bigger).

Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo!

Post Image This is no longer just a rumor, this is the real deal. I’ve never seen so many articles on the same topic so fast on Techmeme, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is big, big news! Here’s what they had to say in the press release:

The combination will create a more efficient company with synergies in four areas: scale economics driven by audience critical mass and increased value for advertisers; combined engineering talent to accelerate innovation; operational efficiencies through elimination of redundant cost; and the ability to innovate in emerging user experiences such as video and mobile. Microsoft believes these four areas will generate at least $1 billion in annual synergy for the combined entity.

Microsoft has developed a plan and process that will include the employees of both companies to focus on the integration of the combined business. Microsoft intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

The offer is a combination of cash and stock. Microsoft thinks they can have regulatory approval and a completed deal in the second half of 2008.

Look out Google!

Read: Techmeme