All posts by Chris

tomayto tomahto

Language, Technology, Web 2.0

Speak & SpellI often see a word in print long before I hear it pronounced. That’s fine for most words—”antidisestablishmentarianism” isn’t actually that hard to deconstruct—but it can get me in trouble sometimes. For years I thought misled was pronounced “mizzled”, and I never did decide how envelope should sound.

Now that’s going to be a lot easier, thanks to a little programming trickery by John Tantalo. He created a handy bookmarklet that takes standard International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions (as found on many Wikipedia pages) and runs them through a text-to-speech (TTS) system to speak them aloud.

Checking a few known pronunciations against Wikipedia’s IPA for them, I see that either the TTS server or the listed IPA needs some work. I suspect the latter, because the IPA for the Niger River entry (/?na?d??r/) sounds great, while the IPA for Nagios (/?n???i.o?s/) sounds way off (as I write this at least). Still, most entries work great, and I expect this tool to encourage more authors to include IPA as it gets used.

it’s not what you expect

Technology

iPhone rumor from 2006In 1998, Apple came out with an all-in-one computer. At the time, all-in-one computers were stripped down CPUs crammed onto a monitor case. The term made people expect something ugly, cheap, and difficult to upgrade. What they got instead was the iMac. It was revolutionary, and it inspired copies all across the industry.

In 2001, Apple came out with a portable MP3 player. There were plenty of MP3 players on the market, but none of them were particularly impressive. Initial reviews told people to expect an Apple offering that was too big, lacked features, and was way too expensive. What they got instead was the iPod. It was revolutionary, and MP3 players were never the same.

In 2007, Apple came out with a smartphone with an integrated iPod. By this time, people realized they should expect something revolutionary, but revolutions are tricky to predict. Rumor sites and pundits worked themselves into a frenzy telling people to expect an iPod with phone capabilities crammed in, or a phone with an iPod tacked on. What they got instead was the iPhone. It was revolutionary, but not the way anyone expected.

In 2009, Apple might come out with a tablet computer. As before, everyone and their dog is trying to guess what it might be like. We’re being told to expect a big iPhone, or a web tablet, or some kind of ebook reader. What I expect instead, based on all that’s gone before, is the unexpected.

keeping the ‘perma’ in permalink

Blog, Technology

While doing regular WordPress maintenance today, I finally bit the bullet and changed the post permalinks to something a bit more human-friendly. For example, the old and new URLs for a recent post are:

http://globalspin.com/2009/05/22/1531/
http://globalspin.com/2009/05/livable-streets/

A bit nicer, right? Here’s the tricky part: the old URL still works, redirecting automatically so no one need get lost on their way in. I’d love to take credit for such a slick bit of business, but it was really simple thanks to Dean Lee’s Permalinks Migration Plugin.

a note (or is it a comment?) on feature blur

Technology, Web 2.0

Brad just pointed out that Google Reader added new features familiar to Twitter and Facebook users: marking a post as something you “like” and setting a status message. They didn’t remove similar features, though, so the result is a blur of options:

Google Reader feature blur example

So when I want to remember something, do I “star” it or “like” it? If I want to let people know about it, should I “like” it or “share” it? Is my “note” shown as a “comment” or somewhere else?

I recognize the thinking here; if users are looking for a feature by a familiar name (“like”), they might not find it by your own convention (“star”). This half-baked mix of features isn’t the answer, though. Each addition should have been weighed against the existing choices, and if the benefit justified the new feature it should have replaced the old.

the Bechdel Test and sci-fi shows

Feminism, Science fiction, Television

Voyager's Janeway and TorresSo I’m still looking for a sci-fi or fantasy film I’ve seen that passes the Bechdel Test. While I’m searching, let’s move on to something that seems easier at first glance: TV shows.

It’s almost trivial for a long-running show to pass the test; just have two women talk to each other about something other than a man in any episode. Some shows do better than others, though, passing the test in more individual episodes. Continue reading →