The UWO Alumni Gazette online
As a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, I receive their alumni publication. The latest copy touts that they are moving to making it an online publication. I'd much rather get an online version than a paper copy, so I opted to check out the online version.
The online publication is a disappointment, to say the least. The version I was pointed to is a Flash application that simply recreates the printed version, complete with the need to turn pages.
Here is a letter I sent to the editor summarizing my thoughts on the matter.
Looking at the online version of the Alumni Gazette as pointed to by a letter I received with my print copy, I was struck by the disappointing realization that the Alumni Gazette team has missed a web truism: online is not print.
The online version I was pointed to is two things: an Adobe Flash application and, to be blunt, an abomination of web publishing. Flash applications that display the exact printed version of a publication are not a good way to publish online content. The problems with Flash publications have been well documented, but let me reiterate a few of them for emphasis.
First, there is no way to (easily) cut and paste text from the articles. This discourages sharing. It also inhibits simple text searches using built-in web browser functionality; instead, it makes you rely on (often inferior) searches supplied within the Flash application.
Second, the display of the text almost assuredly requires you to zoom in, which means that instead of simple vertical scrolling to view more text, you're forced to navigate horizontally as well. Further to this, recreation of print means columns, which are great on paper, but awful on digital screens since, again, vertical scrolling is the norm.
Finally, Flash on any platform but Microsoft Windows is slow. Very slow.
Flash has its uses, but distributing textual content is not one of them. As tempting as it may be to recreate the look of print on the web, it has never worked — they are fundamentally different mediums (ask newspapers and magazines). I was encouraged by the fact that all the articles for the same publication are available in more web-friendly format on the Alumni Gazette's website. Enhancing that format is a wiser course of action for the future and should be examined more closely by the publication team.
Incidentally, I tried the search in the online publication and it was useless. For example, I searched for "print" and got no results, even though there is an entire article devoted to the print industry.
The sad fact here is that the university either didn't seem to do their research or feel that reproducing the printed version of something verbatim for online consumption is acceptable.
Welcome to Telus, where printing is a problem
Here are the instructions from Telus on how to print information about your airtime detail (among other things) when viewing your bill online.
How to print (Mac)
- Simultaneously click "Command", "Shift" and "4"
- Click and drag to select your desired area and release
- Open the document that will be created on your desktop and print the image.
And here it is, straight from the horse's mouth (and I even used their instructions!).
What this means, of course, is that I can't print multiple pages of airtime minutes without taking a screenshot of each page. It should also be mentioned that the records appear within an IFRAME, so it has its own scroll bar and I can't resize it. And of course, a page of records doesn't fit within the frame correctly...
Is it any wonder Canadians don't care for their cell phone companies and we're desperate for some real competition?
(Hey Telus, If you're going to make me print the screen, why not at least provide the option of viewing the frame in another window or tab while you're at it?)
Study one thing well, then branch out
Since finishing my doctorate and starting a non-research oriented position, continuing the work from my thesis has been difficult. This is because I don't have much time to devote to it. Much of my research time consists of me ruminating on subjects while driving.
When I do have time to read, I've found it much more fruitful to branch out and study some other topics besides computer science. Two of those have been physics and economics.
Even reading introductory texts on the subjects have provided me with a wealth of ideas. My doctoral work got me very deep into a single thing, even though I tried to diversify in some ways. Branching out to other subjects just to get the big ideas has helped "connect the dots" in ways I had not considered (showing me that I wasn't as diverse in my ways of thinking as I thought!). I'm going to be so bold as to say I doubt I would connect those dots were it not for the fact that I read something in both physics and economics.
What I draw from this is that it is helpful to study one thing in depth, but then branch out and study other things. This is not a revelation, but I think it is important to note.
How the media was useless to me in this election
The most depressing part of this election was how I could not get useful information about it from the media.
This is probably best illustrated by example. When listening to CBC the day after the Liberals announced their platform, I heard a report that told me Stéphane Dion unveiled it in Calgary and how it's a tough sell out west. They talked to some Liberal party supporter about the Liberal's chances to win a seat in Calgary. (The answer was "not good".)
Let's review: the Liberal's unveil their platform — the set of policies they will seek to enact if elected — and the report I get tells me absolutely nothing about the platform and focusses on its presentation.
Stories about the campaign itself, poll results and discussions about "battleground ridings" and what they meant to the parties were the most prominent stories I heard and read about during the campaign. The day of the election, all the reports I heard were about how good or bad the leader's campaigns were. Just to pick another example involving the Liberals, the analysis I heard yesterday on CBC was how Dion did not do a good job explaining the Green Shift.
Again, nothing about the Green Shift itself and how it might influence me were it to be enacted, but instead how Dion failed to sell it. In fact, I cannot recall a single report that told me much about any of the party's policies. (That said, the party's didn't exactly release their policies that quickly.)
But then again, politics isn't really about policy, is it?
Next election, I'll wait for the parties to release a platform and stay away from news about the election even more than I did this time around.
Reflecting on my thesis
On Monday I successfully defended my PhD thesis entitled Structuring data via behavioural synthesis. My thesis looked at ways to derive the structure of data given the behaviour of a system. That is, by studying the actions of a system you can determine the structure of the data objects it uses.
It's been a long, hard road getting to the this point. I started my graduate work six and half years ago (January 2002) and started out working in bioinformatics. I then got the itch to work with programming languages and the work finally led me to examine the dynamic elements of programs. In particular, I got interested in context-oriented programming.
Only work from the last two years actually made it into the thesis. While that may seem to indicate the previous four and a half years was a waste, nothing could be further from the truth. The steps leading to the work I did were important because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had the background I did without making various mistakes and missteps along the way. Ideas evolve and rarely spring into being, and I think some of the ideas I examined were greatly helped by making the mistakes I did.
Richard Gabriel was my external examiner. I cite him in my thesis and his work motivated me to look at what I did. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. However, he asked some great questions and got me thinking about where to take the work a bit more. I will certainly be exploring different avenues with it.
I want to thank all my friends who have been supportive of me over the years. You have been a big help in keeping me sane. In particular, I want to thank Ren, Greg, Ian, Adam and Les.
I don't say I'm proud of very much, but I'm proud of my thesis. I put a lot of work into it and went through a lot of stress to get it written. Even if no one else ever reads it, I'll be happy with it.
When I have the revisions complete, I will post a link to the thesis. (Some people may like the first two chapters, actually.) I'd rather not provide a version that requires changes. I'll also work on posting it in HTML rather than PDF, since I'm sure few people will want to print it.
Thesis writing is tough, but rewarding work
For the last month, I've basically been locked away writing my dissertation. Here are some things I have noticed.
- Your thoughts tend to get very focused. My thesis is the adaptation of some previous papers I have written, but with a lot more formalism to lay out the idea more clearly. Papers often have limited space, which means you can rely a bit more on intuition. I still have to be concise, but more rigourous. This means careful consideration of the argument.
- Consequently, figuring out what to write about next can be time-consuming. I try to avoid jumping between ideas in paragraphs too much to prevent discontinuity. Further to that, I don't like excessive sectioning to delineate ideas. I try to put a narrative together and give it some flow without forcing it.
- It pays incredible dividends to sit down with a piece of paper and sketch out the main points of your argument before trying to write anything. Outlines are invaluable.
- Having a reasonably diverse vocabulary makes your first draft come out a little faster. I don't sit for a long time trying to figure out how to say something. Most of my time is spent figuring out what I should really be saying.
- I like writing. It's difficult, but rewarding. (Most of the above is really a side-effect of sitting down to write.)
- I really, really appreciate LaTeX. I prefer TextMate to Emacs for the actual editing.
- Version control is something that should be mandatory for any writing/text editing software. Failing that, it should be in the operating system. Time Machine saved me untold hours of work from an incident that erased a section of a chapter I really didn't enjoy writing. I didn't notice the section was gone until hours later (and I was being careful! Or so I thought). With Time Machine, I restored it in under five minutes.
Earth Hour in Hamilton: Ho-hum
The symbolism of Earth Hour is well-intentioned, but I'm doubtful of any significant changes coming about in the habits of people as a result of it. Despite my skepticism, I take part because I feel it's important.
Beata and I went for a walk during Earth Hour to see what others in downtown Hamilton were doing for it. Turns out it wasn't much.
For the most part, all the apartment buildings around our house were well-lit. One was rather dark, but the apartment buildings gave us no indication that it was Earth Hour.
Most business had the lights on as usual, but we did come across three taking part in the event: La Luna, the Sheraton and Honest Lawyer. None of them had all the lights off (there are safety issues, of course), but they certainly had fewer lights on than usual. La Luna had candles for each table, the lobby of the Sheraton had minimal lighting with some live music, and Honest Lawyer had nearly all the lights off with the big screen TVs provided the necessary illumination. The Board of Education office and City Hall looked like they were off as well.
Aside from these places, everything else was lit up like a Christmas tree. The Standard Life Building in Jackson Square was close to fully lit on at least 3 floors. If there was a big cleaning crew there or people working late on a Saturday, we didn't see any of them. Many businesses had the full array of lights on, even the superfluous neon ones lining store windows that don't seem to say anything. Every Tim Horton's outlet we saw (3, in total) was ablaze with light, seemingly oblivious to the whole idea.
Overall, it was pretty disappointing. Based on the propensity of light we saw, apathy seemed to be the primary reaction, although we couldn't rule out ignorance. Still, we spent the hour walking around, capping it off with a visit to a variety store, just to see two teenage kids get booted out for shoplifting.
Earth Hour didn't exactly boost my opinion of this town.
Accurate description of TV news
I rarely see news shows on television anymore and when I do, I often wonder how any semi-intelligent person can stomach watching it. My opinion of this is due to the fact that I cancelled cable about two years ago and as a result, stopped watching it. You don't know what you haven't got until it's gone and frankly, I don't miss it at all
(except The Daily Show).
One site that does provide good news is The Onion. I love their videos, as they provide the most infotainment. Take the following breaking news item that, in my mind, pretty much sums up how I see TV news these days.
Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot