Become like Newton

There isn't much that Don Snowden says that doesn't hit me between the eye-balls, but his weekend post about Sir Isaac Newton and the need today for generalists like him is just what I needed today.

It blows me away that Newton can be considered a generalist, but Don's arguement seems sound to me. That Newton was interested in everything and wasn't afraid to experiment with things that others thought bogus, gives me hope and some courage to stop worrying about the fact that I can do a bit of PHP coding, but don't seem to be able to master it, have seen examples of the Document Object Model (DOM) in action but still can't understand it (and don't ask me to manipulate it), and I read heaps about knowledge management but still don't understand how to make it do anything useful.

Newton lived to be 84, which is amazing considering the time in which he lived (late 1600s to early 1700s). I'm halfway there, but reckon I've got plenty of time left to practice being a generalist.

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Needles and Plastic

Every time I sit in front of a PC I try to tell myself that my grandchildren will not recognise this device. In twenty years the PC will be as obsolete as the record turntable and the pulse-dialling telephone. I try to bear this in mind when I think about what is intrinsic to this communication medium, and what is not. Eventually the effort will bear some fruit.

In the meantime, there's always old Lee Perry dub productions and El Rey del Mundo cigars.

Bruce

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iPhone breaks device-free web coding principle

I can't believe it. Just when I was starting to think there were a few web designers out there who understood the principle of designing sites that can be viewed on any browser on any device, Apple go and break the principle on their new iPhone.

Apple claims the Safari browser built into the new iPhone is really advanced, and

...lets you see any web page the way it was designed to be seen, then easily zoom in by simply tapping on the multi-touch display with your finger."

What? How do they work out how web sites are designed to be seen? Do they mean how they look on their high-definition, wide-screen Mac machines? I hope not.

Google at least see the benefit of pushing a special web page to handheld devices, although I wish they'd used web standards and a handheld style-sheet instead of java script, but the result is the similar and it shows they are thinking about their audience.

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