“…It is not surface, it is not the last thing that needs to be considered, it is the thing itself” - Stephen Fry
Unformatted code is analogous to an essay without paragraphs - or perhaps a paragraph without punctuation: all the data you need to understand the ‘essay’ is there, but without the correct formatting it just appears to be a jumble of words without any real thought or structure behind it. To fully understand the program (essay) we must be able to decipher the constituent parts and understand them as separate entities as well as inter-related parts. In programming, formatting and indentation aid understanding - without them, this task becomes exceedingly difficult. It’s the same as how without punctuation, we cannot fully understand the context of a sentence or paragraph.
It was here that I wanted to write about whitespace and its importance in programming, graphic design and photography. However, browsing the Internet to find some good articles to plagiarise verbatim reference and cite correctly, I came across a great piece on the powerful use of whitespace from A List Apart. Focusing on the design of both web and print media, the theories found there can be translated to many different types of content: advised reading if - like me - you’re a newcomer to design and usability theory.
Clicking through to the author’s website I discover that not only does Mark Boulton work a leisurely 5 minute stroll from my current place of work, but he also creates interesting and beautifully simple presentations - my favourite of which is Better Typography; produced for the Berlin Web 2.0 Expo on the importance of typography in design. With its practical and usable examples and vivid depictions of the impact typography can have, I advise giving it a read. Mark’s kindly allowed me to mirror the presentation locally, and I feel that Paola Antonelli’s TED Talk is a perfect compliment if you’re reading about design and typography for the first time.
Finally, if anyone has a good book recommendation on design, usability, etc. it’ll definitely make a welcome addition to my Intelligence by Osmosis series.
I’m afraid I’m lying to you all… this is not a list of my top 10 top 10s of 2007: one of these lists has 19 items on them and one even has 7. I’m sorry. Oh, and some of them don’t even have ‘2007′ in the title. I’m a bad person - I know I am - and for that I apologise.
Regardless, below are my top 10 lists of 2007. You know the ones - they proclaim to contain the best 10-or-so of something from the 12 months that have just passed? Come, soak up the nostalgia:
- The Best 19 Movies You Didn’t See in 2007 - Looking for the best independent films of 2007 that didn’t make it big? Well then, this is the list for you. A great list to accompany this is /film’s ingeniously compiled 25 Definitive Movies of 2007. A ‘glass-is-half-empty’ kinda person? Well how about the 9 Worst Movies of 2007?
- Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks - I love this stuff. While it’s got nothing to do with 2007, it’s got everything to do with making your life just that little bit easier. This is the reason why I once read Lifehacker religiously: reading this list makes me want to resubscribe to their RSS feed. In fact, I will.
- Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007 - Watching these videos you may laugh (Don’t Tase Me vs. MC Hammer), stare in amazement/puzzlement (Daft Hands/Prison Inmates Performing ‘Thriller’), or simply cringe and wonder how it all went so wrong (Miss South Carolina Teen USA). The list could be refined though: where’s Chocolate Rain, Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip and the Finger Painting Turtle-Kid?
- 10 of the Most Interesting and Entertaining Images of 2007 - The top 10 viral images of 2007. That means, that if you have an email address, you’ve undoubtedly seen these 10 times already.
- 7 Things We Should Pretend Never Happened - I knew I was going to agree with most of this list as soon as I read the headline for item number one: Huddled Masses Lining Up for Bullsh!t.
- D!ckheads of the Year - Like Ronseal, this list does exactly what it says on the tin. Erik Prince of Blackwater, College Republicans, Congressional Democrats and - of course - George Bush… all nominated by Rolling Stone for the honour of being ‘D!ckhead of the Year’.
- Top 10 Astronomy Pictures - I’ve never been a huge astronomy fan. Yeah, the Universe is fascinating and full of mystery; but there’s something inherently unknowable about it that - for some reason - distracts me from its splendour. Nonetheless, these images are truly captivating.
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007 - Bored and trying to think of something to download and watch? I’m not as that’s illegal, but if I were (hypothetically speaking, of course) I would go here to see what films and TV shows were downloaded the most last year.
- Top 10 New Organisms of 2007 - From the Ashera GD hypo-allergenic cat to super CO2-absorbing trees, it’s been an interesting year in genetic engineering and Wired does the this round-up for us. If genetic engineering isn’t your scientific tipple, why not have a look at their Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007 instead?
- Best ‘Professional’ Photographs of 2007 - There’s UNICEF’s Photo of the Year, National Geographic News’ Top Ten Photos, and The Press Photographer’s Year Awards (my personal favourite, yet also the one with the worst website). Of course, it’s not just professionals who take captivating photographs, and so PhotoCompetitions.com has the definitive list of amateur and professional photography competition for your perusal.
As a bonus, have the following too:
As 2007 comes to a close, I decided that it was time to have a round-up of the big stories of the year. I like to do this every year as I find that you’ll undoubtedly be surprised: either by a ‘big’ story that somehow managed to pass you by, or just by realising how fast the year has gone. So, how to do this summary of events? After all, a year is a long time in news and news is different everywhere you look!
One of the best barometers of stories that made it big on the Internet is, of course, Digg - the news aggregation service that I do not visit often enough. So, what were the big online stories of 2007? Here they are - in reverse order - according to Digg:
- Stand up for your rights, get arrested - 2007 saw a lot of people arrested for doing, well, nothing in particular. One story that made it big on Digg was a man who was arrested for using $2 bills in BestBuy.
- Net Neutrality - I’m not getting into this now, but here’s a Digg’d picture showing why it’s an important issue.
- The Nintendo Wii - ‘Nuff said.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force ‘terrorists’ and other Bostonian mishaps - In 2007, Boston definitely put the ‘error’ in ‘terror’: overreacting to so-called ‘hoax’ devices, blowing shit up, and prosecuting innocent people is the name of the game here. Refuse to be terrorised, people!
- PirateBay - 2007 was the year where piracy went mainstream. Too many stories to mention.
- Microsoft Surface - Pretty nifty look at the future of personal computing: the end of point-and-click. I first saw this technology being (better) demonstrated in Jeff Han’s 2006 TED talk.
- Paris Hilton - You can’t avoid this woman if you tried… 2007 saw her do ‘time’ in jail and the loss of her inheritance. Oh, and she’s still the most annoying person on the plant.
- Execution of Saddam Hussein - Executed 40 hours before 2007 began, the leaked video of the hanging was undoubtedly the first big online story of 2007.
- iPhone - Love it or loathe it, the iPhone arrived in 2007 to much fanfare. Well, at least it’s getting people thinking about design, right?
- 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 - A vivid depiction of the Streisand effect. This is one story that showed - in no uncertain terms - the power of the Internet as a consumer tool: we don’t want restrictions on our music, our books, our television and (as this story makes abundantly clear) our HD-DVDs. This was the 21st Centuries ‘Digital Revolt’.
We can’t spend all our time online and ‘real world’ news is important too, right? So, here’s another list of the top 10 news stories from around the world, according to Time and The Times Online:
- Pakistan’s Political Crisis - From the pressuring of Musharraf to give up command of the Army to the assassination of Bhutto; Pakistan’s politics hasn’t been out of the news all year.
- US Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis - When the US housing bubble eventually popped it wasn’t just the US that suffered - markets around the world felt the impact as banks reeled in their debts.
- Burma Protests - A bad year for democracy in Burma. As tens of thousands of monks took to the streets to protest against a rise in petrol prices (and thus the price of other staples), the military junta cracked down by raiding monasteries and tackling the peaceful protests head on.
- Goodbye, Harry Potter - At last, it’s over!
- Iraq War - The Iraq war was for oil you say? The only surprising part of this ‘revelation’ is that it came from the man who was head of the US Federal Reserve for 18 years - Alan Greenspan.
- Chinese Toy Recall - Made in China took on a new meaning this year as millions of toys made there and exported to the US were recalled for using lead paint, having loose parts, and burning children. Of course “buying local” is still an alien concept to half the western world and a little mishap over some paint isn’t going to make a difference, is it?
- Virginia Tech Massacre - There was more to this story than just another school shooting. Not only did the gunman mail manifesto-style tapes to the media halfway through his rampage; he was also pronounced by a judge to be mentally ill and in need of hospitalisation - yet still managed to legally buy his arsenal of weapons.
- iPhone - Enough already!
Yes, I know that’s only 8 stories, but it was hard picking another two that had world-wide status: was the Madeleine McCann story known throughout the world? Was the saga of Alan Johnston’s capture and eventual release as big in the US as it was here in the UK? Can the rise and rise of Facebook be classed as ‘real-world news’ (it only went fully public in late 2006)? How about 2007’s ‘Data Chernobyl‘? It’s a tough choice.
