Compare this to the boxes-and-arrows diagram used in the 4700-word CRS Manual.

What gives the interactive chart its punch is the use of verbs to describe the connections between the elements. Verbs like “contain”, “create”, “perform” are contrasted with “are part of”, “are created by”, “are performed by”. These words identify the relationship between subjects and objects in a much more informative way than lines with arrowheads.

Jacob Gube offers a splendid appreciation of this splendid character covering history, styling, encoding, and what not to do:

(Apologies to our Facebook fans, who are getting this twice.)

Much of the [Academy of English] fiasco seems to have been inspired by the various abbreviations that people use while texting or tweeting.  “You” becomes “u.”  “To” and “too” become “2.”  (We will assume that “two” becoming “2″ is acceptable to all.)  Now, I am speaking as someone who quite purposely avoids such abbreviations.  I also avoid using emoticons in the hope that the person on the other end of the communication can understand when I intend to be humorous or something of a scamp simply from the way that I string words together.  Perhaps I am deluding myself or overestimating my abilities, but I am willing to live with the consequences involved.

But, Cassamas adds, “the making of abbreviations is nothing new”. Here he brings up yr obt svt. And he links to a video clip of Stephen Fry talking about language with Craig Ferguson. Link through to view it.

By the way, Cassamas tweets at @rudyvalue.

…in copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos—with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting.

Yagoda isn’t ready to credit the internet for this shift. He writes, “I spotlight the Web not because it brings out any special proclivities but because it displays in a clear light the way we write now.” But he does point out several ways in which the digital age affects usage. One that is embedded in my psyche is the logic of computer programming and markup language authoring. You don’t let stray characters inside your quotation marks. Period.

Another is the logic of international readership:

By far the biggest fount of logical punctuation today is Wikipedia, which was started by two Americans but whose English-language edition is by and for all English-speaking countries.

The piece, which runs almost 11 minutes, “breaks” the commonly-held belief about the ideal duration of online video (2-3 minutes tops) and is a solid example of an exception to the rule.  The combination of the engaging style of Pinker’s narration, complete with examples from Fargo, When Harry Met Sally, and James Thurber, and the visual rendering of his words, held my attention effortlessly.  It is an apt demonstration of how words and images can combine to create immersive experiences.

For those interested in the substance as well as the form, there is much to digest.  Pinker’s views on the tension between relationship models, actions, and use of language are important facets to consider when presenting information.  We have always been told that words are important; this piece provides solid insight into why.

That a user had “the whole world of knowledge at his disposal” was one of those absurdities like the belief that ultimately computers would think–it will be time to say so when a computer makes an ironic answer. “The whole world of knowledge” could be at one’s disposal only if one already knew a great deal and wanted further information to turn into knowledge after gauging its value.

Information isn’t knowledge. This fact points to a certain friction in the terms we use in our practice. Most often, an information architect really is concerned with information. The goal is to help individuals locate information in a context that helps them gauge its value. An information designer, however, is more focused on knowledge. The designer seeks to communicate ideas within a dataset. I wouldn’t advocate a change in terms. Knowledge designer sounds hopelessly pretentious. But the distinction between the two practices is important.

David Maisel, Terminal Mirage #215-9-4, 2003, Chromogenic print, Gift of Edward Osowski in honor of the photographer and the Eliza S. Paine Fund, 2005.102

Its focus will be on the role place plays in visualizing abstract concepts such as time and memory and will feature works by a series of contemporary artists employing a variety of mediums.  Of particular interest is a collection of pieces in which the traditional bounds of photography are challenged as the canonical record of architectural experience.

I plan to visit the exhibit in the coming weeks and will post images and reactions.  It will be on display through February 13, 2011.

Starbucks, like most other businesses is primarily interested in maximizing throughput of orders. More orders equals more revenue. As a result they use asynchronous processing. When you place your order the cashier marks a coffee cup with your order and places it into the queue. The queue is quite literally a queue of coffee cups lined up on top of the espresso machine. This queue decouples cashier and barista and allows the cashier to keep taking orders even if the barista is backed up for a moment. It allows them to deploy multiple baristas in a Competing Consumer scenario if the store gets busy.

This is a quirky article that introduces a number of programming concepts in an accessible and entertaining way. Hohpe throws in the occasional deep dive — as with the “Competing Consumer” link in the quote — but even there the analogy helps you guess where such a link might take you.

Analogy speaks to shared experience. It provides a way — one way — to turn abstract concepts into visual explanation. I can almost see the coffee cups lined up in front of me.

Reporter Drake Bennett leads with the fact that “shares in companies with easy-to-pronounce names do indeed significantly outperform those with hard-to-pronounce names.” He continues:

Other studies have shown that when presenting people with a factual statement, manipulations that make the statement easier to mentally process – even totally nonsubstantive changes like writing it in a cleaner font or making it rhyme or simply repeating it – can alter people’s judgment of the truth of the statement, along with their evaluation of the intelligence of the statement’s author (my emphasis).

However, the flip side of easy equals true — or “an instinctive preference for the familiar” as Bennett defines the concept — is that to generate reflection or curiosity, you may need to make things less familiar. It’s a good thing we know how to do both.

The fun is seeing how different investigations overlap. Here’s one example: