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Author: cgerrish

Unemployed philosopher

POSH & The Courts

Published October 14, 2007 by cgerrish

Not sure what this court ruling really means, but the Register and TechCrunch are reporting that California courts are “leaning” toward requiring Web site accessibility for the visually impaired. For the folks who build websites using progressive enhancement and POSH (plain old semantic HTML), this would not be a problem. (Thanks to Joe Tennis for the link to POSH)

For the most part front end presentation code has been either been patched together by backend developers, or created by visual designers using photoshop with no understanding of how their pictures relate to code. There are a few brave souls that continue to spearhead the concept of designing with HTML. While it’s hard for the front end designer/coders to set the strategic agenda, I think it’s time they did. Right now there are a few people who can fill that role, I’m thinking of Jeremy Keith, Zeldman, Jason Fried, Eric Meyer and a few others.

I wonder if it would be a good or bad thing if the courts mandated POSH and progressive enhancement? I’m sure some back-end developer will create some inflexible, horribly tortured way to meet the requirement by creating multiple versions of a Web site. And then some online journal will document it as a “best practice.” This really could turn into a case of the blind leading the blind.

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Appomatox, An Opera by Philip Glass

Published October 12, 2007 by cgerrish

Philip Glass

One of the great things about going to a premiere of a new opera by a living composer is that you have a direct connection to the life and times of the work. Walking into theater last night, I noticed that the guy in front of me was Philip Glass. He looked a little nervous. Frankly I don’t know how he could sit in the audience and just watch.

While I wouldn’t call “Appomatox” a masterpiece, I would say it’s a “must see.” It’s a very good and thought provoking piece. Robert Woodruff makes his opera directing debut and really delivers. And the set design has tremendous scale with visual and emotional impact.

Glass, Christopher Hampton and David Gockley are to be congratulated for their fearlessness in selecting a theme as big as the Civil War. It’s only through big risk that there is the potential for big rewards. It’s a big story that delivers on many levels. This county’s civil war left 600,000 dead, and that burden weighed down the souls of Lincoln, Grant and Lee. In a war where so many men die, it’s left to the women to tell the story and express the emotions of the nation.

Grant and Lee negotiated the surrender of the southern army and the basis for reconciliation. The opera goes on to tell the ways in which reconcilation failed. The negotiation was civilized and concluded in great hope. But we are only a nation of people—flawed, brilliant and inconsistent.

The orchestra was conducted by Dennis Russell Davies in his first engagement with SF Opera. A long time ago, Davies was the music director of the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz. He’s conducted many premieres by Glass, and showed a real command of the music. If you’ve listened to a lot of Glass, you’ll hear many familiar themes. If you like Glass, you’ll like Appomatax. It probably requires several hearings for its full depth to come through.

All opera company directors are looking to broaden their audiences. They need to bring younger people in and win new converts. The house was packed and diverse. At the intermission, there was a real buzz. The opera provoked conversation and dialogue. I like seeing new work about american themes and history. There’s a lot of richness here that’s untapped.

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The Doc Is In: Health Vault

Published October 10, 2007 by cgerrish

Doc Searl’s weighs in on Microsoft’s HealthVault. The same issues come up over and over again. Big companies like to build systems that lock you in. They call it stickiness (In the manner of a fly trap). The questions are obvious at this point— can I take my data and leave? Can I run my data through a value-add analytic provided by another provider? If I can’t move it, in what sense is it really mine? Searls calls health info the holy grail of vendor relationship management. I call it the official definition of Web 4.0.

Jon Udell answers some of Doc’s questions. Leave it to Jon actually read the fine print. But when it comes to stuff like this, we all need to remember what Tom Waits said: “What the big print giveth, the small print taketh away.”

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