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Technological Term (v - pro-TO-sin-tha-sis)

The integration of presentation and operation as a means of delivering better functionality.

Designers make nifty buttons and pictures that look great, but are hard to use.
Coders make programs that require the user to remember obscure facts about the system.
Hardware manufacturers design equipment that have no universal standards.

Good technology uses the arrangement (design) of program elements (code) and physical parts (hardware) to extend the user's ability with the least amount of stress on the user.

Mark my words -- online TV is the next web. This article about an initiative to get video distribution online is another indication of the coming trend for video distribution over the Internet.

Luxtera is making moves in the optical chip market. This is a company worth watching. Read this: Photonics Startup Pegs Q2'06 Production Date

It's the littlest things that serve as indicators -- a canary in a coal mine, the silence of birds, a quick change in the weather. But while we all learn to watch for the small signs that point to bad things, for some reason the good ones are harder to see. This is one such indicator.

Computing is headed to optical processing -- someday. It's a "long way off, far away" conversation usually. Yes, we have fiber optic communications on networks, but the concept of computers doing their processing using light has been theoretical and otherworldly.

The article listed about talks about a company, Luxtera, that has announced the first all-in-one combined silicon/optics chip. This is the first step -- the first snowflake -- the first proof that we're eventually going to have computers that make everything we use these days seem slow and sad in comparison. Tell all your friends.

This is cool. You set up a cool multimedia source online. Then you associate it to a word at grafedia.net and underline it while you're writing it on the wall or something less illegal. Then, when people see it, they can send a text message to that word @grafedia.net and they get a link that leads to the media. Check out all the details at Grafedia.

I love little stories like this that show how a little creativity way below the hood shows the triumph of the human spirit over the stupidity of things like lawyers and businessmen.

Seems at one time the Beatles were suing Apple -- something about not being able to call themselves Apple (the Beatles' recording label was Apple) and do things with music at the same time. So the programmers working on all the music tools on the Mac were being chewed up between the wheels. This is a little protest article is all... and funny because it survived all these years.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as applying engineering or science to hack the physical world ... except maybe applying engineering or scient to make a statement regarding a stupid request from customer support.

Jurassic Park may not be on the way tomorrow, but this article shows us that with the finding of actual, real dinosaur "soft tissue", we may be able to answer some cool questions; like are they related to birds, were they warm blooded, etc. Pretty Cool

I used to joke that the Pacific Rim invented the snooze bar in order to destroy America. This clock is our answer to that threat.

I'm loving this new mac application called Clutter. It lets' you play around with CD covers a lot -- throw them around on your desktop as if they were actually there.

Of course, if you're a mac user -- you are hereby required to use Quicksilver. It's better than cheese, it's mightier than a snowcone. You must have it now -- look into my eyes -- you muuuust have it now.

If you're a fan of floating out in space and watching the world in realtime, then get OSXPlanet. It lets you see the clouds, the volcanoes, the storms, the sattelites and the shadow of night as they all rotate around the Earth in real time.

Ok -- shoo -- go get those... come back later for more.

So, you want to be smart and you work on the assumption that reading snippets of noise on the Internet is going to make it happen. Well, that's not the way to go -- however, it is possible to use the Internet to find the resources that will make you recognizably well-read and learned in polite society.

In an ongoing attempt to add something to the ever fading mindspace that is the American public, I give you a single link. It contains the perfect list of books as determined by the OCLC (you'll just have to look it up at the site - c'mon, exercise your brain).

This list is the "best" books as shown by Libraries in 84 countries around the world, determined by "purchase vote" -- and I'm here to tell you that reading them will make you smarter -- it will help you grow a brain.