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On Facebook, Nobody Knows You’re A Dick

Richard Fink — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:45:50 +0000

My wife spends at least as much time online as I do. But there’s a few things about digital tech that she just doesn’t quite grasp. She doesn’t get that computers are basically stupid. And that, if you set up an account on a site using a particular spelling of your name or an email account, the site doesn’t automatically recognize that it’s you when you try logging in under some other variation of your name or another email account.

My wife’s first name is Lilo. But she’s always used Lee. Last year sometime, when Facebook started getting very popular, she must have set up an account under the name Lee. Then, more recently – in a burst of formality – she must have set up a second account as Lilo.

Now, Facebook has no idea that Lee and Lilo are the same person. But, creditably, Facebook has asked Lilo if she’s related to Lee, or would like to become friends with Lee.

This got me thinking…

I have a name – Richard – that has a lot of nicknames. There’s Rich, Richie, Rick, Dick, Dicky…
And, y’know, I’ve never really been much of a social, chatty person anyway and, really, who needs friends when you can converse with different instantiations of yourself? The world is so screwed up I spend half my time talking to myself anyway so why not just go whole hog? Such an arrangement is much more manageable. And perhaps more satisfying.

Depending upon my mood I could be Richard Fink, Rich Fink, Richie Fink, Rick Fink, Ricky Fink, Dick Fink, or Dicky Fink. We (I?) can form groups based on common interests because, of course, each version of myself will have a different persona. Dick Fink is feisty and skeptical. Richie Fink is nice, a real pushover. Richard Fink a bit standoffish. My God, think of the promise this holds for those with multiple personality disorder. Why, you could keep multiple browsers open and converse with different versions of yourself all day!

I also have a middle name. Martin. This means my inner circle of me could grow substantially. I could get back in touch with Richard M (haven’t seen him since grade school but he’s still on my driver’s license), Richie M (never knew him well but still, I’d like to know how he’s doing), Rick M (never met him, but we’ve got a lot in common), and so on. And if I get into alternative spellings -heavens – there could be more of myselves than I probably want to know: Richie, Richy, Rick, Ricky, Rickie, Dicky, and Dickie.

Know Thyself

Here are all my new friends in no particular order:

Richard M Fink, Rich Fink, Rich M Fink, Rick Fink, Richie M Fink, Dicky Fink, Richie Fink, Dick M Fink, Rick M Fink, Ricky Fink, Dick Fink, Ricky M Fink, Rickie Fink, Rickie M Fink, Richy Fink, Richy M Fink, and Dicky M Fink.
As fine (and loyal!) a group of friends as one could find, I think.

And if that’s not enough, I can spell out fully the name “Martin”, and create some more of me to get to know.

Last, the penultimate question: On Facebook, who is it that I’m married to, really – Lilo or Lee?

No related posts.

Web Font Frolic In Ireland

Richard Fink — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:25:59 +0000

The Association Typographique Internationale (ATYPI) is holding it’s annual conference in Dublin, Ireland this year. I’ll be giving a talk on web font formats titled Destination Web on the second day of the conference during its two-day Pre-Face warm-up. The full schedule was posted today.

Hey Mommy, Look At Me!

I’m quite excited to be in the same room, speaking from the same stage as some very accomplished people. People like designers Jon Tan and Richard Rutter of Fontdeck; Brian Mason and Ryan Carver – co-founders of Typekit (along with Jeffrey Veen); Kevin Larson of Microsoft; Miguel Sousa of Adobe; FontLab gurus Ted Harrison and Adam Twardoch, and font designer Tim Ahrens – just to name some names that I know.

They say that working with people who are better than you makes you better – and it’s true. So even though they’ll only to get to work with me for a few days, I’m expecting to see some sharp improvements from all of these fellows.

FontCONF In Minneapolis/St. Paul

Richard Fink — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:53:43 +0000

It’s Tomorrow, And Free. Please come.

If you’re in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and you’re into design, web design, web fonts, fonts, typography, or anything at all like the forementioned, please come to FontCONF tomorrow, Saturday, June 19th at:
CoCo – Coworking and Collaborative Space
213 4th St E., St Paul, MN

FontCONF

Organized by Garrick Van Buren of the font service and download site Kernest, a great time is guaranteed for all.

In the morning, font designer Chank Deisel will be leading a session where an entire font will be constructed as a collaborative effort. As part of a team, I’ll also be facilitating a session in the afternoon. There will be surprises. Fun. Laughter and learning.

Greatly looking forward to it. Hope you can come.

Addendum To Conference:

As some readers of this blog know, an article I wrote about fonts on the web was published on AlistApart Magazine about ten days ago. Unfortunately, Bill Davis of font producer Ascender Corp, took issue with some of the things I wrote about Ascender’s new web font services.

As it turned out, Bill flew in from Chicago to a attend FontCONF, and I’m sorry to report that all the bad blood boiled over, things got completely out of hand, and there was a brawl. Luckily, someone had a camera and captured the incident:

Davis and Fink square off with scornful laughter, each confident of victory.

Witneses to this unfortunate confrontation included font designers Mark Simonson, Stu Sandler, and Chank Deisel. However, after a delicious dinner at a nearby steak house in St. Paul, both men declined to press charges.

Early Reports Of Web-Safe Font “Sickness”

Richard Fink — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:46:36 +0000

In an email today, Garrick Van Buren of the font services site Kernest wrote something that startled me:

I’m starting to have a visceral reaction to conventional fonts on websites.

Me, too. I wrote back.

Of course Garrick and I aren’t typical. We are both people who have spent a lot of time working with @font-face and looking at fonts other than the handful of web safe fonts that are still, today, the foundation of typography on the web.

But it brought to my mind a scene from a movie – the sixties post-apocalyptic masterpiece, “On The Beach” – which chronicles the final days of the crew of a nuclear submarine in the wake of a massive nuclear exchange. Towards the end, a doctor on an island in the South Pacific – far away from the bulk of the fallout that has already killed most of humanity – diagnoses the island’s first case of radiation sickness. When someone questions if it could just be food poisoning he says, “We’re human beings, not machines. We don’t fall down in rows, you know.”

Heavy.

Smell of Books™ Aerosol Adds Just The Right Touch Of Familiarity

Richard Fink — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:47:07 +0000

New from DuroSport Electronics comes Smell of Books™ aerosol E-Book enhancer.
According to the company:

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

The company sent us one can as a promotion and it was gone in an hour. We couldn’t get enough and ordered twenty more. Smell of Books™ or, simply, “The Smell”, as we’ve nicknamed it around here at Readable Web, comes in five different aromas. Each one guaranteed to re-create, via your own olfactory senses, a true paper book reading experience you’re sure to find comforting and familiar. DuroSport assures us there are more on the way.
And while you’re checking out Smell of Books™, be sure to take a quick peek at parent company DuroSport’s complete line of products. You won’t believe your own eyes.
(Special Hint: Keep in mind this post is filed under Humor. Enjoy.)

Read An E-Book On An E-Reader With E-Ink On E-Paper, Today!

Richard Fink — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:51:08 +0000

I’m confused. My Kindle is really an iRex 1000S. And when people ask if it’s an E-Book, I say “Yes”, but I really think “No”.
E-this. E-that. E-gads, what does it all mean?
Here’s my current dictionary for the world of digital books:

E-Book: An E-Book is not the hardware device with a screen that you hold in your hands. An E-Book is software. An E-Book is the digital file that holds the text and images that comprise the “book”. A PDF, for example. This distinction makes for clearer usage I think. So, in my head at least, that’s the way I’ve set it up.
In other heads, the terms “E-Book” and “E-Reader” are likely to get shuffled around and used interchangeably for some time.
E-Reader: An E-Reader is a hardware device on which you read E-Books. The Kindle is an E-Reader.
But if the history of brand names is any guide – to add to the confusion – ”Kindle” might quickly go from referring to a specific product to categorical catch-all, meaning simply, “E-Reader”. No matter what the manufacturer.
“Is that a Kindle?” Yeah, it’s an iRex Kindle. But the screen’s a little smudged, got a Kleenex? Thanks, you proved my point.
E-Ink: This term, I wish, would just go away. It does a lousy job of describing what it’s trying to describe. Where do you put a device that uses E-Ink to make sure it doesn’t leak accidentally and send you running to the dry-cleaners? Is my laptop display using Liquid Crystal Ink? And where can you buy E-Whiteout? Staples doesn’t have that, it seems.
Please move to the DO NOT USE column.
E-Paper: “E-Paper” does, nicely, describe the appearance of the kind of screens to be found on the Kindle and similar devices. This one’s a keeper.

The evolution of language is a fascinating sport where everyone gets to play.
About a month ago, I was flying from Florida to New York. Before takeoff, the flight attendant stopped by my seat, and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to turn off your book.” And then she grinned, leaned down a bit, and added, “You know, I just love getting to say that!”
I knew exactly what she meant.

Screen Resolution And Me: Clarity Begins At Home

Richard Fink — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:25:30 +0000

I share a home office with my wife. We trade: she provides a constant reminder of the frustration that computers cause most ordinary humans and I provide desktop support. And I am, actually, a certified systems engineer with lots of experience configuring workstations. And for that I was well-paid. So my wife gets a bargain and I don’t ever forget that there is no such thing as a User Interface too simple – a daily reminder I wish I could transmit brain-to-brain to a lot of web developers and designers out there.
My wife has a big Samsung LCD screen that feeds off a Sony laptop running Vista. Ever since we got it, it has never looked right. Fuzzy. I remember playing around with the desktop settings a few times to get the icons and icon text bigger (but still fuzzy) and chalking up the overall lack of sharpness to the largeness of the screen. The resolution was set at 1440 x 900 – inherited from the laptop’s built-in display, probably. I don’t think I even tried jacking it up further because I assumed that everything would become unusably small.
“Damned computers”, I thought to myself. After all, back in the day, plenty of CRT’s looked like hell because in the end, big but a little fuzzy beat out less fuzzy but extremely small. So I let it go.
Then, about a week ago I posted a review of screen-readability guru Bill Hill’s article about screen resolution and how it is so often set wrong.
But not by me, no, never. Couldn’t happen. I’m a systems engineer, right? I’m sitting pretty.
Then a few days later, a light in my brain flashed on.
I walked over to my wife’s screen and, sure enough, when the resolution in Vista’s Display settings were bumped up in line with the screen’s “native resolution” – in this case 1680 x 1050 – everything sharpened up beautifully. And without getting unusably small.
This little episode makes me suspect that a lot of the complaints about Windows Vista have come from it’s having been introduced at about the same time the migration to LCD screens was picking up steam along with the move to laptops where, if a desktop display was also used and it was wide-screen, it was likely to inherit the settings of the physically smaller laptop display. Not knowing about any other options, people simply accepted whatever settings appeared.
A headache in the making, absolutely. It makes you wonder why there wasn’t or isn’t a wizard that pops up to walk people through the options when a new display screen is detected.
But of course experts like me wouldn’t need it. Truly, there is no substitute for experience.