Alan Quatermain

hoursago: crowley receives a commendation just for starting...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:27:13 -0400

crowley receives a commendation just for starting all the book vs. e-reader fights that make everyone mad

Latest Wave of Ipsos Study Reveals Mobile Device Brands Canadian Consumers are Considering in 2012 | Ipsos

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:19:34 -0400

Latest Wave of Ipsos Study Reveals Mobile Device Brands Canadian Consumers are Considering in 2012 | Ipsos:

The study also reveals that as eReaders grow in popularity, the brand landscape is showing a runaway brand winner: the Kobo. Twelve months earlier, the Sony eReader, the Kobo, and Amazon’s Kindle were virtually tied for market penetration at 28%, 27% and 25% respectively. The January 2012 wave of the Mobil-ology Study shows the Kobo far out in front with 46% penetration and the Kindle slipping one point to 24%.

Le w00t.

"The number of mobile Apple devices sold and in use is already a multiple of all dedicated eBook..."

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:48:43 -0400

“The number of mobile Apple devices sold and in use is already a multiple of all dedicated eBook devices sold in the United States, making Apple — and not Amazon — the dominant outlet for eBook sales. And while in this position, it enjoys a shopping experience advantage that it willfully denies to its competitors.”

- Dear DoJ: You Need To Sue Apple Again | Mike Cane’s xBlog

That’s a damned good point…

4yo engineering major: use of Easter Bunny as an iPad stand...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:37:07 -0400

4yo engineering major: use of Easter Bunny as an iPad stand (Taken with instagram)

US Homeland Security Demanding Veto on Travel Between UK and Some Non-US Destinations

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:56:35 -0400

US Homeland Security Demanding Veto on Travel Between UK and Some Non-US Destinations:

One million British travellers planning to fly to Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico this year face the risk of being turned away at the airport – at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Er, so after I visit my parents in the UK, the United States of America gets to decide if I can return to my home, job, and all worldly possessions in Canada, simply because I’m based in Toronto rather than Vancouver…?

Why the fuck is this being accepted? I mean, airlines are already complying with this. Where’s the outcry? As the linked article points out:

Neil Taylor, a tour operator who pioneered tourism to Cuba, said: “Imagine if the Chinese were to ask for such data on all passengers to Taiwan, and similarly if the Saudis were to ask about flights to Israel – would the US government understand?

“One also has to wonder how an American traveller in Europe would react if he were denied boarding on a flight from London to Rome because the German government had not received sufficient data from him.”

It’s literally that simple: if anyone else were to try and pull this sort of stunt, the retaliation would be swift and uncompromising. But it’s the US asking, and they’ve got enough political clout (read: ability to spread propaganda) around the western world that this is tolerated. If the US does it, it’s for safety; if anyone else does it, it’s oppression, and that country goes straight onto the ‘Axis of Evil’ list.

Having written this, the chances of my being able to return to Canada this September have probably been reduced by at least a couple of percentage points 😏

Having finished Mass Effect 3 via my ME2 save last night, I’m now trying it while starting...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:09:50 -0400

Having finished Mass Effect 3 via my ME2 save last night, I’m now trying it while starting afresh. The thing that’s surprised me so far is the list of people on the memorial wall in the Normandy: it’s not only much longer, but it includes some folks who had significant, even major roles in the play-through I just finished, such as:

Jack Zero
Donnelly & Daniels
Thane Krios
Urdnot Wrex (?!!)

I have a feeling this will be a very different experience this time around…

Apple's Response to the 'Kindle Theory' of Antitrust

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:53:26 -0500

Apple's Response to the 'Kindle Theory' of Antitrust:

Apple’s lawyers:

[I]f Amazon was a “threat” that needed to be squelched by means of an illegal conspiracy, why would Apple offer Amazon’s Kindle app on the iPad? Why would Apple conclude that conspiring to force Amazon to no longer lose money on eBooks would cripple Amazon’s competitive fortunes? And why would Apple perceive the need for an illegal solution to the “Kindle threat” when it had an obvious and lawful one which it implemented – namely, introducing a multipurpose device (the iPad) whose marketing and sales success was not centered on eBook sales?

This sounds quite fair— until you consider the restrictions placed upon competing eReader apps on this multipurpose device:

No sales except through Apple IAP @ ~110% of revenue.
No sign-up for accounts.
No links to store websites via Safari.
No links to company website (even for displaying corporate privacy policy, etc.).
No static text giving the address of company/store website.
No static text saying ‘our website’ or similar.
No introduction or mention of non-free content availability.
No use of the words ‘trial’ or ‘preview’ to refer to content.
No means to acquire new content aside from 100% free content within the application.
No text suggesting that non-free content is available for purchase (even without discussion of where one might do so).

For the record, all of the above were cause for the Kobo app to be pulled from the store if we did not submit a hotfix immediately. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t be doing the same to Amazon.

Married men will recognize this one

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:00:13 -0500

Husband: Do you need any help with that?
Wife: No, I'm fine.
Husband: Anything else you'd like done?
Wife: No, thanks.
Husband: Okay, no problem. [Starts doing something of his own]
Wife: [Immediately] Can you go and do $TASK, it's really urgent.
Husband: …

Interesting thing. I’m told that, in the all-time top 25 free iPad apps in Canada, Kobo made...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:26:19 -0500

Interesting thing. I’m told that, in the all-time top 25 free iPad apps in Canada, Kobo made the top 10 and iBooks didn’t even place. And yet if you look at the current top 10 apps in the Books section of the store, you’ll see that iBooks is ahead of Kobo, just beating is to the number one spot. And that’s pretty much how it’s been ever since iBooks launched (along with the iPad), with the exception of a week or two.

So, depending on the source, Kobo is either constantly trailing behind iBooks or totally eclipsing it. Which is it then? I didn’t pay a lot of attention in statistics class (or “lies, damned lies, and statistics” class), but I’m fairly sure it can’t be both…

The PA Report - Sexual harassment as ethical imperative: how Capcom’s fighting game reality show turned ugly

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:41:45 -0500

The PA Report - Sexual harassment as ethical imperative: how Capcom’s fighting game reality show turned ugly:

A great article on a disturbing subject. And today, one of my favourite authors, China Miéville, posts a perfect rebuttal to such thinking:

It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say. Being asked to apologise for saying something unconscionable is not the same as being stripped of the legal right to say it. It’s really not very fucking complicated. Cry Free Speech in such contexts, you are demanding the right to speak any bilge you wish without apology or fear of comeback.

Objective-See Interview

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:13:26 -0500

Objective-See Interview:

A few weeks ago I had the great honor of being interviewed for Objective-See about my development setup and processes. That interview was posted today— go check it out!

My daughter Olivia reads a story about Maya, our cat. It is a...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:22:50 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

My daughter Olivia reads a story about Maya, our cat. It is a tale full of angst and tribulations, but it finishes strongly with an existential moral, I think.

Design & Build a Small Business App: AQGridView

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:09:13 -0500

Design & Build a Small Business App: AQGridView:

A nice little tutorial here on the use of AQGridView on iOS 5.0.

Readium Open Source Initiative Launched to Accelerate Adoption of EPUB 3 | International Digital Publishing Forum

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:48:07 -0500

Readium Open Source Initiative Launched to Accelerate Adoption of EPUB 3 | International Digital Publishing Forum:

So here’s the Big News to which I’d earlier alluded. The IDPF has got together a who’s-who of people and companies in the eBook world to work on an open-source implementation of a reference ePub3 reading system and container library. And of course Kobo is putting a ton of weight behind it. Also, me: I’m going to be working on this project full-time here very shortly.

Looking through the project’s goals, you’ll see a good amount of overlap with the goals I’d previously stated for the ePub Author project. The core aims are all there:

A browser of ‘ePub3-flavoured HTML’ content.
A library encapsulating the correct parsing and generation of all forms of structured content described in the ePub3 standard.
Best-in-class support for non-Roman scripts, particularly vertically-flowing ones.
No limits on its use as the core of a larger project, even commercial ones.
Lots of industry know-how being funnelled into a single output.

So yeah: I’m rather excited about this one. Expect to hear more from me as it all progresses.

Now I’ll just go back to writing ePub3 structured content handling code…

baileygenine: People who don’t suffer from depression, won’t...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:15:10 -0500

baileygenine:

People who don’t suffer from depression, won’t understand it, I know I’ve said that a few times, but remember that. (And I don’t say “suffer” lightly, it is suffering. Your whole body hurts, your brain doesn’t work, you’re tired until you try to sleep and then you’re wide awake. You want to laugh, but instead all you can do is cry. You feel like crying and you just get angry, so angry, angry because there is nothing you can do to make yourself feel normal. You do something you absolutely love and you start to feel good and then you wonder why you feel good, you shouldn’t feel good, this isn’t right, you get anxious, you get nauseous, and you cry.)

This.

The effect depression has on me is similar, although it usually manifests in supreme lethargy. That then leads into an inability to concentrate or perform serious tasks, which means that getting worried about tasks and deadlines often leads to an evil soul-sucking downward spiral of doom and gloom.

Many thanks to Bailey for putting this into words.

"Downmarket Genre Fiction" is it?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:42:38 -0500

So the astute Mr. Gemmell earlier today made note of a rather elitist-sounding article over at paidContent:UK. The author of that piece rather laments the fact that eBook consumption is led by ‘genre fiction’. You know— everything that most people read; something — *shudder* — classifiable. Science fiction. Romance. Crime. Horror. Fantasy. Historical.

…

So, is it just me, or does that sound an awful lot like regular books? What else could we call them……… Ah yes— stories.

This all smacks of the same sort of book-snobbery we see in some literary awards’ shortlists, or in programmes about books on the BBC. This has prompted a number of authors to call out the organizers and producers of such fare for their low view of so-called ‘genre fiction’. In March 2011, author Stephen Hunt wrote on his blog:

In my world there is only one genre permitted access to the oxygen of publicity in the mainstream media, and that genre is contemporary fiction. It is also called literary fiction by its supporters, just to underscore the point that anything that isn’t written in their genre can never be classed as literature or improving or worthy.

The end result of all this snobbery, he points out, is the loss of the joy of reading in the youth of today. In amidst the many other ways of finding entertainment, the elevation of ‘contemporary fiction’ as the only thing worth reading has turned off many of our youth from reading altogether:

And that conflict, dear reader, between what we read and what is actually covered by the media has sadly begot a much greater one. People, especially younger readers, have given up on fiction on dead trees. They were happy to play the ‘literary fiction’ game in a gentler age, when it was the only game in town. Hell, some crazy old dudes even read short fiction in the pulps back in the day. But it’s a more packed playlist now: MMOGs, IM, BitTorrents, RSS feeds, happy slapping, texting, DS, Xbox, Twitter, FaceBook, iPods, iPads, YouTube, blogging, Tumblr, Angry Birds – you know the drill, right?

I suppose I was lucky in high school that my English teacher didn’t hold to such things— we were specifically encouraged to read fantasy and science fiction; I remember reading Howard Fast’s The First Men there, and many people’s marks took a good boost when writing up that one (we were tasked with writing a newspaper editorial about the experiment in the story).

When reading the article which provoked today’s discussion, I initially thought that perhaps the inflammatory title (downmarket genre fiction) was an addition by the editor, and that perhaps the writer herself had a more nuanced view. However, down towards the bottom were a couple of gems which rather cut short that hope:

The reading public in private is lazy and smutty. E-readers hide the material. Erotica sells well.

I’m not so sure it is wise to underestimate the boundless idiocy of the unobserved reading public. They may intend to go to the Economist website to read the latest in the euro crisis, but oops! they’ve ended up on Mail Online reading about the Kardashians.

…ok. That’s one way of putting it. Another might be: we read for entertainment, not self-betterment. Most people spend long days working, then most of their evenings working in another fashion: food, cleaning, caring for family. If we choose to spend our leisure time reading, we are more likely to read something entertaining than improving; simple fatigue will dictate that as the norm, if nothing else. Don’t think that it’s all slush, though. Of everything I’ve read in my life, no book has made me reach for the (conveniently built-in) dictionary than Gregory Macguire’s Wicked series. Damn that guy has some vocabulary. And how many other ‘genre fiction’ books — and genre fiction in a fantasy setting, based upon a line of children’s books, no less — would come with study notes included?

The establishment might choose to look down its nose at writing for the sake of story, but its nature does not make it automatically sub-standard.

So there are Great Things afoot for ePub implementors. I have things being planned out nicely, and I...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:56:52 -0500

So there are Great Things afoot for ePub implementors. I have things being planned out nicely, and I should be able to make an official announcement & call for contributors in about a week, I think. Specifically anything about the frame layout model of WebKit/WebCore would be very useful to have in about a week’s time.

harkaway: The brain-meltingly amazing trailer for Angelmaker....

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:38:08 -0500

harkaway:

The brain-meltingly amazing trailer for Angelmaker. ‘nuff said.

OMG THE SEXY IT’S TOO MUCH! CAN’T RESIST… MUST … OBTAIN … BOOK…

I have a meeting tomorrow with a big-name company about helping to set up this ePub Author thing,...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:16:00 -0500

I have a meeting tomorrow with a big-name company about helping to set up this ePub Author thing, following which I should be in a position to start getting a community process together and bringing people into the fold.

…so there’s that.

More on ePub Author

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:04:02 -0500

In the few days since I suggested it there has been a lot of interest in pursuing the initiative. I’ve had contacts from a few companies looking to invest money, expertise, or people, and I’ve heard from a great many people who would love to see just such an application in the wild.

On Goals

I’ve been thinking more about what the aims and output should be. I see a few primary goals:

ePub3-Compatible HTML Renderer: Extend the WebKit platform with concrete support for the special CSS selectors defined by ePub3, as well as some API-level management of optional feature handling (e.g. for epub:switch and epub:case) and triggers.
ePub3 Container API: A clean API for collating data in an ePub3 container. This API would know how to handle optional/alternative content and the generation of index, bibliography, and glossary information. It would also allow for the specification of metadata extensions and extended/customized content data types.
An ePub3 Generator: This would be a user-facing application with support for building valid ePub3 files. It would handle both the correct management of different levels of features and compatibility, and the creation of ePub3-valid HTML5 and CSS content documents.

Other priorities of the above projects would include proper handling of right-to-left and top-to-bottom languages, which currently exhibit some compatibility issues between different CSS properties in the current WebKit builds.

The first two parts would be open-source projects, available to all. The third would presumably have a relatively basic form available as an open-source reference implementation, while vendors could implement their own high-level applications upon the same base. For example, an application similar to iBooks Author could be built on top of the APIs described above.

The whole thing could be dual-licensed under both the GPL and a commercial license, allowing for monetization of the core assets. For example, a vendor with a specific customized feature set might acquire a commercial license to the rendering and generation libraries in order to add customizations particular to their platform.

On Organization

In terms of the expected structure, I imagine a governing body/working group defining the expected output, but only in the longer term. The first and foremost priority would be to develop at least the generator in the short term, with the aim of producing a solid 0.x release to serve as the basis for an official API specification and later 1.0 release.

As regards the group setup, there would obviously be a number of developers putting together the code. These will primarily be folks working for the various interested parties, such as eReader software vendors and eBook distributors. Additionally, we would likely have some means for interested parties to make monetary donations to the effort; this would likely be similar to the rewards system used by Kickstarter, although for various reasons Kickstarter itself is likely infeasible unless some closer-term goals would merit that approach.

On Investment

I’m hoping that a number of publishers and eBook firms will step forward to invest in this effort. The accepted input would most likely be split into different levels based on each donor’s needs from the project. Publishers might donate smaller amounts in exchange for volume licenses to high-quality end-user toolsets provided by vendor donors. The vendors, in exchange for a larger input, would gain commercial source code licenses to develop custom ePub3 generator applications for their individual ePub3 platforms.

This is not to say that we will provide our ePub3 toolkit to form the basis of a non-standard eBook format similar to that utilized by iBooks Author. However, the market thrives on competition, so we do want to let individual vendors compete on the specifications and abilities of their reader platforms; we simply require that they differentiate themselves and their content in a well-defined manner, such that their content can gracefully degrade in other eReaders. Additionally, vendors’ individual directions can better inform any future updates to the ePub standard itself.

Specifically: All output should successfully validate as ePub3 according to the published specification. Any vendor-specific features should be clearly and legally marked as such, and should provide standard-format fallbacks where applicable.

In Closing

I believe that it is an important part of any data format standards process that a toolchain be produced which provides for the users of that format. In this case, I think it is important that ePub3 not only be defined as a standard laid out in copious amounts of hyperlinked text, but also in terms of a demonstration of its implementation. We have seen, in iBooks Author, what happens when one interested party decides to build on top of their own toolkit rather than adopt the new standards. If reference ePub3 implementations had been available in parallel with the definition and ratification of the standard, there might be a significantly different landscape in eBook publishing today.

Let’s set ourselves the aim of providing everyone with a single proven foundation upon which to build; we can then see competition in the market thrive on added-value features rather than who implements which parts of a single well-known specification the best.