"Let me introduce the word hypertext to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper"—Ted Nelson
This hypertext both indexes and annotates the main text on the left. External links open in a new window. This split page (using frames) is in itself an example of how hypertext was originally intended to be used, and how it can be—but rarely is—used today. Frames have gone out of fashion because they hinder search engine optimisation (SEO). However, in some applications (like technical documentation) frames can still be very useful.
The Sardar Sarovar Projects were/are massive irrigation projects in India, at one time supported by the World Bank. In a 1991 letter from Bradford Morse and Thomas Berger (authors of The Morse Report) to Lewis Preston (then President of the World Bank) it was stated that "at least 100,000 people in 245 villages" would be affected by the submergence, and "likely...140,000 farmers" would be affected by the scheme, yet no provision had been made for them by the Indian government. The Morse Report was instrumental in the withdrawal of the World Bank from the projects. The Sardar Sarovar Dam Project edited by Philippe Cullet is a collection of many of the important facts and documents. [1.1]
The NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers is perhaps typical of the kind of codes of ethics to which engineers generally adhere. [1.1]
Computing in the Cloud has some attendant issues that have polarized information security managers, really you have to make up your own mind. Bruce Schneier is one voice in the blogosphere that one can listen to—his book Secrets & Lies explains a lot of the underlying principles of Information Security—and he makes the point that cloud computing really just "moves the trust boundary out one step further" (Schneier). Personally, I trust Google to do their best to protect my (or my client's) information. I mean, personally I don't have a Charlie's full of lobster-eating PhDs totally focused on the smooth operation of my network. Seriously though, use it for what it's best for (collaboration), and back it up, and quit fretting —that's my take on it. [2.2]
Steve McConnell's name crops up in a lot of what I do. I bought his book Rapid Development some years ago and it has dirty dog-eared pages now which demonstrate the value I have had from it. There is a heap of good stuff, but page 49 holds what is for me the jewel in the crown—the summary of Classic Mistakes. While engaged in projects where I have been the lead or had a voice I have encouraged these to be pinned up in the studio, and even repeated from time to time like a mantra. Examples are: Wasted time during the fuzzy front end; Planning to catch up later; Research-oriented development; and Switching tools in the middle of a project. There are 36 of them. [2.4]
"Eating your own dog food" means using the product (software) that you make (code). There's no better way to test your application, and the outcome is often a salutary lesson in usability. In our case we ran mock assessments in an "eat flaming death" way (the powers-that-be fell shy of allowing the actual assessments to be run like this), and I think when students stopped reeling in shock some of them started to quite like it. Did they learn more, or better? Definitely, though I can't say we measured it very scientifically. [3.3]
Ruby is a small annotative gloss placed above (or beside) a word to help explain its meaning. Ruby characters are used in Chinese texts, but something similar is very useful in English documents too, especially those that are highly technical, or targeted at an International readership. I like to use CSS to create what I call "mock ruby". I place a small annotative gloss at the start of a paragraph, as in the example shown in the main text here. Browser support for the CSS3 Ruby specification will grow, but is limited at this time. This Wikipedia article is helpful. [3.3]
The Staircase Mechanism consists of five concentric rings of stepped diameter, each divided into 32 segments or tablets. Each ring can be rotated individually such that there are a total of 32 ^ 5 = 33,554,432 permutations. The tablets of the inner ring are inscribed with hieroglyphs which key to mathematical foundations, philosophies, mathematicians and philosophers. The tablets of the second ring are for science, the third for engineering, the fourth for industries, and the outer ring for culture. The hieroglyphs are presented in a table for the student-players to inspect.
The player starts in the Abyss, and the objective of the game is to reach the Elysian Plains. The gameplay involves rotating the rings until a stairway out of the Abyss emerges as credible connections between mathematics, science, engineering, industry and culture are discovered. For example, a staircase might be discovered that looked like this: philosophy, hylozoism; science, James Lovelock; engineering, electron capture detector; industry, pollution metrics; culture, William Golding. The design for this edugame was inspired by the Antikythera Mechanism (Freeth, Jones et al, 2008). It can be constructed cheaply from hardboard, and better from acrylic. It would make a worthwhile project for a school with the right facilities. Equally, it can be created electronically in a program such as Flash, or Blender. [3.4]
Adams, D. (1979) The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (2005 edition). New York: Random House. [1.2]
Cooper, A. (1999) The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Indianapolis: Macmillan, SAMS. [1.5] [2.2]
Fowler, M. (2004) UML Distilled Third Edition. Addison-Wesley ISBN 0-321-19368-7 [1.4]
Gonick, L. & Smith, W. (2005) The Cartoon Guide to Statistics. New York: Collins Reference.
Kidder, T. (1981) The Soul of a New Machine. (2000 paperback edition). New York: Little, Brown & Co.; Back Bay Books. [1.1]
McConnell, S. (1996) Rapid Development, taming wild software schedules. Redmond: Microsoft Press.
McConnell, S. (1998) Software Project Survival Guide. Redmond: Microsoft Press.
Phillipps, L. Ed. (1999) Ernest Hemingway on Writing. New York: Touchstone.
Schneier, B. (2000) Secrets & Lies. Indianapolis: Wiley. [2.2]
Straker, D. (1997) Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it® Notes. Tucson: Fisher Books. [2.5]