April 3, 2013
by Ian Mariano
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Author Iain Banks announced today that he has terminal cancer.
As an fan of his sci-fi and fiction works this is sad news indeed.
As I stated when I launched this blog:
… about the title of this blog, it’s a nod to the wonderful and absolutely creative body of work by Iain M. Banks, specifically about the Culture. I’ve become quite an ardent reader of his works lately and am on a bit of a ship-mind-like naming kick.
December 7, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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Something has been bubbling amongst my colleagues. Something we’ve all been trying to articulate over many years in one form or another in blogs, posts, tweets, re-tweets, speeches - stories. And once in a while, an event happens akin to a Rayleigh-Taylor Instability – from whence a new mixture occurs – and here it is:
“The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, a keynote speech by one of my beloved friends, Louisa (@customdeluxe), at NEXT:
(Source: http://nextberlin.eu/2012/12/the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces/)
November 19, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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October 29, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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October 29, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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October 16, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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Lately there has been some upheaval on the home front (episode redacted for this post) affecting our lives. So for some much needed sci-fi escapism I’d been looking forward to reading the latest installment in Iain M. Banks‘ Culture novels, The Hydrogen Sonata.
(No spoilers in this post – ask and ye shall get slap-droned.)
I am well into the novel at this point and feel a very nice homecoming. The milieu is what I expect from a Culture novel: viewpoint tangential to the Culture, technology not as a focus but to further color the story and characters, witty Ship Mind banter / seeming aloofness (not to mention the naturally classic choice of ship self-naming) and [finally] a wonderful stirring of the Sublime pot.
(Culture shift)
Another novel I was looking forward to reading was Hannu Rajaniemi‘s The Fractal Prince. It’s a reality headspin and like The Quantum Thief is a great breath of post-Singularity-rehash-sci-fi fresh air. I finished it just before returning to the Culture. Great job Hannu. Superlatives abound. Looking forward to at least one more romp around weirdness with Jean le Flambeur.
(Dreaming)
And just before reading the above I walked the Silfen paths through Peter F. Hamilton‘s Commonwealth / Void series.
Escapism at its best – right Edeard?
September 11, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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What a difference a year makes, let alone eleven.
I still remember a beautiful September day, much like today, casually arriving at my office across the street from my apartment in Cleveland. I was starting my day perusing work emails when I received a personal one telling me to check CNN. A plane had hit the WTC. At first thought it must be a serious accident but as I had just recently embarked on a lifelong dream to learn to be a pilot I quickly realized that a) this was not a normal flight route and b) the pilots would have done the best they can to avoid such a thing from happening. My first instinct and thought then was that this was no accident but I still harbored some doubt. I rushed back across the street in a turned on the TV, waking my girlfriend at the time. She was sleeping on my couch and groggily asked what was going on. I said what had happened in clipped sentences and that I thought it might just be a really bad accident. CNN was on the screen with an image of the North Tower ablaze. About a minute later we watched the camera angle shift to a wider shot of the WTC.
The second plane hit.
This was no accident. My thoughts raced. What about my sister, my friends and all the people I knew who would be traveling on the subway underneath around that time? What about my cousins who worked there, one in each tower?
As the day wore tiredly and tragically on I would learn they were all thankfully safe. Days, weeks, months and even years later we would all hear stories of “saving” circumstances: a missed alarm here, an early arrival there, “just a feeling” causing one to pause, etc. That day, I think, we all felt impotent in the face of what was unfolding.
Eleven years later.
I have met my deepest love and married her. We have an amazing son, a newly minted one year old who is just at the beginning – innocent of all the shadows that precede. And I am hopeful that all our shadows do not offend but color a richer tapestry from which he, and all of us, can continually draw new breath.
“We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” - D.H. Lawrence
July 23, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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My son Eli is turning one year old on August 5th. It certainly has been a year of deep learning for my wife and I and we are very thankful for all the support of our friends and family. Even though we may be spatially separated “the village” remains.
I think I am really going to miss him as he is at this age.
May 25, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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In working with software projects for the web I find that a very important class of end-user is often overlooked: the admins. We often work very hard to make sure the user experience (UX) is great, the information architecture (IA) is spot on and a site is performant but the people behind the scenes curating a site day to day often get a less than optimal UX to do their job. (I’m not talking about sysadmins, db admins or infrastructure admins – although this post could certainly apply to their specific experiences and Dev[/No]Ops certainly helps.)
This is something I discuss often with colleagues and try to instill within my implementation teams: I feel it is equally important for the whole ecosystem of a website to be able to give those who curate it just as good a UX as the front end user. This doesn’t mean they get all the same UI bells and whistles but rather they get the right bells and whistles that elevate their administrative experience beyond what usually is a second, third or even lower class thought. It also is important to be aware that not all admins are created equal and the duties each perform may vary in complexity and capability and the UX should be sensitive to this.
That’s just a start – now go forth and make an admin happy today!
May 3, 2012
by Ian Mariano
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