Comments on: Squircle is the new rounded rectangle

By: Anders K. Madsen

Anders K. Madsen — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:23:03 +0000

Words such as “semi-transparent” and “glossy gradients” are both composite words (komposita el. sammensatte ord på dansk), the hyphen doesn’t make a difference. I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but if you’re suggesting that our language becomes poorer (vocabulary-wise) when we use composite words, then I’ll have to disagree.
People don’t forget the meaning of the word “bad” if they say “ungood”, and besides, “ungood” can be understood as meaning “not good, but still better than bad” and then there’ll still be room for both “good”, “ungood” and “bad” in the language. (True synonyms are hard to find, thus, there’ll always be situations where one is more preferable than the other.)

I’m wondering, what triggered this question, was it “squircle” or “semi-transparency”? (Just for the record, I didn’t invent the word “squircle” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squircle .)

By: Steffen

Steffen — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:30:57 +0000

Erm, we know the meaning of ‘semi’ and ‘transparency’. So when we connect them to form a new word, semi-transparency, we kind of already know what that means. Thats what i mean by a “constructed language”. I might well be called something else in academia. Such “constructed-ness” rimes with newspeak [1], doesn’t it? Hence moving away from using a constructed word like semi-transparency and instead use a non-constructed word like glossy gradients is (in maybe sloppy logic) like moving way from a languages that rimes with newspeak.

Was that more clear? Was it clear enough?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

By: Anders K. Madsen

Anders K. Madsen — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:30:17 +0000

The new hardware, is actually just an old workstation, but where the old web server was a 633 MHz Celeron w/ 128 MB RAM, the new(er) one is a 1.2 GHz Athlon with something as odd as 448 MB RAM or so – if I recall correct, and it’s running Ubuntu (7.04/Feisty Fawn).

There aren’t many thing I’d like more than a brand spankin’ new server, but I don’t have teh monies (and I’d probably rather spend them on a Wii, if I did).

By: Bjarke Sørensen

Bjarke Sørensen — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:43:14 +0000

Also.. what’s the new hardware?

I have plenty of old hardware if there are any takers. I’ve had it with old hardware — that’s why I opted to buy a HP server a couple of months back, just for the home-lan. I still rely on renting hardware for the hosting “franchise” :-)

By: Bjarke Sørensen

Bjarke Sørensen — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:42:29 +0000

I would just like to add “huh” and superellipsis is cool.

By: Anders K. Madsen

Anders K. Madsen — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:40:55 +0000

Actually, ‘squircle is the new rounded rectangle’ just refers to my dislike for over-use of rounded rectangles on websites. I’m more into the squircle (or super ellipsis, if you will) for the time being. (Maybe because I totally want Piet Hein’s Super Ellipsis dinner table for our living room… Or maybe just a cheap knock-off, since I don’t really feel like shelling out €2k for a table at this very moment.)

I’m not sure what you mean by the second part of your comment or maybe I’m just too tired, but would you care to elaborate a bit on it?

By: Steffen

Steffen — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:53:56 +0000

Super cool with a more responsive server, madsen! Thumbs up.

What do you mean that squircle is the new rounded rectangle? You know that making fancy words is a core part of academia.

Moving away from semi-transparency is another matter though. I don’t under stand that one. A part from not having constructed language, that makes sense by adding properties from one word to another when they meet — or fleeing from building a language that rimes with ‘newspeak’ — what justifies it?