A Dude's Guide » People

Going Digital

Richard — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:01:58 +0000

by Richard

The Oxford English Dictionary is the gold standard for dictionaries. This is the one you always found in some remote corner of the library, open on its own wooden stand. It had to have its own stand because it was far too big to ever fit on one of those shelves. Puny shelves, leave Hulk OED smash! And that’s the abridged version.

Anyway, that might all be changing with the next edition of the OED.

The publisher of the complete Oxford English Dictionary says the OED may be the next printed work to give up on paper and go completely digital.

The Oxford University Press said recently it may not have enough market demand to publish a hardcover version of the third edition of the multivolume OED, according to anAssociated Press report. The Oxford University Press would instead focus on selling subscriptions to the OED’s online version.

Of course, that’s not really a pressing concern since they’ve been working on the latest version, the third edition, since 1989 and still haven’t gotten past rococoesque. That’s the problem with creating a dictionary for a living language, words keep getting added all the time. I’m pretty sure an Oxford Latin Dictionary would be pretty easy to whip up.

The OED is widely considered to be the preeminent authority on the English language, and has been available in print since 1884. The second edition of the complete OED was published in 1989 as a 20-volume hardcover set. The OED contains more than 21,000 pages detailing word pronunciation, history, usage, and spellings. The set sells for about $1300 on Amazon and weighs 137.72 pounds.

Which goes a long way toward explaining why people want to access the OED website instead of toting around their huge dictionary set. Still, I imagine that much information must take up a lot of disc space as well. Or not.

The entire text of the OED’s second edition takes up just 540 megabytes of digital storage space. That means you would need just three-quarters the storage capacity of a typical blank CD to store all of the current OED’s 291, 500 entries.

Guess I won’t need to clear out my hard drive any time soon. However, I think it’s a pretty nifty indicator of where we, as a society, are heading, and that’s toward pixels and away from pages.

Just think. Come some time pretty soon, your little dudes and dudettes will be able to have the entire OED in the palm of their hand. And you’ll have another tired story about “When I was a little dude, we had to hump 137 pounds of dictionary to school every day. . . “

Tags: A Dude's Guide to Life, Amazon, art, Associated Press, Avail, Blank Cd, books, Bridge, Current, Dictionaries, Digital Storage, Disc Space, drive, dude, Dudette, Dudettes, eating, English Language, Focus, Gold Standard, Hard Drive, Hardcover Version, Hulk, Imagine, information, Language Words, Latin, little dude, little dudes, Living Language, Megabytes, Oed, old, Oxford, Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford University Press, People, Pixel, Preeminent Authority, richard, school, Shelves, Spelling, Storage Capacity, Storage Space, Subscriptions, Three Quarters, Word Pronunciation, words, work

Building Up

Richard — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 05:01:26 +0000

by Richard

There’s a dude from Chicago who’s got one of the greatest jobs in the world. He puts up replica buildings. Using Legos.

Former professional architect Adam Reed Tucker is one of only 11 Lego-certified professionals in the world, designing scale models of famous buildings and structures out of Lego bricks. His work, including models of the St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and the World Trade Center, is on display in the Smithsonian’s National Building Museum through Sept. 5.

One day I had this idea of doing something a little different, being inspired by the events of 9/11 and realizing that a lot of people from the general public were intimidated by vertical architecture—skyscrapers. They weren’t really visiting the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, because of what happened to the World Trade Center.

So, I thought it would be kind of neat to educate people on the engineering and the design that goes into these buildings. And I really didn’t know how to go about it.

I thought “Well, the brick as a medium could be kind of whimsical to offset the intimidating nature of architecture.” It’s something that’s not typically thought of outside of its usefulness as a toy.

I went out one day and I went to Toys R’ Us and I filled up several shopping carts with Lego sets to get reacquainted with the brick. I didn’t know what elements, didn’t know what colors Lego had been making since I had stopped playing with them probably back in 1981. I just needed to get familiar with them to find out if they would work with my idea.

From there I started these large buildings and I was invited to a Lego event on the East Coast in 2006. I brought some of my buildings there—the initial ideas behind Lego Architecture. I actually got to meet some Lego executives and I shared some of my vision and my passion for what I was attempting to do with their product, and essentially they invited me with open arms into a relationship with the Lego group as someone who is using the brick in a positive and entrepreneurial way.

Come on! How awesome is this? I just can’t get over the fact that there are 11 professional Lego builders. Something like this really restores my sometimes flagging faith in our civilization.

For more information on this guy, go check out the whole article in the Smithsonian Magazine: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Worlds-Great-Structures-Built-With-Legos.html#ixzz0xcm0XDwx

Tags: A Dude's Guide to Life, Adam Reed, Architecture, art, Awe, Brick, Buildings, Crap, Cult, culture, dude, ego, Element, Empire State Building, Famous Buildings, Gateway Arch, information, Initial Ideas, Job, jobs, Lego Bricks, Lego Event, Lego Group, Liar, Louis Gateway Arch, magazine, men, Models, Nature, People, Profession, Professional Architect, public, Reed Tucker, Relationship, richard, Scale Models, Sears Tower, shopping, Shopping Carts, Skyscraper, Skyscrapers, Smithsonian, Smithsonian Museum, St Louis Gateway Arch, toys, Toys R Us, What Happened To The World Trade Center, Whims, work, World Trade Center

Are You Ready?

Richard — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 05:01:00 +0000

by Richard

Here it is, nearing the end of August, when the heat is really out to get me, and I’m already feeling the cool morning breezes of fall. Sure, I’m feeling them in my head, but I’m feeling them just the same.

And it’s all because a lot of very large men are putting on heavy, solid pads and beginning to hit one another. A lot.

Football season is coming! Football season is coming!

It’s been a long, dry six-month hiatus between seasons and I can’t wait for it to end. It feels like it’s been forever since the last good college game ended. I barely count the professional playoffs and championship game since, as always, my team isn’t in the mix there.

Still, I can’t help but get excited. The University of Florida’s first game is Sept. 4 and I’ve already ordered the ESPN Gameday package from my local cable system since UF only ever plays Cupcake U (in varying colors and with different mascots) in the first two games. And the only way to see them on TV is to get the package that shows basically every scrub game.

But I don’t care. The money means nothing if it can buy me access to football.

During the World Cup, I came to an understanding of why people around the world love fútbol, but I don’t love it the way I love our football. Golf bores me. Baseball is worse and NASCAR, well, 11 years after moving to the heart of NASCAR country, I still don’t understand it.

The first weekend of college football games should be a national holiday. As is, I’m probably getting more excited by that then I do by Christmas.

In fact, excuse me while I go and play a little NCAA 11 on the PS3. I needs me some football. Right now, dude. Right now.

Tags: 11 Years, A Dude's Guide to Life, age, baseball, Breezes, Cable System, Championship Game, Christmas, college, College Football, College Football Games, College Game, Cool Morning, Cupcake, dude, Espn, Espn Gameday Package, First Game, florida, football, Football Game, Football Season, games, Hiatus, love, Mascot, Mascots, men, money, Nascar, National Holiday, Ncaa, People, Profession, Ra, richard, team, Two Games, Uf, University Of Florida, World Cup

A Dude's Guide » People

Going Digital

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Building Up

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