Stephen Coles’s The Anatomy of Type:

Just like the human body, the Latin alphabet can take on a surprising range of shapes and proportions. These varieties can come from diverging historical paths, differences in language or culture, or simply the tool used to make the letters—whether it’s a pen, a chisel, or a compass.

This is an outstanding coffee book for type nerds.

New York Times‘ Dominique Brossard and Dietram Scheufele report:

The Web, it should be said, is still a marvelous place for public debate. But when it comes to reading and understanding news stories online — like this one, for example — the medium can have a surprisingly potent effect on the message. Comments from some readers, our research shows, can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place.

Shutting down the comment section makes this site much less dramatic.

These past few weeks, my typical day goes something like this: Get up. Take Cu Dan to grandma. Go to work. Go to class until 7 PM. Go home. Put Dan to bed. Take a bath. Play with Dao for a bit. Jump back on the laptop around 10 PM until 2 or 3 in the morning.

Between work, school and freelance projects, I have been living and breathing in WordPress. All of a sudden, I am getting all kind of WordPress inquiries. I am going to be extremely busy in the next few weeks as well.

Forewarn, do not watch this clip if you have a light heart. It’s a video clip of a woman beating a toddler senselessly. The kid looks about the same age as my baby boy. How could a kid that young could tick off a woman that much is way beyond my comprehension. My heart simply stops to such human-less behavior. Kids at his age deserves loving and caring, not beating.

I interviewed one of my colleagues who is a mother and had taken a few online business courses. She preferred online over onsite classes so that she could be home with her son, especially after work.

She took courses in which she sat through videos and courses in which everyone joined in at a certain time. She likes the latter better because she preferred the interaction with the instructor and other students through webcam. The liveliness of the participation made her learning experience much better than going through videos.

One of her biggest complains was that the interface was way too crowded for her laptop. She had to have too many window browsers open including one for video, one for the lesson, one for class discussions and one for exercise. She wished the design was simpler to let her focus on her main task.

I also interviewed another colleague who took an onsite Linux class. The first class, the instructor walked through the installation process and helped out the students who had trouble. The other student in class could also hop on another student’s computer to help with the installation.

In each lesson, the instructor took the students through the materials. He typed command lines on screen and the students followed along. After that the students would go through the exercise on their own and then moved to the next lesson. Every three lessons, the students would have an assignment to complete for a grade. The assignment based on the lessons the students had learned.

My colleague said the course could have been easily offered online because every task required using the computer. The students could learn at the own paste and they would have more time to troubleshoot their own codes before asking the instructors or other students.

Then again he liked the onsite class because he could meet with other students. They could take a break and connect with each other. The social aspect appealed to him and he wouldn’t think that online classes would offered the same experience.

Chúc tất cả các đồng bào, đồng chí, đồng tính và đồng loại năm quý tỵ được đồng tâm và đồng lòng với nhau. Hãy đồng cảm và tôn trọng lẫn nhau. Hãy ca tụng sự khác biệt để cuộc sống thêm sắc màu và tươi đẹp.

Let our LGBT brothers and sisters show their pride too. Tet should be a celebration for all so let’s stop this divisiveness in our community. Happy Lunar New Year, my friends.

I am testing out CloudFlare with Visualgui. I run the free option and it looks promising in term of performance. So far I like the way CloudFlare optimize my site for delivery, but security is the main component that makes me interested in taking my site to CloudFlare. The set up is quite easy as well. I am going to let it run for a few weeks to see how it goes. I might make the recommendation for the Law School.

Paul Rand, 1996:

It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That’s what modernism means to me.

To see examples, check out Steve Heller and Gail Anderson’s New Modernist Type.

A couple months ago, a new Dunkin’ Donut opened in my area and gave out medium coffee for free. I took one and converted since. I have never been a big fan of DD’s coffee, but it must be this new place with the new machines. The coffee is light, sweet and fresh, but something about its finish that gets me hooked. Now I can not go back to drink Starbucks’s bold. Now I understand why people say Starbuck coffee tastes like burnt. I am not really a coffee snob. I just need sugar and caffeine to get me through the day.