It’s a tear-out crib-sheet about Stem Cells!!!

Isn’t that a great thing to have in a glossy magazine?!! Do you see my point?

-cvj

Hi Janet,

Believe me, it takes a bit more than that to get me mad at someone! And if I was mad at you, I would not spend precious time replying to your concerns. You just would not hear from me at all. Zip. Nada. You would not exist.

No. I reply to, and make jokes with (as time permits) you and others because you seem to give a damn, whether or not we disagree on things a little here and there.

And now I learn that you’re a cat person. So now it will be even harder to get mad at you….

Cheers,

-cvj

The column delimiters bugged me because they appear between the pictures (e.g. on p. 8), and since the leaders also appear between pictures I at first assumed that the column delimiter was also pointing from the picture to something. (My husband looked at my post and said “I could have pointed out Lisa Randall to you — I knew her when she was a post-doc at LBL.” Which of course wasn’t the point.) It’s not that I care that much what people look like, I just think that when I see leaders from text to pictures, there’s some reason for them to be there; otherwise, why have them at all?

I think my reaction is partly due to having studied user-interface design and worked in publishing, where I have assimilated the unpopular idea that design should be transparent — that good design is design that you don’t have to figure out how to interpret or use, it’s intuitive. This is not so important with magazines as it is with things like BART ticket machines (don’t get me started) and voting machines (ditto). You’re probably right that this magazine may draw in some people who might otherwise not look at a science magazine. I just don’t happen to like this type of magazine design, so it turns me off.

I am now reading the article on sociobiology. I hope he addresses some of the scientific and theoretical critiques of the field, not just the political ones.

Clifford, I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at you for disagreeing with me. If it came across that way, I’m sorry. I did throw that self-described hissy fit, but I thought we’d resolved that. I hope you’re not still mad at me; I really didn’t intend to offend you.

Scuse me — one of the cats is getting between me and the keyboard. I’d better log off before he types something catty and tries to post it under my name.

-cvj

“For example, as with Wired, it’s not always clear what is an article and what is an ad. And maybe I’m a fuddy duddy, but those stupid little fine lines that criss-cross the page in the apparent attempt to connect a particular image with a particular block of text have got to go!”

Actually, it’s really not that bad at all. I can’t find any ad pages which are not clearly ads…. which one did you have in mind? I don’t think it comes even close to the confusion I’ve seen in several standard magazines.

And the key to the criss-cross line layout idea (used on pages 8, 10, 41, 90, 91, 92, 93, and 94) is that they connect to the corners of boxes. (Except in one place where a box is round… There’s also a small screw up on a dinosaur picture which introduced no confusion. ) It is overall completely unambiguous, and a nice change from the usual methods. I actually agree with them that it makes for a nice alternative to cluttering the graphics with more text than neccessary. (I agree that on page 8 they could have left out the column delimeter lines for a cleaner look, but overall it is not nearly as big a problem as you seem to suggest, to the extent that you had to put it down to get over being aggravated.)

(Oh, please don’t yell at me for disagreeing…)

Cheers,

-cvj

But keep your eyes on the prize here: There’s a lot of pointless design out there bent on creating eye-candy and making stuff look “cool”. But it is usually done on magazines in others fields. I’m very pleased that people are taking the time to play this way with a magazine that is about science. We should support the effort. And no, I don’t mean that we should accept flawed design; just that we keep our eyes on the big picture of what this sort of design endeavour might mean for the goal of getting more people to browse through a magazine about science rather than hollywood stars, or funky-looking table lamps (all worthy subjects, of course)….

At this point someone will now pipe up that this is all missing the point and we should just teach kids better in schools. Yep. Go for it. Sigh.

Cheers,

-cvj

I think I’m going to put the magazine away until I get over my aggravation with the design. Then maybe I’ll read some of the articles….

Cosmos, Australia’s innovative new popular science magazine, drew a galaxy of stars to its Sydney launch event yesterday.

Launched by John Bell AM, Australia’s leading Shakespearean actor and director, the magazine made its official bow to 140 guests in the 19th century splendour of The Mint in Sydney’s Macquarie Street.

Bell said he expected Cosmos to provide inspiration as well as information: “Just as artists of the Renaissance were inspired by scientific advances and the discovery of the new world, so artists of today must be fired by science’s probing into outer space, to the bottom of the ocean, to the origins of our cosmos and the beginning of time.”

Dr Alan Finkel, Chairman of the Luna Media and founder of Axon Instruments, a Melbourne and California-based scientific equipment manufacturer with a global reputation, said Cosmos communicated the real excitement of science: “It has given science a living face, a vibrant, literary persona such as it has never had before.”

Editor Wilson da Silva stressed the accessibility and excitement of the new title: “It’s science protrayed in a way we don’t usually see: lush, voluptuous and sexy,” he said. “It’s glossy, it’s intelligent, and it’s a cracking good read.”

Publisher Kylie Ahern added that Cosmos was an idea whose time had come. “The media tend to regard science as outside the mainstream,” she said. “But science impacts on everything we do: it can be uplifting and inspiring.”

Cosmos will cover a broad range of topics - from art and design to the body and space - and da Silva said each 112-page issue would aim to tell its readers more about the universe, the world they live in… and themselves.

(www.cosmosmagazine.com)

Janet: maybe. thanks for suggesting the possible reason.

-cvj

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>
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Clifford, have you given money to your local public radio or tv station? That’s how I started getting San Francisco Magazine, which is presumably the local equivalent of Los Angeleno. It’s pretty silly, but I do like the food porn, er, scuse me, glossy pix of food and restaurants, over-the-top reviews, and annual chef of the year awards.