...and I was expecting an article about buying drugs through BitCoins. Oh well.
Riding the New Silk Road
101–110 of 161 posts
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#102Wow, the presentation of the photos really made an impression on me -- it's just like Harry Potter. It's amazing that even after almost 10 years of YouTube, having video presented to you in a slightly different way can give you a feeling that you're experiencing the future.
Bit off-topic, but related:
I recently completed a trip to Budapest; both me and my friend were having cameras, and while she, as usual, made hundreds of photos I decided to try something different - I shoot 2 - 5 second videos instead. It's interesting how it can capture the atmosphere of the place qualitatively better than a plain photo would.
One thing you quickly realize is that filming tourist attractions isn't all that fun, as they're mostly stationary[0]. It's much better to refocus on filming the mundane, everyday life of the city - it's something you can capture much better with a movie and sound than with still images. Rewatching the videos make you actually feel back at the place.
Anyway, I was looking for a way to present those movies as a kind of animated photos; now reverse-engineering this website might give me some helpful hints (especially RE libraries used) :).
[0] - except fountains. Fountains feel so much more impressive on short videos than on photos.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#103It's a nice design but the article seems like a puff piece to me. Is this really the future of newspapers? Nice graphics combined with a folksy story about transportation trends in the shipping industry?
Well, a puff piece on an interesting detail of the transport industry combined with illustrations could have featured in a major newspaper at any point in the past hundred years, so is more of a continuation than anything else.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
First of all, the stats don't say that many of them are using mobile almost exclusively. As I previously said, the way it is written leads me to believe that "mostly" to them is "more than 50%". Almost exclusively implies a much higher percentage of use. And in any case, if people are only going to spend 5% on news in general while on mobile, then I would most definitely not optimize my site for them unless it were i…
Huh - so 5% of mobile browsing time dedicated to news sites isn't worth optimizing for - but the 4% of desktop web browsing time that is dedicated to news sites (same link) leads you to believe you should optimize (only) the desktop web experience? I guess I just don't follow your logic. Ignore mobile if you like. But good luck with that. Mobile users will find an experience that is optimized for them.
Except that, most of the time, there is no optimizing for the desktop. With most web developers still creating desktop-first experiences, you only have to consider whether or not it's worth it to create a mobile experience.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#105Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The decline of Venice has less to do with the decline of the Middle East and more to do with the rise of the Ottomans -- whose conquest of Constantinople shuttered a 2-century long dominion of the Bospherous (and the substantial trade thereof) by Venice. Additionally, Mongol incursions at the north end of the Black Sea made the increasingly-expensive trade with the Ottomans very expensive. On top of all that, the agi…
I just finished reading City of Fortune ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400068207/ref=pe_180000_31... ), and this is closer to the truth - the rise of the Ottomans, the fact that Christian Europe couldn't get its act together after the debacle that was the 4th Crusade, etc etc - at one point, Venice was almost single-handedly fighting the Ottomans.
That's a great book -- all of Crowley's books are wonderful reads.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#107It's great to try new formats, but the experience is completely broken on my now-slightly-aging Windows laptop. I wish web developer/designers would test their pages on regular hardware instead of 27" iMacs or rMPB... The scrolling is horribly lagging, and the gifs/videos are all black: http://prntscr.com/1gq4he http://prntscr.com/1gq5b6
The experience gracefully degraded (I had images, but they were all static, but everything else seemed to work) on my lousy stupid 3g dongle connection (which manages to break a disturbing amount of content) but some reconnections and it works now.
I tend to agree with your main point, especially when the bells and whistles are pointless frippery that don't actually do anything. In this case the use actually adds value to the page. I've spent a while on various websites learning more about the Silk Road history, and about the current geo-political stuff.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#108Wow, the presentation of the photos really made an impression on me -- it's just like Harry Potter. It's amazing that even after almost 10 years of YouTube, having video presented to you in a slightly different way can give you a feeling that you're experiencing the future.
I totally agree. They're like advanced gifs. They really capture the atmosphere.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#109Time to trot out trivia. As the article points out, the Silk Road faded in importance in the 1400s. But it doesn't say why. There were three major reasons why it faded. The first was the final fall of Constantinople in 1453, ending the last remnant of the original Roman Empire. This made trade with Europe harder. The second was the development, initially by the Portuguese but followed by others, of direct sea routes…
Can you recommend some books on the topic?
John Green's Crash Course series of YouTube videos are somewhat related and entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actually appointed a 'Snowfaller in Chief' http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2013/07/12/new-york-...
Thank god. IMO the "Snow fall" article was the best thing I've seen come out of journalism in many years.
link to the "Snow Fall" article: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/