John Gruber's discussion of the anti-aliasing changes in Panther reminded me of a question I've been wondering about for years.
There are two very distinct ways of writing a lowercase 'a'. There's the version you see in most fonts with the curly thingy on top (sorry for the terminology; I'm definitely not a typographer) and the one that's basically just circular. I've often wondered why we have two very different glyphs in common usage for the same letter. It just doesn't seem like the typical path for language evolution.
According to about.com, the variant with the curly thing on top is an "upright" glyph, while the circular one is an italic glyph (even though it's used in some non-italic typefaces). I can't find any corroboration of that, though. And even if that's correct, I wonder why we maintain the two. The only explanation I can think of is that the upright version looks better in type, but the italic version is far easier to write. As writing becomes less common and more people type everything, will the italic version slowly disappear? Do people in some countries prefer one variant over the other? And how did the two distinct glyphs evolve in the first place? Finally, do other scripts have similar examples of a letter that can appear as two (or more) different glyphs with exactly the same meaning in every context?
A while back, Buzz posted some beautiful pictures of Northern California. I hadn't known him to be particularly into photography, so I asked him what he'd used to take such terrific pictures. He's a bit more into photography than I am -- he knows how to use buttons other than the shutter button, for example -- but the camera he was using was both affordable and great for both beginners and somewhat more advanced users. In a fit of insanity, I decided to copy him and bought the model he was using, a Canon PowerShot A70. (I'll admit that I didn't buy it entirely on his recommendation alone; I also read the glowing Digital Photography Review review of it first. They really liked it, too.)
I'm not a camera person. I think I own a regular camera; I'm sure it's around here somewhere. I never liked it, though, because I'd always forget to buy film, the batteries would be dead, developing the pictures took a lot of effort, and they'd invariably look awful in the end. I'd never bought a digital camera because I couldn't figure out what random set of features would make sense or what price point would be appropriate. The PowerShot A70 review helped convince me that its price point and features were about as close to ideal as I could expect.
Apparently I'm also not much of a gadget person, since I let the PowerShot sit unopened for about a month before tonight. Part of that was because I hadn't ordered rechargeable batteries and a carrying case when I got it. I still need to get those somehow. But part of it was also that I didn't really have anything to take pictures of. (No, I wasn't about to take a picture of my team's G5 showing up.) I'll have a variety of things to take pictures of in the next two months, though, so I finally got around to opening the box tonight.
I've only read the first five pages or so of the manual, but I'm already very impressed. My test pictures look focused and sharp. If this little silvery thing can make my photographs look good without any contribution of talent on my part, well, I'm just amazed. I'm going to have to try it for real sometime soon. I doubt I'll get as into photography as Dave, but at least I'll start having pictures to remember things by for the first time in years.
(On a side note, the Quick Start Guide said in bold type in about six different places "Do not connect the camera to the computer before the software is installed." Since the guide didn't mention iPhoto anywhere other than to insist that you quit it if it's running, I figured they'd want me to use their software instead of iPhoto. Forget that. I plugged the camera into my computer without installing the software -- horrors -- and not only did the camera not start emitting sparks, iPhoto launched and let me import my pictures. Yay for non-exploding iPhoto-compatible cameras. I bet Canon's software doesn't let me build screen savers or publish to my .Mac account....)