Carpano (at least Carpano Antica, which I think it their common vermouth) is also a very strong flavor. IMO if you're doing equal parts gin/campari/carpano you're totally obliterating the gin flavor.
For a classic and smoother negroni, try:
- 1.5oz gin (Tanqueray is fine, but I'd recommend Ford's)
- 1oz campari
- 1oz sweeter, less intense vermouth like Contratto Rossi or Dolin Rouge
If you want to use your Carpano, I really like this negroni variation called a Kingston that uses rum:
Carpano is a good beginner vermouth if you're just getting into this, because it's so sweet and distinctive, but it's also a total overpowering vanilla bomb. Punt e Mes is in the same ballpark but less like drinking vanilla extract. Or just replace the vermouth entirely with Lillet or sherry.
The original recipe is, sure. But part of the fun of cocktails is experimenting with what tastes you prefer. The parent said they weren't enjoying what they ended up with, so I'm recommending tweaks. A little extra gin is a pretty standard way to make the campari more palatable, used in plenty of bars.
Sure, but if you tweak the recipe it’s no longer the original drink and instead is something else. A Negroni is 1:1:1, that’s not the same as saying that’s the perfect balance
yes and the original manhattan recipe calls for equal parts vermouth and whiskey. you probably wouldn't want to drink it like that.
not only do people's tastes change over time, but so do the ingredients themselves. you can't necessarily buy the exact same gin, vermouth, and campari that was available to the count a hundred years ago. of the gins and vermouth available today, there is quite a range of diversity. you leave a lot on the table if you aren't willing to tweak ratios based on the ingredients you have.
Nobilis was heavily inspired both by the world in Zelazney's Amber books, and also by that system. If you like Amber diceless you'll probably enjoy it.
Just because something is unfamiliar doesn't make it worse. Operators, once learned, can greatly improve readability of code.
If you had never seen +,-,%,• before, simple math statements would be inscrutable. But, once you take the (short) time to learn them you can express things much better than if you had to write `add`, `subtract`, etc everywhere.
> If you had never seen +,-,%,• before, simple math statements would be inscrutable. But, once you take the (short) time to learn them you can express things much better than if you had to write `add`, `subtract`, etc everywhere.
A point that is particularly poignant to anyone who has ever dealt with code using custom numeric types in a language that doesn't let you define custom operators (or overload operators).
I agree with most of your points, except that you can't skip photoshop.
Depending on your skill levels in various tools, it might be way better to simply start into html + css. I know a couple designer/developers who can go from an idea to visuals dramatically faster in code than they could using photoshop (myself included). Additionally, you get the advantage of being able to style simply effects in right away (ie, hover states, focus states, etc) instead of having to create extra layers or version of a PS file.
Sure, if you don't know Photoshop very well then you could code it faster. Except you will end up with sloppier code and a weaker design.
It is the equivalent of building a house without blueprints. You can do it, but if you take the time to plan things out before you break ground you will end up with a stronger product.
Now, if you already have a design style locked down and code you can just puzzle together then sure, go ahead and skip Photoshop. I do that as well. But, as soon as I need to design a new UI element I am back in Photoshop making dozens of variations.
I understand your general gist... but I find sketching the design by pencil and paper much faster than photoshop - obviously I don't get pixel perfect results, but the intricacies of CSS mean that it's difficult to match a photoshop design pixel-by-pixel anyway. I agree that it's much better to have a visual plan in place first, but photoshop would definitely slow me down, and I've designed dozens of web sites.
Pen and paper should be used as a tool to help in the thinking process, but it is not a replacement for real computer mockups.
Sketching doesn't give you a realistic sense of space and feel for web design. Very often you can sketch something that looks good on paper, but once you put it on the screen it just doesn't translate well to a pixel medium.
Sketching is great if you are working with a physical medium like brochures or posters though. Then it doesn't suffer from the same translation cost.
It depends a lot on where you're iterating. If you're iterating concepts and structure, sketches work perfectly. If you're iterating the size of a shadow, the exact color pallet, the exact shape of a logo then you'd better be in Photoshop.
For all 37s likes to talk about not using Photoshop they don't have pixel-perfect design at all and yet still had somebody slaving over Adobe products while putting those logos together.
Maybe the goal of working in Photoshop isn't to mimic the design pixel-by-pixel, but instead to "sketch."
Mocking things up in Photoshop can be really productive because everything you sketch (all of your background images, buttons, and art) can be used as an asset on your site with minimal effort.
I think what unavoidable is saying is that photoshop, specifically, isn't a necessary step. Personally, I hate mockups in it. I try to use paper and pencil, if it needs to be formal, I use balsamiq.
I do agree that you need SOME sort of mockup, but I actually think low res mockups are more effective because people aren't distracted by the fact that an underlined link in PS doesn't quite look right.
web designers absolutely should use photoshop, because they are essentially providing the "theme" around the wireframe, that may be designed by the UI designer.
It depends on the specific design. If it's wordy and document-like (eg: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/) then it may be better to bypass Photoshop and start writing the HTML/CSS, since Photoshop is ill-suited for mocking up those kinds of designs.
On the other hand, if it's more graphical (eg: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop) then I'd agree that Photoshop is absolutely necessary.
And no, I still disagree slightly. It's not about the kind of design the final product is, it's about what function your role is fulfilling. Are you designing the way the people interact with the application, the way the application looks and feels, or both?
Somehow, even after programming my own version of the game of life, I can still sit there watching it evolve. It never ceases to amaze me how such a set of simple rules can cause such interesting behavior.
I was waiting in line for an iPhone 3G when someone called out "I need a web developer, who's interested?". We talked for a few minutes in line, then I did an interview the next day.
This just seems like trolling for extra website views by making another useless iPad story.
"Books still seem uncomfortable to read for hours at a time. I mean, you have to hold the thing the whole time you want to read it, and you even have to figure out fancy ways to keep it on the right page, since it keeps trying to close itself. You'd think after hundreds of years someone would have figured out this problem."
Oh wait, it isn't actually a problem. A whole 1.5 pounds? Oh no!
It's funny - I tried using an ipad and it really is uncomfortable to use after 15 or so minutes. Holding 1.5 lbs is definitely a pain for a long time -- a paperback book is typically less than a quarter of that weight.
It's getting to the point I almost want to develop a website where people can flag the article as "link-bait" and tag the url with "original source url".
It's interesting how many articles have quotes like these
but it also sends Amazon’s own grayscale-only hardware to the back of the line
that lack any consideration for the positives of Amazon's decision to have an E-ink screen. For many people who bought the Kindle, the insanely good contrast, even in areas with direct sunlight, is a must have.
Also, I'd like to see an iPad last for a month without charging.
The problem is that a Kindle is a tool for readers. But iPad is a more general-purpose tool: While usable by readers, it also serves up color rendering of web pages, TV, movies, and whatever else there is an app for, not the least of which is interactive games.
So iPad is going to swamp Kindle in the press, just as the audience, gross profit, PR, and media for the typical movie dwarfs that of the book or comic from which it was derived.
Amazon can't realistically have expected more from Kindle. The product remains successful, it continues (as we can see) to drive interest in Amazon ebooks on other hardware platforms, and most likely the hardware (or similar e-Ink hardware) will remain available in one form or another for the relatively small number of buyers who fit its use case. But it will never out-hype the iPad. The potential market is just too small.
I think that the idea that Amazon is selling hardware is missing the point entirely. A lot of the time companies lose money selling hardware (ex. the price to produce a PC is more than the selling price... they make up for it by being paid to put 'trial' software on the windows install).
So, in parallel, amazon doesn't really give a crap about whether they sell a ton of kindles. What they care about is that the amazon kindle store makes a crap-ton of money. If everyone goes out and buys an ipad, and "kindle on ipad" is a killer app for ipad, amazon ends up making way more money than they would trying to match their own hardware against Apple's.
I'm an avid reader and I got the DX when it came out (it is freaking sweet). I'd probably be too distracted/eye-strained reading on a tablet PC for the number of hours that I do. (I realize that I am an outlier, however).
My one complaint is that there are actually a lot of books that I cannot get for the kindle, and it is hard to take notes in the margin so I end up reading certain books on dead trees. (Maybe the ipad touch screen will make it easier to do margin notes?)
Amazon looses if backlit screens beat the kindle and other e-ink screens. People don't read voluminous quantities on a backlit screen; it's hard on the eyes. Amazon will sell more books if the main platform has an e-ink screen, because people will read less if they are using a backlit screen- imho. (this is if we hold the user base constant across devices)
It's true, it's not a total loss if the iPad dominates yet the kindle app is popular, but it's not the ideal scenario.
Isn't this the same philosophy people had about the video games industry for a long time?
It's proven that "hardcore" gamers buy a lot more games than casual gamers, and that they are far easier to sell related merchandise and subscription to.
Yet, the success of the Wii has proven that the sheer size of the casual demographic more than makes up for the fact that they buy fewer of your products.
There will always be the hardcore, voracious readers, but I'm not convinced that it's not worthwhile to go after the casual readers who might only read 2-3 books in a whole year.
People who get the kindle are more likely to read a lot, whereas people who get the ipad (as opposed to the kindle) are more likely to read fairly casually. (You get the ipad because you want the internet and all of the games/apps).
I'm not really sure that it holds that people will read less on their backlit device than on a normal kindle. I'm a software developer and I spend all day staring at a computer screen (8+ hours). I take periodic breaks, and yes, it is bad on my eyes, but the back-lighting of the screen isn't enough to stop me from doing it (I only really notice at my yearly optometrist appointment).
If the iPad app allowed you to pick some mellower colors for the text/background, that would probably go a long way towards making the device usable. Black on Grey (or dkgreen on black!) is a lot easier to look at prolonged than black on white, for example.
For me, the more obvious benefit to reading on my Kindle isn't lack of eye strain (I stare at monitors all day too), but lack of glare. Even with full backlight, using my laptop outside on a sunny day ranges from being uncomfortable to completely unusable. With the e-ink screen, that's barely an issue.
For a classic and smoother negroni, try:
- 1.5oz gin (Tanqueray is fine, but I'd recommend Ford's)
- 1oz campari
- 1oz sweeter, less intense vermouth like Contratto Rossi or Dolin Rouge
If you want to use your Carpano, I really like this negroni variation called a Kingston that uses rum:
- 1.5oz Smith and Cross rum
- 1oz Campari
- 1oz Carpano Antica