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What is an “Inauguration”, anyway?

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I was trying to figure out how to spell “Inauguration”, and realized I had no clue as to what the word really means. So, let’s hack away at the word and go straight to its root: “augur”.

An augur1 is, historically, “a religious official who observed natural signs, esp. the behavior of birds, interpreting these as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a proposed action.” That sounds completely unrelated until you realize what usually happens at inaugural events – the release of birds, usually doves. Technically speaking, the release of doves isn’t something that happens at an inauguration; it is the inauguration. This casts the Inaugural Bible in a humorous and ironic light, made deliciously ironic by those who claimed Obama wouldn’t use the Inaugural Bible.

On January 20th, 2009 The United States of America will be taking part in an ancient Roman custom of releasing birds to predict her future under the leadership of Barack Obama2. It’s almost like an inside joke that you all are now part of, having read this.

  1. My favorite part of this article is this quote:

    Consider the words of the Roman historian Livy, who writes (VI.41): auspiciis hanc urbem conditam esse, auspiciis bello ac pace domi militiaeque omnia geri, quis est qui ignoret? (“Who does not know that this city was founded only after taking the divinations, that everything in war and in peace, at home and abroad, was done only after taking the divinations?”)

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  2. You can take part in it as well, even if you aren’t there. See Lifehacker’s Guide to Catching the Inauguration from Anywhere ↩

In Regards to iWork.com

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iWork.comIn the excitement about Apple’s beta version of iWork.com – the web-based document sharing/collaborating feature of their iWork suite – people have been asking about fonts. Specifically, what happens when you use a font that that isn’t available on the receiving end of the shared document?

I thought immediately of the news that the nightly builds of Webkit support downloadable fonts. All it takes is a couple lines of CSS and, as Jobs would say, “Boom.” Webkit is cross-platform (Apple even ships Safari for Windows), open source, and arguably one of the most popular mobile browsers. No longer will Mac users have the excuse that they can’t work with anyone else, were they to use iWork. Apple benefits from the increased usage of Webkit and Safari and they get to show off how great their iWork documents look to users unfamiliar to Apple’s software aesthetic.

Why wouldn’t they do it that way? Digital Rights Management (or rather, the lack thereof).

Font foundries typically have strictly defined licences for their fonts, though there isn’t anything technical standing in the way of breaking those licenses1. As DRM is slowly losing ground (if Apple’s “One Last Thing” from the Macworld Expo Keynote was any indication), will Apple drag the typography industry into the 21st century, into a landscape currently limited to a tiny handful of fonts? One can only hope.

Addendum:

In section 5 of the iWork.com Terms of Service, Apple says:

Changes to Content You understand that in order to provide the Service and make your Content available thereon, Apple may transmit your Content across various public networks, in various media, and modify or change your Content to comply with technical requirements of connecting networks or devices. You agree that the license herein permits Apple to take any such actions.

(emphasis mine)

  1. I should clarify, it would be neither the content creators sharing the documents that would be breaking the license, nor the user viewing the document on the web, but the individual that downloaded the font and used it without being granted the license to do so. It’s a distinction that needs to be made clear. ↩