What songs are on a dictator's playlist? – Telegraph
“Milosevic … often listened to Frank Sinatra’s classic My Way in his prison cell.”
Building a truly smarter car
“the best feature for avoiding accidents may be a spear embedded in the steering wheel, with the point directed toward the driver.”
Kindle 3 – Reviewing the Possibilities
some fun speculation. My guess on a bigger, colour touchscreen while keeping the price the same, possibly with a cheaper B&W version still available. They need colour to make them viable for textbooks, magazines etc., and touchscreen to make the screen bigger while keeping a similar size (or smaller).
Why The iPad Is Crap Futurism – io9
ok this shit is getting out of hand. Is Apple canceling Macs? No.
stevenf.com – I need to talk to you about computers.
On what the iPad represents – a sea change in personal computing?
What do Indie Gaming's All-Stars think of Apple's iPad? Boing Boing
Metagames and Containers – Sleepover
Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad
from John Gruber. Also see his The iPad Big Picture.
Marco.org – In defense of ebook readers
a decent explanation of the appeal of the Kindle et al. Still applies now that the iPad is here.
The Watcher: Talking 'Lost' with Lindelof and Cuse, Part 3
last part of an epic interview.
Three Reasons Why the iPad WON’T Kill Amazon’s Kindle
I still think the Kindle will have to get cheaper.
The worst (best?) album cover of 2010
hats off to you, Jeff Beck.
iPad insta-thoughts
What did you think? I’m moderately impressed. During the keynote I felt underwhelmed, but once we learned the price was $500, I changed my tune. Apple was clever to leak the $1000 price point ahead of time.
Perhaps the disappointment is that this is a glorified iPhone with some extra eye candy and none of the revolutionary new interface hype we had been inhaling over the past little while.
The price reinforces my feeling that this is primarily Apple’s response to the growth of the netbook market. However, the netbook and the iPad both menace laptops in general. Since I got the netbook, my 15” MBP remains on my desk, and for the first time I am considering buying a desktop to replace it. Netbooks make two-computer life possible to those of us who aren’t among the richest princes in Europe. My dream portable remains something like the MacBook Air, but that thing seems dead in the water now, especially at three times the price of the iPad. I expect they may eliminate the Air altogether and perhaps introduce a new model that is essentially the iPad with a keyboard, with a laptop form factor. Or maybe that’s just me dreaming.
The clunky peripherals are a surprise, especially the keyboard dock. It seems very un-Apple. I also hear from Gizmodo that it can be used with Bluetooth keyboards. That’s awesome, and makes me think I could stand to have it instead of a netbook.
As an ebook reader? I imagine hardcore readers will stick with proper e-ink readers and/or actual books, but casual readers may well like the eye candy of Apple’s presentation and not worry too much about eye strain and the higher prices of books. But the Kindle and friends are going to have to come down in price, stat.
My biggest problems with it: the encroachment of the closed iPhone app ecosystem into general computing. Also, still no multitasking? Granted, if the apps launch super-fast and save their states, perhaps we don’t need it as much. But still.
Anyway, that was a fun day. I have a million little questions about specific implementations that I guess are going to have to wait a couple months. I think I can deal with that.
Apple iPad Just Tried To Assassinate Laptops
I think this is the big takeaway. This is a laptop replacement – it’s as I suspected aimed at the netbook market, but I expect it to have ramifications beyond that. For example, who would buy a MacBook Air right now? Especially as this works with bluetooth keyboards and its somewhat clumsy keyboard-dock thing.
The $499 (U.S.) iPad coming in 60 days, including to Canada – thestar.com
well, that’s good news. Both the price and the Canada part.
The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This – Gizmodo
interesting essay that argues the tablet will have a modified iPhone OS interface
The Millions: Confessions of a Book Pirate
fascinating interview that shows how dangerous it can be for big content corporations to go after pirates, as they are more likely to be enthusiasts motivated by the desire to share, not dudes with peglegs and scurvy. Also interesting (if common sense): there is less piracy the cheaper the book.
Lost Season Six: The Pre-Game Post – The A.V. Club
good post reflecting on the past few seasons and what the new one may bring.
Ideas, Execution, Money
There is this attitude in film and television, completely antithetical to the general position of the blogosphere, that you do not talk about your ideas. A great deal of this is the fear of others stealing them. It’s easy to say that the important thing – and the hard part – is execution, but unfortunately in film and other industries with more money than ideas this is not the case. Someone can take your idea, pay people to execute it, and even if the end result is shoddy, prevent you from executing YOUR vision of it. “Oh, the film about the leper fashion show?” the financier will say as he thumbs his blackberry, “we already did that. It bombed.”
This partially explains how projects that are important to me, and take some substantial portion of my time, find no representation on this blog.
I will attempt to remedy this shortly.
Sleepy transit worker a hero | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun
RT @stevetilley: Toronto Sun IDs #TTCsleeper — turns out he’s a hero, sorta
Kotaku discussion of Demon's Souls as Game of the Year candidate
TTC to investigate 'sleeping' fare collector
classic Toronto photo comedy here
Google's Nexus One is no iPhone – and that's OK
Andy Ihnatko’s detailed take