SF in toothpicks

We've had this before, but this is a much better video.

Zippidi-doodah

[Thanks to Joe]

Children ride 40mph ZIP WIRE a quarter of a mile high to get to classes each day, article.

Sounds like more fun than my school bus, and surely faster.

School run: Nine-year-old Daisy Mora makes the trip every day to get to lessons, with her five-year-old brother riding in a cloth bag

Tommy found a video. (No, it has not been on this blog before.)

About this thing Apple calls iPad

About this thing Apple calls iPad, article.
Suddenly there was a group of six or seven medical personnel around her, they were passing it around, one had the map function going, another brought up You Tube.
"Any of your folks have an iPhone, or an iPod touch?" I asked. No one did. "Any Mac folks here?" was my next question. Not a one. Yet everyone who touched it knew what to do.
-

I got mine

OK, just got iPad.
I've noticed that Steve Jobs and Apple don't call it "the iPad", they call it "iPad" as if it's a name. As in, "when you turn iPad, the screen will turn also".

So far so good. Only oddity so far is that when plugged into my Mac, the little note by the battery says "not charging". I wonder why.

It's true it's responsive. It's not just "fast for a mobile device", it is fast for anything. Well done, Apple.

These fit me

A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood.
-- Mark Ardis

Only the shallow know themselves.
-- Oscar Wilde

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?
-- George Price

Night Stand

I still get amazed at the unexpected, innovative, and wonderful apps people come up with for the padform. For example Night Stand, a simple collection of luminous clock interfaces! Now I can see what time it is at night, in an aesthetic way, without turning on the light, and without anything ticking.
It also has alarms (including music), screen dimming, snooze button...)


-----
I have browsed several "hit lists" of padform apps recently. TC Gal found this good one.

Twittwittwittwittwit

I'm using twitter still, to promote my sites when I remember so, and to pick up some links when I'm out. But I don't think I'll ever love it.

It makes me stressed and jittery. Like running around at a party and trying to follow 30 conversations at once... what if somebody says something interesting while I'm not there!!... OMG, must move on, must move on, must move on... With the result that I never have the time to process anything and actually get the benefit from it.

BW photo set

Top Cat chick found this collection of BW photos.


Some of them are a bit too flashy for my taste, I prefer simple. But pictures like the two above remind me why I love photography.

All Tomorrow's parties

William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties and Neuromancer have now also been released on audiobook. Huzzah! This makes the lineup virtually complete. I think missing still are just Virtual Light and Idoru. And maybe The Difference Engine, his oddball collaboration with Bruce Sterling.

I've noticed he has a new one coming in fall, Zero History. I hope it's better than Spook Country, which is the only one of his books I found a bit blah. Like Pattern Recognition it's a technologically-oriented novel rather than Science Fiction, but I liked Pattern Recognition lots, lots better.

Wind Turbines Could Power Atlantic Seaboard

Chain of Offshore Wind Turbines Could Power Atlantic Seaboard, article.

health sales

I've noticed something: when a thing is being sold in a health/medical setting, it's much more expensive than when the same thing is sold to the general public. Great ethics there...

Philocalist said:

Its endemic to anything that is sold to a specialist market, not just the medical industry.

Look at the price you pay for a camera bag, compared to something very similar sold as a 'utility' bag to Joe Public, or a waterproof camouflaged 'fishing' jacket compared to the same type of article bought new at an Army surplus store.

Bottom line is, we public are way too easily led my manufacturers and their marketing people who create that 'perceived' need that makes us buy, often at a price far in excess of what is rational!

Back in the nineties, before HD, there was Digital Video, and one of the first affordable very good cameras, was like $3000. Then the company, one of the big Japanese giants, heard that pros was flocking to this camera and using it for serious projects, and they hiked the price over 3X!

A "blank slate" (updated)

Why the iPad Is a Blank Slate, and Why That's Important, TidBITS article.
So what's the difference between a Mac and an iPad? It's that blank slate thing. No matter what you do on a Mac, the keyboard and mouse and window-based operating system make it impossible to ignore the fact that you're using a Mac, and it's often equally as impossible to ignore the fact that you're using a particular program.
In contrast, the iPad becomes the app you're using. That's part of the magic. The hardware is so understated - it's just a screen, really - and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you're using an iPad falls away.

Now even I am getting sceptical... Adam Engst actually also uses the word "magical" about using an iPad (as differentiated from using it about the device itself). Adam is one of the most down-to-Earth people I know. This is spooky. :-)

Further:
... the iPod touch, cool as it is, doesn't become the current app in the same way because of its small size. The apps are so small and so many user interface compromises must be made that it's hard to forget you're using the iPod touch as a device. As our friend Ken Case of The Omni Group has said, size matters, which is why a swimming pool is not just a big bathtub.

Good metaphor.

Ronald said:

I have to commend you on sponsoring iPads for the TidBITS editorial team - great move, and very generous of you.

Thank you. I actually gave an iPad not just to the editors, but to everybody at TidBITS. Partly as a thanks for all their great work, and partly because, as you will be aware by now, I regard it as an important new platform, and I wanted to do my bit to the world getting first class reporting on it.

P.S.: Hm, I almost didn't post - "Type the characters you see in the picture above.", but no picture. Turns out one needs to enable scripts for google-analytics.com first before it appears - how very sneaky of them.

Odd, first time I hear of this. I wonder if it's my "fault", since I have a Google Analytics counter on the home page?

Onion headlines

A pretty durn sharp The Onion piece about the Catholic Church's little, um, problem. And in other "news", Chimp In Cocaine Study Starts Lying To Friends. And further, U.S. Government To Save Billions By Cutting Wasteful Senator Program.

Woofferine

I'm watching Wolverine. I like it, entertaining.

Interesting to notice though, how it's a "family" type action movie. Perhaps because it's Marvel Comics, I don't know. But here you have a fight between two men both of whom has big nasty claws as main power, and they're trying to kill each other. And yet you barely see a drop of blood. If that was real, there'd be blood flying all over the place. They would be soaked in it and slipping in it.

New times

[Thanks to Dave]

Good fun.

I wonder how many years it will actually take before reading on a hand-held screen will be more common than reading on paper? I'd say 12-15.

Liberty Comics #1

Liberty Comics #1, review/article.

Are censorship issues really moot in the Internet age? I'm not so sure. Certainly they have been pushed back, but they push back too. For example Karen Fletcher, who ran a tiny web site (Red Rose or something). Granted, the site was pretty disgusting to almost anybody, containing text stories including violence to children and such. But: it was fiction. Not even any photos or illustrations. And yet the woman was arrested and got a pretty harsh sentence in a plea bargain. This is one of the best examples of how, if you really want free speech, you have to defend the indefensible. Policing fiction is policing thought. What kind of society has thought police?

Update on Trackball

Just a quick update on the Slimblade trackball.
... After a little software adjustment and practice, I find it gives me the best combination of speed and precision I ever had. I can zip across two wide screens in half a second, and yet make as precise work as I've ever made.
Admittedly I was a bit in doubt there in the beginning, it felt tricky to control, but it was just sorta like getting a different bicycle.

the padform

TTL said:
Maybe we non-iPadists need to wear a T-shirt that says “Mind the gap” ... just as a friendly platform warning to those who are not used to seeing iPadless people. :-)

Good one. And it'll give us a couple seconds to swallow our pity so it doesn't show.

By the way, it's very unhandy to say, for example: "software for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad"... So I've invented a word for that platform: it's now called "the padform".

"Free audiobooks", an app

We talked before about audiobooks, free and otherwise. I just found a two-dollar iPhone app, "Free audiobooks", which lets you download 3000 librivox-recorded audiobooks for free. They are all out of copyright, and recorded by volunteers, but you can't beat the price.
In the app, if you choose "email to iTunes", you can listen to the book while doing other things on the iPhone (or Touch). (So far, the iPhone only lets Apple's own apps multitask.)
There are several ways of getting the free librivox audiobooks onto an iPod, but this one may be the most handy. OK, admittedly, the only iPod it works on is the Touch.

By the way, in newest version of QuickTime, Apple has in their infinite wisdom removed some features, like easily saving files, even if one is paid up with QT Pro. Does anybody know how to save a file from the interface seen above?
(I can make a web page with the link to the file and select "save" when right-clicking on the link, but that's a real clumsy workaround.)

M. Pipolo saves the day:

I know... Apple's removal of features from QuickTime X after I had paid $30 for the Pro version irks me still. Grrr.

If the video file is its own autonomous URL (i.e., not embedded in another page), in Safari I usually just press Cmd-L > Cmd-C > Option-Cmd-L > Cmd-V it. (That is, highlight the URL in the address bar, copy it, bring up Safari's downloads window, then paste the link in.)

If the file is embedded, I have to first make it begin playing (so the video file begins buffering), then press Option-Cmd-A (Show Activity window), then find usually the largest file in the list (it will be streaming, so its size will look something like "1.2 MB of 34.8 MB"), click it, then copy and paste it into the Downloads window as above.

Its still a little clunky, but using all keyboard shortcuts, it can be streamlined down to about a 4 to 6 second process. :) Note that this method requires Safari to download it afresh, so there's no reason to wait for the video to buffer/play any longer than necessary to retrieve the links.

Thanks, these are brilliant! Did you figure these out?

Scarface School Play

Funniest fudging thing I've seen all week.



"You son of a bee! I'm leaving, you mother-fudger!"
ROTFL.

Steven Levy

Steven Levy, who wrote "Insanely Great", one of the best books about the Macintosh, said:
"Back in 1975, Ed Roberts's Altair cost $397, only a bit less than the iPad does today. But it had no screen, no web, no apps and you had to assemble it yourself. We've come a long way since then. And as of Saturday, we're a little way further."

I just had to quote this to mess with reader TTL, who is very tired of me making historical comparisons like that. "Yeah, so it gets a bit faster and at bit cheaper every year, so what, get used to it!" I'm trying, but it's hard.

And further: those people who are getting sick of hearing about the f***ing iPad have better skip this blog for a while, because I'm totally obsessed with it. This is an event I have been waiting for, for fifteen years. Perhaps most people view it as just another new gadget of little consequence, but I am not alone in seeing it as an important milestone in the history and development of publishing, education, and global communication. (Apple is not the huge hero here, admittedly; like the MP3-player this was a thing that was happening anyway, they just stepped in and took the limelight by doing something with more panache.)

13 bright bulbs

13 of the Brightest Tech Minds Sound Off on the Rise of the Tablet/Magazine, article.

Negroponte said:
"The unsung advantage of current ebooks is being able to use them in bed."
I guess he's not reading my blog, that's one of the first things I "sang".

Some of the quotes/posts are a bit weird though. "Advertising pioneer" George Lois says that a magazine on a tablet is a very poor substitute for the "real" thing. Apparently glossy paper has some magic quality unknown to science which makes the same pictures and words soar to the skies and heavens and shine with a divine light which just is not possible on the unworthy LCD screen. He thinks a computer screen is "bland" and "crammed". Well, screen already show more colors than you can print on paper with off-set. And while the iPad is a bit smaller than most magazine pages, that's just for now. There's no reason in a couple of years it can't be twice as large for a reasonable price, and hopefully barely heavier too. (I wonder if it could be strong enough if Apple bit the style bullet and made more use of plastic so it could be lighter?)

Magazines and "issues"

Back ten years ago, MyMac.com used to send out a PDF magazine. A closed issue with illustrations, articles, and so on. And I'm realizing I miss it. They have an active web site, now, lots to read, but it's not the same. With a "magazine issue" I felt that I had "something". I felt, "ah, issue 124 of MyMac is out now, now I have something to read over lunch, and I'd put it in my laptop and read it over lunch, seeing what my favorite authors such as Nemo, Beth Lock, and Tim Robertson had to say this month.

Here's a sample issue from 1996, which has been sitting on my computer in a folder named "reading" for over a decade! For one thing it's fun to read about "waiting for Copland", the huge Mac OS system which never arrived, and stuff like that. But also it's noteworthy that while the layout was simple and direct as it had to be, this is definitely a real magazine. There are many articles, and they are full articles and of good quality.
(I was interviewed in 1999 in issue 51. Though I can't find the PDF version, the interview is still online.)

Contracts and the Net

I just had a long and pleasant conversation with one of my beatiful and talented friends. (I'm serious, she's played the fiddle in some of the most prestigious venues in the world, and she's an outstanding composer and writer too.) With her brother, an artist, she wants to publish childrens books, as ebooks first, and with music in them. They talked to some woman who loved it, and would publish it and so on. And then came the contract... basically, this woman would own their work, their soul, and 99.9% of their income for life. Slightly exaggerated, but not much.

But, but, but... that's exactly what the Net is for! So we no longer have to be prey to such people. We can be autonomous.
A problem is my friend has a hard time with computers, so I am not sure what to say to her.

iBooks

iBooks has finally appeared on iTunes!

It only works on iPad, not iPhone or iPod Touch. An odd choice. Maybe they'll rather sell more iPad than sell many books for smaller devices?

The iBook store is only available to US customers, that sucks.

You can load your own ebooks into iBooks, if you can get them converted to epub format (you can use calibre for that).

Popular Science magazine

Popular Science magazine comes to the iPad, article and video.
I think this is a good example of actual thinking going on, when somebody tries to move to a new medium. Surely not all their ideas will work equally well, but it's clear they are working very hard to do it right, to make most of a very different medium, and I respect that highly.
In something like this, there is a huge number of factors, many of them unknown, both psychological, economic, and technological, to take into consideration, and I don't think there's a single person on the planet with a mind who can handle it all at once.

Is the gap big enough?

Everybody is talking about "is the gap between the iPhone and a laptop big enough to warrant the iPad?"
But I think there's a big market which is over-looked: all those people, like for example me and several of my friends, who don't have an iPhone or other "smartphone" because a normal cell phone works fine for calling, and for all the fun stuff, the screen on the iPhone just feels way too small. So in our world there's a BIG whole for the iPad.

Maybe it's a generation gap, as in how good one's eyes are, I dunno.

Shield

Tim Robertson from MyMac.com reports that the back of the iPad is not invulnerable to scratches. This makes me happy that I've already ordered a Zagg Shield for mine. It's invisible plastic, but it's military grade, exceedingly strong.

Banner for art contest

It is very rare indeed that I make a banner for anything on Domai. But I've just made one to get attention to the Art Contest.

By the way, please do mention this contest to any artists you know or plug it on any suitable forums. Thank you!

Oglaf

Sean discovered this excellent sex/comedy comic: Oglaf.
Well drawn, and often funny.

Microstock: why would a reputable company do this to themselves?

Microstock: why would a reputable company do this to themselves?, article about the proliferation of non-exclusive-use images across the web. Apparently this bunch have many jobs.

Testing styles

OK, so it seems an email with an attachment never makes it through to Blogger. OK.

How about styles, then?

---

Update: It gest published in three seconds. Very impressive. The styles you see above worked. The word "styles" was two sizes bigger, that didn't work. Not important.

Sleepy insects

Tommy found this kewl page with rare photos of sleeping insects covered in morning dew.
"At 3am to 4am insects are sleepy and taking photos of them is easy, but it is very difficult to find them."

test 2

So, here is a test if I can imbed a link in a post sent from email.

Update: well, worked perfectly. Maybe this is finally the day when I start sending (and accepting) HTML emails.

Actually, my goal is to find the easiest way to blog from an iPad. I tried specialized blogging apps a couple years ago, but I was underwhelmed, and anyway I don't see them for iPhone/iPad.

(Quick note: I must say, Google Chrome browser really is damn fast. Most things happen in the blink of an eye.)

Gilt

Haha, there's an iPhone/iPad app called "Gilt". Its purpose is to help you shop better and faster...
Gilt is what you buy, Guilt is what you get...

Best iPad quote of the day...

From a CNBC reporter:
"The question is, is the gab big enough to make the iPad a game-changer, and it's a definite debate so far."

Trying Chrome

Sigh... OK, I'm going to try Google Chrome for real. I prefer Safari, but in the last week, it has given me so much grief. Crashes... Windows which can't be closed... Addresses at the top which really belong to other windows... and so on. And no amount of updating or rebooting has handled it.

I could have gone with Firefox. It's a good browser, but for some odd reason I never really felt at home there, I can't say why.

Tigerballet

[Thanks to Igor]

(Isn't it a lion though?)
It's clear who is a star, but it's even more clear who wants to become a star.)

Crap devices

It's amazing how crappy electronics still are today. Take my cable box. Please.

One example: Despite it being over 15 years ago I heard that TV programmes now had little codes that indicates when a program starts and stops, this company (Virgin) and the box clearly has not heard of it. It will always stop at the planned time, even if there's a couple minutes left of a program, thus lopping off the end.

And the "time left" indication on the recording hard disk is a mystery in itself. Ten minutes ago, it was at "critical", meaning virtually no time left, obviously. Then I deleted a half hour recording, and it jumped to 24 hours free!

This is so fokking lame, the box is surely not using any technology which has not been in use in one form or another for over 20 years. You'd think they'd have it right by now.

Instapaper for iPad

I have bought my first dedicated iPad app: Instapaper Pro 2.2.2, universal for all three devices (which of course are iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. What to call them collectively?).

Talking about the iPad (yes, still, I know... better get used to it), DP has a good likkle FAQ about it.
Q: Am I really supposed to buy this thing when I already have a laptop and an iPhone?

A: It always surprises me how many people are made indignant by the very thought of the iPad, as though Congress passed a law that requires you to buy one!
You're not, as it turns out. Buying one is totally optional.
That said, the question is a little odd, because the iPad really is very different from a laptop or an iPhone. I guess people have a lot of trouble with the idea that it's a new category, something unlike anything they've used before. All people can do is compare it in their heads with stuff they HAVE used before.
But I'm telling you, the multitouch screen/software makes it very, very different from a laptop, and the screen size makes it very, very different from an iPhone. It's something entirely new.
-

Cherry and strip-strip

Do you remember Cherry Poptart?

It's so sad that there's tens of thousands of hyper-violent comics titles, but you have to search long and intensively to find any with nudity or humor or light-hearted sexuality.
Maybe strip-strip can help.

Color combos

There is something about the colors on this page as a whole:

… which I really like!

(if you want to see the individual pics, they are in the April 2 newsletter.)

in-ear-phones

What are some good, small, in-ear earphones for iPods and such?

Or maybe on-ear, but very compact and light.

Strip-strip

In light of the iPad, I'm resurrecting Strip-strip (strips with strip.)
(I love grey-tone design like that.)

iPad surprises (updated several times)

I am gobsmacked! I got my iPad two days early!! (As you know, it was only supposed to arrive at April 3.)

Not only that... wait for it... the iPad *does* have a built-in video camera for conferencing. Apparently it's somehow sitting in the middle, looking through the screen. No wonder they kept this a secret, this is revolutionary. Finally you can look people in the eyes when you speak to them.

An amazing twist is that as soon as you start up the iPad iChat (in a brand new version 6.0), you get connected to a staff member in (Apple Headquarters) Cupercino, who congratulates you on your new purchase. I got a very pretty auburn 30-ish woman, who honestly did not know much about computers or the iPad, but wow, what nice eyes and voice she had. A pleasure.

I wish of course that I had been one of the 23 people so who got connected to Steve Jobs personally, but I understand that he simply, like Santa Clause, does not have time to see everybody.

-----
OK, that was an April 1 joke.
More seriously (I hope), here's a roundup of early reviews.
Quote from Pogue's:
"Speaking of video: Apple asserts that the iPad runs 10 hours on a charge of its nonremovable battery — but we all know you can’t trust the manufacturer. And sure enough, in my own test, the iPad played movies continuously from 7:30 a.m. to 7:53 p.m. — more than 12 hours. That’s four times as long as a typical laptop or portable DVD player."
"The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine.
The only question is: Do you like the concept?"

PCMag video review.

Here's another lively review.

"Dr. Mac" says:
"Reading a book on the iPad screen was a pleasant surprise for me. I wouldn't want to read an entire book on my iPhone or MacBook Pro screen, but I wouldn't mind reading one on my iPad."
[...] Speaking of my wife, prior to our iPad's arrival she said she didn't understand why anyone would want or need an iPad. Now she just keeps saying, "No, you can't have it back."

Comment from his site:
A really big Iphone that can't make phone calls.
And like the touch screen cpu's preceding it, destined to be a loss loser for Apple.

I'm a total fanboy, I can't wait to get mine. And unlike the "it's a big iPhone" geeks (who can't spell iPhone), I can see what it is: it's a publishing platform. A new one and a powerful one.

And Steve meets Steve, Fry and Jobs, that is.
"It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist's rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised."
-