“Virtually all of our stores sold out of the iPhone last night,” AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said, declining to specify how many units had been sold.
We’ll have to wait to hear official launch sales numbers, but I’ll go on line here to call everyone who fervently and repeatedly posted articles that bashed the iPhone before it even came out what they really are: shameless, transparent, contrarian-wannabe traffic whores. Find a hot meme, then run upstream against it.
Too bad they’re all looking stupid right about now.
If you’re an executive at RIM or Nokia or Palm or Microsoft, you have to sit back and, on some level deep inside yourself, at once fear and marvel at what Apple has done. They’ve come into a market as a fresh upstart, with untested hardware built from the ground up and with their very own operating system that’s never seen life inside a mobile device. With this unlikely alchemy, they create the most anticipated — and apparently successful — mobile phone launch in the history of the device.
That’s something I call a pretty solid start, but I’m sure there will be the rationalizers and apologists who will still say the iPhone is fated for death on the vine.
There must be some celebrity in being wrong that I’m missing.
Here’s a field journal of a ABCNews reporter who’s standing in line at the Fifth Ave. Apple Store awaiting his iPhone. There’s been a Robin Williams sighting, and the Apple Store has bought everyone who’s standing in line a bottle of Smartwater. As you might imagine, the scene has been heating up since around 4 AM this morning.
But the best is this:
Drivers continue to be confused by the line — a BMW just drove past, the owner holding what looked like a BlackBerry out of the window, shouting, “I’ve already got one, suckers!”
No, he doesn’t. And that’s what makes this launch nothing short of historic: there are some who think the iPhone is just another phone. Then there are those who understand this is the start of something very, very big.
This is a little something we call an asswhipping.
The Wii is beating the PS3 and Xbox 360 to pulps in the market place. In May, they sold 338K units — more than Sony (82K) and MS (155K) could manage together. In Japan it’s even more dominating, selling 5:1 against the PS3.
And while both of the super-advanced consoles from competitors are losing money for each unit handed over the counter, Nintendo is making a killing. As a result, the company’s market cap has peaked higher than Sony.
Where I live, I still can’t find a Wii to save my life: they’re nonexistent. I still get the, “What are you, an idiot?” look from sales clerks when I walk in and ask if they have any Wiis in stock.
Indeed, less can be more if user experience is kept front-and-center.
The first real-world iPhone review has surfaced from the NYTimes’s David Pogue. Overall, the iPhone’s benefits outweigh its flaws.
LIKES: form factor and screen, the latter of which is quite durable. But the software is where it’s at: it’s fast, beautiful and menu-free. It’s simple, and you can never get truly lost in the software. The GUI physics (finger-flick-powered scrolling, etc.) are gorgeous and make the phone fun to use.
When you buy an iPhone, you can get it and walk out, choosing to activate the unit at home away from AT&T sales staff (and insane crowds if you’re planning on getting one early). The service plan pricing is reasonable. The visual voicemail works very well: messages are listed like email and there’s no password you have to enter (I’ve always hated that).
Email is nearly perfect, with inbound messages fully formatted and graphics-rich. Safari steals the show: it’s a real web browser. It’s not stripped down, the formatting doesn’t get bastardized and navigation/zooming is a joy. It’s revolutionary.
iPod functionality is superb. Google Maps is great and provides free live traffic reporting. Real-world battery life mostly lives up to Apple’s newly-expanded expections.
DISLIKES: No memory card expansion slot. No chat program. Accessing the phone app takes up to six screen movements. No 3rd-party app support (yet). No Java or Flash support (but YouTube will be coming).
Camera stinks for low light conditions or movement. No video capture. No picture messages (MMS).
Battery starts to lose charge after 300 or 400 charges, which is disappointing because it’s not user-replaceable. This is an annoying legacy design decision inherited from the iPod.
Touchscreen typing is frustrating and slow at first, but picks up after you learn to trust the keyboard. But, even still, it’s no BlackBerry. For true typing freaks, the lack of tactile feedback might be frustrating.
Biggest issue above all else: AT&T’s network provides iffy signal strength and horrible data speeds (EDGE is ancient: NYT’s home page takes 55 seconds to render). This sucks, because there’s nothing Apple can do about it (short of opening the iPhone to other carriers). A mobile device, no matter who makes it, is only a passenger on the carrier’s bus.
CLOSING QUIP: “But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.”
Let this be a reminder that parodies are supposed to be funny, or they’re not parodies.
And if retardation needs a sequel:
I’m all for clever ‘Get a Mac’ parodies; there are a bunch of them. But just because you put two dorks on screen with horrible acoustics and overlay the Apple jingle doesn’t mean you’re magic.
Apple’s iPhone is going to be compatible with Microsoft Exchange Server, after all.
Earlier this month, a number of articles and analyst reports claimed that Apple’s iPhone would not be compatible with Exchange Server, Research in Motion’s Blackberry servers and Motorola’s Good Technology e-mail servers.
While I can’t speak to Apple’s plans regarding Blackberry and Good, my sources are saying Apple can and will make the iPhone compatible with Exchange Server.
Here’s what I’m hearing: Apple will announce this week — possibly as soon as June 27 — that it has licensed the Exchange ActiveSync licensing protocol. Via the licensing arrangement, Apple iPhone users will be able to connect to Exchange Server and make use of its wireless messaging and synchronization capabilities.
I postedpreviously about how the iPhone had little chance to win the full-time affections of enterprise warriors who currently own BlackBerries or Treos running Good Technology’s email client. Not without MS Exchange, I said. Not without the American corporation’s lifeblood. DF’s John Gruber and I even disagreed somewhat on the issue.
Now, if what Foley reports is true, this changes the game entirely. The protocol is there, and it’s sponsored by the Redmond mothership: all that’s left is for corporate IS departments to validate the device and add it to their support list.
Previously, when I talked to my own company’s IT and security teams, they gave me a resounding no when I asked the question of iPhone/Exchange support. Of course, that’s because they didn’t know about this development.
Very, very reasonable, especially when you consider that all have unlimited data and are priced, essentially, by voice usage. The 200 SMS messages might be an issue for those who are text-obsessed, though.
So much for the speculation that they’d be insanely expensive. The iPhone doubters are losing ammo by the hour.
Bizarre, unfunny, very awkward spoof of Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad campaign from Opera, wherein they seek to establish Opera Mini as the mobile browser for people who can’t afford an iPhone.
Actually, I do have something to add. I downloaded Opera Mini to my BlackBerry 8703e (running atop Verizon), and for the life of me I could not get it to find the internet connection, regardless of how many times I let it run through its connection setup process. I gave it about 20 minutes and then uninstalled it.
I don’t doubt that it’s a viable piece of software, but I think Opera is seriously biting off more than it can chew by taking potshots at a mobile phone that, come this Friday, will have hundreds of thousands of people lining up a dozen hours early to buy. Even the actors in the spoof looked like, “Do I really have to do this?”
After discussing alli’s insane ‘treatment effects’, I began to think about how the pill works with people who take it for weight loss. The mechanics are simple: fat binds to the drug to prevent metabolization, and it leaves the body through defecation, undigested and harmless and unstored. But even according to the alli website, the calorie savings for someone who’s eating 3000 calories and 100 grams of fat is only 225 calories.
7.5% savings. Big deal. And alli does nothing for the carbs and sugar most Americans eat, which, if you’ve been following nutritional news for any length of time, are the main culprit for our nation’s obesity. We’re addicted to sugar far more than fat.
But alli works on another level too — it subtly changes your behavior by gently suggesting the risk of negative consequences if one overindulges in fatty foods. It’s like Antabuse for food.
(Antabuse is a drug that’s prescribed to treat chronic alcoholism. The premise behind it is downright Pavlovian: if a recovering alchoholic drinks alcohol while taking Antabuse, he suffers a near-immediate hangover: shortness of breath, a flushed face, accelerated heart rate, nausea and vomiting. Through the threat of physical negative reinforcement the alcoholic ensures his behavior remains straight and narrow.)
alli has a very similar component to it: if you eat too much fat on alli, you stand a greater chance of suffering ‘treatment effects’. These side effects, put simply, are:
Farting oil (undigested fat) when you pass gas
Loose stools (diarrhea)
Frequent, uncontrollable shitting
The alli website suggests that while you are on “treatment,” you cut back your fat to no more than 15 grams per meal. The more fat you eat, the higher chance you have of experiencing a treatment effect, which boils down to shitting your pants.
Gruber is right: I could use this every single day, but for $305? No.
I understand it’s cool and all, and I understand that the Apple demographic is typically affluent and trends towards high-end gear, but COME ON. What were they drinking in that pricing meeting?
I’m talking in this case about the latest MacBook Pro to grace my desk, the top-of-the-line 17-in. model with a glossy 1,920-by-1,200-pixel high-resolution screen tricked out with a 7,200-rpm 160GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM added post-purchase. Oh, and it uses Intel’s new 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo with a “Santa Rosa” chip set for a bit more zip and even slightly longer battery life.
But it’s the screen that’s the most appealing feature. This is without a doubt the best-looking LCD screen Apple has produced in what also happens to be the fastest laptop from the company yet.
In a word: suh-weet.
This makes things difficult for me. I’m in decision limbo.
I have a first-gen (rev A) MBP with a 2.16 GHz Core Duo. It’s been a flawless machine, but I’m thinking of upgrading. I don’t own a desktop Mac, so my notebook is my daily banger.
I’m torn between two of the new Santa Rosa-based machines: the high-end 15″ MBP (2.4 GHz) with the LED-backlit display, or the 17″ MBP with the HD display (still CCFL, not LED).
On one hand, I think the 15″ model is a perfect size for a desktop replacement portable. It’s slim, it’s light, it can be lugged around with relative ease. The only bummer is the the screen resolution, which is low by today’s standards, especially if you consider what’s offered by PC vendors.
The 17″ model is unquestionably Apple flagship. It’s faster than the equivalently-clocked 15″ model (thanks to faster GPU timings, which are afforded by what I’m assuming is a better cooling/thermal design), and is every bit a full-blown desktop replacement now that a real HD screen is available (1920 x 1200). If I ran this machine hooked up to my external monitor, I’d have two workspaces with the exact same resolution.
Thing is, the 17″ is bigger. To me, on paper, this steps out of notebook territory and into more of a deskbound-but-portable category.
Then there’s the whole matte v. glossy decision, but that’s another story. Despite my first inclinations towards glossy, I’m not sure I’d make that choice when it came time to push the Order button.
Anyway, that’s my dilemma. Can any 17″ MBP owners chime in with feedback on their machines? How’s it been? Do you have one of the new HD 17″ models? Do you feel it’s too big to, say, go to Starbucks and use?
In Salon.com’s Broadsheet section, there’s an article about alli, the new diet pill that’s wildly popular and stratospherically expensive. In a nutshell, this is the new pill that’s been introduced that binds to fat you eat so that your body cannot absorb and metabolize it, and therefore can’t store it. It’s essentially the lazier, less-accomplished, OTC sister of Xenical, the prescription drug.
It’s crazy expensive — about $60 for a one-month supply — and it has a long list of incredibly interesting ‘treatment effects’ (called ’side effects’ to anyone outside of ad agencies) that, if you’re not the one experiencing them, are downright amusing. That is, if you find grown, otherwise normal and healthy adults shitting their pants amusing. More on that later.
We’ve reached a point in our civilization where it’s acceptable to have a pill for everything. To make people who aren’t on half a dozen drugs feel like a minority. To advertise prescription drugs like you would a watch or a new car on primetime TV with 60 second, high-production-value commercials. Attractive people doing fun, healthy things everywhere.
Welcome to the age of direct-to-consumer prescription drug marketing. If you’ve any lingering doubts this time is upon us, consider the fact that druggists can’t keep alli on store shelves. Even among drugstore managers, alli is a phenomenon.
Americans always want the shortcut. It’s the allure of instant gratification. Do real work? Experience the journey instead of just the destination? No way. Gimme my lifestyle enhancement now — I have no time to indulge in any means to the end. Even if it means there’s a very strong chance I’ll shit my pants somewhat regularly. More on that later.
It was one thing when companies lied to you about a detergent’s ability to remove grass stains from a child’s jeans; it’s quite another when drug companies are selling you a pill that’s unnecessary and essentially causes you to shit your pants. If you’re not shitting your pants, you’re farting oil. If you’re not farting oil, you’re worried about loose stools that may be ‘hard to control.’
You’re a fecal nightmare. And you’re paying $60 per month for this privilege.
It’s fucking crazy that this has become an acceptable trade-off for a drug that, at best, would shave 225 calories from a diet of 3000 calories and 100 grams of fat per day. And that does nothing for the typically massive carbohydrate dose that most Americans eat every day.
What follows is a plain-English translation of alli’s treatment effects section. Nothing quoted has been made up or altered in any way.
Apple has posted a 20 minute QuickTime guided tour of the iPhone, and it’s stellar. If you’re not convinced the iPhone is five years ahead of anything out there right now and that the device’s success will surpass even the most hysterical expectations, you will be after watching this. If you’re still not, you’re in denial or your eyes are broken and I regret to inform you that you’re likely blind. Sorry. Didn’t really want to be the one to break the news.
We get to see some of the iPhone’s finer points: animations as the numerical keypad flips on and off, how adding contacts works, how to hold and merge individual phone calls, pictures and camera operation, Safari (which supports multiple open pages), visual voicemail (I love the “Call Back” button), email, SMS, applications (stocks looks particularly interesting, as does Google Maps), YouTube, movie playback and device/system settings. Cool stock ringtones, too.
(If you were still thinking there’s a GPS, you’re wrong. Otherwise, the Google Maps app wouldn’t need a startpoint when plotting a route.)
Above all, what strikes me the most about this is Apple’s unflappable confidence in the iPhone’s interface. The simplicity and intuitiveness is mesmerizing. Since the ads started appearing on TV, they’ve primarily focused on one thing: the GUI. They show the iPhone acting as an iPod, as a web browser and running general mobile apps. All the while you’re left to marvel at the interface, how clean it is, how smoothly it works, the utter lack of physical buttons.
Normally, a mobile phone’s interface is the last thing companies want to show off. Up until now, exterior physical design and ergonomics were the stars of the show.
Now, here comes Apple showing the world that they nailed the hard part: the software. Anyone can make a handset. Not everyone can create a next-gen OS for one.
The iPhone’s OSX Leopard-based OS makes my BlackBerry 8703e’s interface look straight out of 1995. Literally.
(If you’d rather download the 175 MB guided tour instead of streaming it, you can do so right here.)
Recent research shows that you quite literally can train your brain via meditation and other mental exercises to increase neuroplasticity and high-level mental function.
The WSJ reports that scans of monks’ brains — which benefit from daily meditation and mental training — show dramatically altered physical structure and function.
In a striking difference between novices and monks, the latter showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves during compassion meditation. Thought to be the signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung brain circuits, gamma waves underlie higher mental activity such as consciousness. The novice meditators “showed a slight increase in gamma activity, but most monks showed extremely large increases of a sort that has never been reported before in the neuroscience literature,” says Prof. Davidson, suggesting that mental training can bring the brain to a greater level of consciousness
The study will be published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We can’t rule out the possibility that there was a pre-existing difference in brain function between monks and novices,” says Prof. Davidson, “but the fact that monks with the most hours of meditation showed the greatest brain changes gives us confidence that the changes are actually produced by mental training.”
If true, this invalidates the notion of fixed levels of awareness and consciousness. And while this study concentrates on the effects of meditation on mental function, I wonder what the effects would be of dedicated reading and writing? Of painting? Of learning a new language? Of studying math and science?
Crestock.com just announced the winner of its 3rd-round photography contest in which the theme was “Speed Demons”. The idea was to submit photographs that depict a sense of speed.
The winning shot, below, is just incredible. The photographer is Nico Smit, and he’s been interviewed.
An excellent parody of Microsoft’s Surface that pretty much says what everyone is thinking once they get past the novelty of the thing. Pay attention to the voiceover talent — it’s really good.
(For the record, I’ve posted about MS Surface right after it debuted. You can see my more pragmatic take here. If you don’t fee like reading, this video is a strong runner-up.)
This is a maintenance update that addresses general OS fixes as well as specific enhancements to RAW camera support and 3rd-party application support.
Bluetooth
Addresses an issue in which a Bluetooth headset may show up as an available device for sound output in the Sound preference pane after it had been removed from Bluetooth preferences.
Third-party
Adds RAW image decoding support for the following cameras: Panasonic DMC-LX1, Panasonic DMC-LX2, Leica M8, Leica D-LUX 2, Leica D-LUX 3, Fuji S5 Pro, Nikon D40x, and Canon EOS 1D Mk III.
Resolves an issue in which some DNG images may appear tinted or distorted.
Improves compatibility of Mathematica 6 with 64-bit Macs.
USB
Improves reliability when using the IR remote control after waking from sleep.
Improves reliability when mounting external USB hard drives.
Resolves an issue in which a TomTom GO 910 may not be recognized when connected via USB to an Intel-based Mac.
Other
Improves responsiveness when using the Control-Eject key combination to display a shutdown dialog.
Addresses a specific issue in which users importing video from a DV camera may experience dropped frames.
Includes recent Apple security updates.
Addresses issues with calendar calculations in certain applications.
Addresses issues when rounding decimal numbers for display in certain applications.
For Motion, addresses an issue in which some texture corruption could appear in Motion if VRAM is full.
I have not installed this on my MacBook Pro (Core Duo 2.16) yet, but I recommend my standard update procedure:
Back up your system image. I recommend SuperDuper (which will repair all permissions before starting its backup).
Install update. 10.4.10 will force a double-reboot, one of which can apparently take a long time. To better understand what your machine is doing (and to assuage fears that it has gone into a coma), enable verbose boot mode by holding CMD-V before the gray Apple logo appears.
Once you’re up and running, run another backup. The new OSX build number should be 8R2218.
Most reports from around the web say that the update installs without issue.
One of my favorite sites, McSweeney’s, could really use your help. Their distributor filed for bankruptcy last year, and McSweeney’s had $130K disappear into the ether. This puts them in a bad spot.
Many of our contributors have stepped up and given us original artwork and limited editions to auction off. We’ve got original artwork from Chris Ware, Marcel Dzama, David Byrne, and Tony Millionaire; a limited-edition music mix from Nick Hornby; rare early issues of the quarterly, direct from Sean Wilsey’s closet; and more. We’re even auctioning off Dave Eggers’s painting of George W. Bush as a double amputee, from the cover of Issue 14. More special items will be appearing as we go, so check back often.
Help save one of the funniest, most original and intelligent websites on the net. You can do what I did and purchase a Dumbo Octopus t-shirt, which not only is imbued with magical powers that helps you locate underwater caves, but is also hilarious to look at.
Jeff Ventura’s thoughtful contrary analysis to my take yesterday.
But the title alone shows where he’s wrong: Apple doesn’t need to take a run at “corporate users”. They’re taking a run at just plain people, some of whom, during weekday daylight hours, work in corporate environments. If their beloved iPhones don’t integrate with their office servers, they’re not going to blame Apple, they’re going to blame their IT department.
I actually agree with this, the way he’s worded it. Apple doesn’t need to take a a run at corporate users; it’s a question of want. My original piece said that the iPhone must integrate with Exchange “to make a real run at corporate users,” and I stand by that. Does Apple want this market? It’s too early to say. I’m guessing they don’t, and that will be that. Steve Jobs has an uncanny ability to find the weak underbelly of a consumer market and exploit it — nevermind that the iPhone’s price point screams “enterprise buyer.”
Will users want iPhone + clean, native Exchange support after they go and buy one and find out that they don’t have it? Absolutely.
From one angle, Gruber’s spot-on: the users will raise holy hell. But corporate IS teams won’t budge, because they simply will not risk unknown consequences — especially when they might be of a security nature — to mollify seething employee nerd hordes. The monolithic, policy-driven, uber-conservative mindset of enterprise IS teams is legendary.
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber says that the iPhone needn’t kowtow to the MS Exchange hegemony to capture a reasonable share of the corporate user market. Gruber’s post comes in response to the WSJ’s article entitled Companies Hang Up on Apple’s iPhone, which essentially says that the iPhone will be at a disadvantage in enterprise environments because it lacks the native, Exchange-based push email functionality of BlackBerry and Motorola’s Good Technology.
Gruber argues that there are ways to get corporate email functionality with the iPhone, and in theory he’s right. Even though the iPhone has no native, out-of-box support for Exchange-based push email, rouge employees will find a way on their own. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat, at least partially, right?
Yep. Right up until the sysadmin or security team hampers the employee workarounds so much that they’re crippled to the point where they border on worthless. And it’s a short-lived cat-and-mouse game: if employees hack the security team’s countermeasures to the original rogue workarounds, they get warned as employees and the shenanigans stop. Enterprises have a hairtrigger threshold of intolerance when it comes to supporting something that’s not tested and could expose the organization to security risks and costly support burdens. Jobs get lost that way.
This is how it works, trust me. Unless corporate users with iPhones want to resort to very basic email functionality as it relates to Exchange (such as accessing MS Exchange webmail, which is second-rate with any browser but IE, and even then it’s iffy and NOWHERE NEAR as slick as push email), they will eventually be left out in the cold if the organization rules against iPhone usage. Trying to change employee-level mobile technology dogma is a poor battlefield on which to fight the good fight against the MS business mothership.
As a guy who works in management at a large corporation, I think Gruber’s idea sounds fine in theory and on paper, but won’t get very far in practice. More succinctly, I think Gruber’s idea is ahead of its time and the enterprise culture isn’t ready, on a wholesale level, to look at open Exchange alternatives. Which is too bad, but that’s not the point here.
PRINCETON, NJ — The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.
There once was a day when I would have considered myself a Republican. Increasingly and with great velocity, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit even that.
It’s really too bad that our partisan political system is so conceptually polarized, because each extreme pushes readily and obliviously into deep lakes of pure bullshit.
The Macalope, a favorite blog of mine (and if you’re an Apple fan, it should be one of yours), has recently accepted an offer to blog for the CNet mothership, which means he’ll actually make some cheddar for his efforts. That’s a good thing. I hope he can retain his style and freedom to be the vocal, no-bullshit mythical creature that he is, but I’ve seen things like this happen before, and he’ll have to reinvent himself to some degree.
That bums me out, but hopefully the ‘Lope will adjust as little as possible and keep going the way he has been. I don’t think that he’d really accept the CNet gig if he truly had to sell out and kill the brand that make him popular in the first place.
Do him a favor and check out his new blog here, and while you’re at it, subscribe to his new RSS feed (even though, by CNet decree, it’s only a partial feed…boo).
Good luck, ‘Lope. Keep on shining you crazy diamond.
Well, this is a nice surprise that somehow managed to add over $3B to Apple’s market capitalization.
CUPERTINO, California—June 18, 2007—Apple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.
That’s some great news, and it certainly is class-leading. However, I’ll lay $100 right now that the iPhone will not achieve eight hours of real talk time. I’ll grant it a solid five or six, but eight? I’ll believe it when I see it.
Don’t think I’m not all for this new development; I am. Whatever Apple did to bump the battery life from the original estimate is good by me. It’s just that I understand that all mobile device manufacturers play games with their battery life numbers.
We’ll see about the battery life. Worst case scenario is that it seems the iPhone will best its competition, which, in the end, is what people really care about. It’s not about the absolute number most of the time.
I do like the decision to go with the optical-quality glass display over plastic. I think this might increase breakability in the event the phone is dropped, but the display certainly will look nicer and (hopefully) be a bit more resistant to minor scratches. I’l go on record here to predict the somewhat obvious: when the iPhone is released, everyone will be ga-ga about the display quality. Which is good, because when your device’s primary interface method is the screen itself, go top shelf. Period.
I think it’s hilarious that this news jumped AAPL +$4.59 today, but apparently, even with considerable investing experience, I still underestimate the psychology of crowds. Will I ever learn? Probably not.
I’m off to hit an expensive white ball with expensive forged clubs around an even more expensive glorified lawn. You should be doing something equally silly. Even Google thinks so:
Bruce Schneier, in his usual style, paints an interesting portrait of the modern terrorist as a bumbling, delusional idiot. What’s more, he lumps our governmental countermeasures and media into the same camp.
The recently publicized terrorist plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, like so many of the terrorist plots over the past few years, is a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press.
Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots — and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse — is wrong.
9/11 gave birth to an entire threat genre whose power has become not the power it truly and demonstrably has, but rather the power we — our communities, government and press — give it. And, subsequently, there has emerged an ideology within our society that seek to capitalize on the fear that stems from the artificial power we give the entire idea of terrorist threat.
We shouldn’t let the political culture of fear make us any less safe — there have been events that do that by themselves, and no doubt there will be more. However, the current “war on terror,” in case you haven’t noticed by now, is more politics than objective rationality, which drives our thinking underground needlessly.
The next time someone starts telling you how important it is to “protect kids from online predators,” send them to this record of the DC Internet Caucus panel on kids and predation, wherein quantitative social scientists describe the real situation with predators and kids. Kids do get preyed upon, but not in the way that it’s depicted in the media, and none of the cell-phone-tracking, spyware-installing fear-based parenting does squat to protect them. If you want to keep your kids safe, you need to know what you’re keeping them safe from.
It’s about time someone said this. Parents left unchecked chase every ghost the media or neighbors tells them to, wasting time, energy and patience in the process.
Behind every sensationalized, fear-inducing, overhyped social issue or circumstance is the real truth. The media, knowing we have 30 second attention spans and are generally disinclined to do real reasearch, has little compunction to get to the heart of anything.
Thankfully, someone does [Warning: 34-page PDF. Real reading required.]. Here you’ll find a transcript of three social scientists on an Internet Caucus panel in DC discussing the raw facts about online youth victimization. This debunks just about everything the press has been telling the general population about online predation.
Read this whether you’re a parent or not. With issues like this, the more you truly know the less scary the problem becomes.
Fantastic subway sign idea re-created by Chris Glass about life instruction on how to be happy. I think everyone needs a reminder about this now and again, because we’ve all forgotten it at one point or another.
Stefan Sagmeister adds his own flavor to the topic via his TED presentation entitled, “Yes, design can make you happy”. In it, he lists 16 simple concepts that, if everyone kept them in mind and made efforts to live in their spirit, the world would be a better place.
Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
Being not truthful works against me.
Helping other people helps me.
Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking if for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Assuming is stifling.
Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Worrying solves nothing.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Having guts always works out for me.
Take a second and think about these. As with most most principles of human wisdom, they’re simple in concept but each can lead down interesting paths when put into practice.
I spent 20 minutes in the Troy, MI Apple Store today, putting two brand-new Santa Rosa-powered MacBook Pros side-by-side for the purposes of (a) checking out the new 15.4″ LED display and (b) finally settling in my mind the glossy v. matte debate.
First off, the LED display is gorgeous. It’s far brighter than the old CCFL display, and that’s immediately apparent. The whites are brilliant white, and the blacks are deep black. The screen was so impressive that it outshone (as it were) the high-def screen on the nearby 17″ MacBook Pro. No, the 15.4″ LED doesn’t have the pixel density, but it makes the 17″ HD screen look dim by comparison (even though the HD screen is very impressive from a resolution standpoint).
If you have any concerns about the 15.4″ LED screen on the new MacBook Pros, don’t. I saw no evidence of yellow tint or discoloration. They’re gorgeous and definitely the new standard. A year from now, LED panels will be all you see.
As for glossy v. matte, I have to vote a resounding glossy. I don’t do any pre-press color work, so dead-on color accuracy isn’t necessary for me, so you mileage may vary depending on what you do with your machine. Side-by-side, though, the glossy looks like a next-gen screen next to the matte, even though they’re both LED-powered. There were some reflections in the glossy screen, but even given the Apple Store’s bright, fluorescent environment, they didn’t bother me one bit. I have to imagine that in 95% of non-press use cases, the glossy screen’s deeper colors, whiter whites and richer blacks will be preferred. It’s certainly a more striking screen at first glance, and using it is very satisfying.
The matte screen was bright and nice — brighter than my rev A MacBook Pro’s 15″ display — but text was blurrier, as essentially a matte screen uses a coating that serves as a low-level diffusion filter to mitigate reflections. When I say “blurry” I don’t mean any blurrier than a standard notebook screen, and I mainly say it in contrast to text on the glossy, which was very, very sharp.
So, the LED screen is gorgeous and glossy is the way to go unless you are a true color professional. There are many debates raging right now about this, and the two sides are pretty even, so I’ll go ahead and assume this blog post will settle the debate once and for all. Is that a misguided assumption?
