June 2012
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iOS Security →
A nice PDF from Apple that gives the complete rundown on iOS security. More information than most of us could ever hope to want to know, but interesting nonetheless.
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Episode 15 of the CultCast →
I had fun chatting with Erfon and Buster in the latest episode of the CultCast. We talk about Tim Cook, Mac rumors, Apple TV and more.
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Mayor Of Batman, Turkey Sues Christopher Nolan and... →
Variety:
The mayor of an oil-producing city in southeastern Turkey, which has the same name as the Caped Crusader, is suing helmer Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. for royalties from mega-grosser “The Dark Knight.”
Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has accused “The Dark Knight” producers of using the city’s name without...
May 2012
21 posts
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You Might Be A Self-Entitled Blogger If...
You frequently say you “called” a news story months ago, and you frequently link back to opinion pieces you wrote to backup your always-correct opinions. (Kinda like how a dog pisses to mark his territory.)
You occasionally embed your own tweets in your blog posts.
You spend half your work time calling out other bloggers for their terrible, misinformed, poorly written opinions and...
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An Analysis of Blaster Fire in Star Wars →
Incredibly geeky wonderfulness.
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If The Internet Was Completely Destroyed →
We need to begin by no longer treating the Internet like a ghost. It’s made of more metal, plastic, and fiber than you can fathom—and it’s spread across the whole world, a monster machine that hugs the entire globe. So we hunted down the web’s physical foundation, across land and sea, to pinpoint exactly what you’d need to take out. Hypothetically. It turns out,...
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Facebook Buying Instagram Finally Makes Sense →
Mike Isaac for AllThingsD:
It’s called Facebook Camera, and it’s essentially Instagram redux. One, it’s a standalone Facebook application, separate from the Facebook app proper, much like the company’s Facebook Messages app. Facebook Photos product manager Dirk Stoop told me in an interview this morning that it’s an instant portal to one of Facebook’s largest use cases: Photo sharing
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An Interview With Jony Ive →
The Telegraph has a great interview with Apple design guru Jony Ive.
My favorite part:
Ive has achieved an awful lot and still has a long career ahead of him. Even so, a knighthood is a good time to take stock. If he was to be remembered for just one of his Apple designs, I ask, which one would he pick?
There is the long pause. “It’s a really tough one. A lot does seem to come back to the fact...
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Digitimes And Apple Rumors
Stephen Hackett:
Alex Heath, in a story titled, “Digitimes: We’re Sorry We Get All Our Apple Rumors Wrong” at Cult of Mac:
Digitimes has been one of the main sources of Apple rumors over the last several years, but anyone who follows Apple will tell you that the Taiwanese publication is more often wrong than right.
Heath wasn’t kidding when he said “main source.” A quick Google site...
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Ridley Scott And Prometheus →
A fantastic piece by The Hollywood Reporter on director Ridley Scott and his new movie, Prometheus.
Damon Lindelof, the guy who wrote the film, was also on the last episode of On The Verge.
Can I just say that I’m almost more excited for Prometheus than Dark Knight Rises?
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A Battle Between Two Ways Of Filming At The Box... →
The Atlantic:
This summer, Hollywood’s blockbusters are engaging in a high-stakes format war between cutting-edge digital technology and old-fashioned, photochemical film. Digitally photographed thrillers like The Avengers, Prometheus, and The Amazing Spider-Man will be battling it out with equally epic movies shot on film such as The Dark Knight Rises, Men in Black 3, and Battleship....
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How To Write Good Science Fiction →
Jon Spaihts, the screenwriter behind Prometheus:
You keep your stories rooted in the world we know. The more you re-invent, the harder your audience has to work to connect. If your fantastic world has recognizable families, or realistic workplace politics, or a spacefaring army that still dresses, walks, and talks like the army we know… then we have a starting place for that connection....
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‘Rise Of The Tech Bandits’ →
The newest issue of SAY Magazine is a must read for anyone interested in the evolution of tech media.
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Android Fragmentation →
Casey Johnston for Ars Technica:
The developers logged 3,997 distinct devices, the most popular of which was the Samsung Galaxy S II. This figure was inflated quite a bit by custom ROMs, which overwrite the android.build.MODEL variable and cause those phones to be logged as separate devices. 1,363 types were logged only once, and while some were custom ROMs bucking the numbers, a good few were...
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Google And The Story Of Send →
Click the above link for a really cool, simple walkthrough of how Gmail works. It’s mostly about Google tooting its own energy efficiency horn, but the graphic art and interactive design of the page is enough to warrant a visit.
The technology we use on a daily basis and take for granted is truly amazing.
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Tech Company CEOs Are Idiots →
Being wildly successful in tech is about anticipating change, and altering the status quo; being the 14th chief executive of a stodgy old major tech company is about extracting as much value as you can from the success it’s already had. The CEOs of the Time Warners and Sonys and Yahoos and RIMs and even Microsofts of the world are experts only on their respective companies’ existing...
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Whale Trail And Free-To-Play →
My friend Mills from app maker ustwo has an awesome interview up with TouchArcade. I’ve been a longtime fan of Mills and what his studio does. Heck, I’ve even interviewed him before. He’s a great, sincere guy who loves what he does, and it shows.
He’s in charge of one of my favorite games in the App Store, Whale Trail. Due to the game not making enough money, it will soon...
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The CultCast →
So I’ve been doing this podcast with several of my co-workers, and it’s been a blast. I’ve been on several episodes so far, and I have more fun each time I’m on. Huge shout-out to Erfon for creating a hit show with thousands and of thousands of listeners around the world in only a couple months. We’ve been featured in iTunes several times, and even been ranked as the...
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The New York Times And Its Apple Smear-Fest →
In the next installment of The New York Times ‘iEconomy’ series, NYT reporters will take an investigative look behind the questionable cooking ingredients used at Caffe Macs in Cupertino.
But seriously, it’s starting to look like the Times just wants to drag Apple through the mud because it can. Aren’t there bigger fish to fry out there? Why create issues where there are...
April 2012
2 posts
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The Most Useless College Majors →
So glad that all of my interests (including what I’m currently studying) are included in this list. I guess they call it “starving artist” for a reason.
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$5,027,761,476,484.56 →
That’s how much debt the United States of America has accumulated under the presidency of Barack Obama. For a more tangible figure, that’s an average $16,043.39 increase in taxes for every one of the 313,385,295 registered U.S. citizens.
March 2012
8 posts
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"If they want their bugs fixed, they can buy them... →
Firms like Mozilla and Facebook offer developers a few thousand dollars for reporting bugs. Google typically offers a maximum of $3,133.70 for information about the most complex flaws in its software, a number that’s meant to spell out “elite” in hacker slang.
But a four-figure price is hardly elite enough for the Grugq. ”If they want their bugs fixed, they can buy them at market rates like...
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Stephen Wolfram: The Personal Analytics of My Life →
The creator of Wolfram Alpha has recorded and analyzed his online (and offline) life activity since 1989. The largest collection of personal data in the world. Absolutely amazing.
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“Wise men talk because they have something to say. Foolish men talk because they...”
– Plato
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Instapaper Placebo →
Dan Williams:
“I use instapaper a lot. I think it’s a fantastic service. No longer do I have a hundred tabs open to web pages I intend to read at some point before closing the browser. I can push them to instapaper and read them on my commute instead in a calm stripped down format. It works great.
But I find far more things that look interesting than I have time to read. Currently I have...
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The 3 Worst Apple Articles You'll Read This Week
I don’t usually do this type of thing, and I’ve already stated my opposition to negativity on the internet, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. You see, Apple announced a new iPad Wednesday. And not just any old iPad, but the new iPad. It’s a beautiful tablet that will undoubtedly make oodles of cash. (I’ve already pre-ordered a 32GB 4G model on Verizon, so I know...
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iPad HD →
I was sitting at a table during dinner tonight with a group of people that are not tech enthusiasts. They don’t follow the Apple rumor mill and they don’t know the difference between IPO and ISO. They are the kind of people Apple markets to: average consumers who like technology that works and makes their lives better.
After reading reactions this afternoon from bloggers and Apple fans I follow...
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Negativity on the Internet →
Matt Alexander:
It is far too easy to emotionally default to negativity on the Internet. Whether it’s fueled by anti-social behavior, a perceived intrusion upon one’s curated garden of content and opinion, or some sort of basic personal distaste, we are all too frequently treated to a stinging assault on a person or corporate entity on Twitter and the like.
I really appreciated...
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How Siri on the iPad Could Make Sense →
My friend Rene Ritchie of iMore makes several very valid arguments for why Siri wouldn’t necessarily work on the iPad. He mentions internet connectivity and several interface design issues (with some nice mockups). It would be very difficult indeed for Apple to make Siri work on the iPad. Heck, I honestly can’t imagine the full Siri experience on the iPad. It wouldn’t make sense...
February 2012
17 posts
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Why Today Exists →
I’ve always wondered why we have leap years. Gizmodo explains:
It might seem tempting to scrap the leap year system entirely and, in many ways, we could. Life would by and large continue much the same as it does today. You would, however, notice one strange side effect as time progressed.
Basically, dates would drift in relation to the season. While those of us in the US are used to...
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Everything You Need To Know About The iPad 3 →
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The Manliest Town →
GQ Magazine has named my hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, “the manliest town in America.”
Yeah, yeah, Chicago has broader shoulders. But when it comes to the masculine arts—bourbon, baseball, bettin’ the ponies—good luck topping Louisville. And don’t worry, the city’s not just coasting on its history. Lou-uh-vul strikes a balance between the traditions for which...
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The Mountain Lion is Here
Apple stealthily announced OS X Mountain Lion to the world this morning. I’ve been reading reactions and reviews all day, and the best post is definitely by John Gruber:
There many new features, I’m told, but today they’re going to focus on telling me about ten of them. This is just like an Apple event, I keep thinking. Just like with Lion, Mountain Lion is evolving in the direction of...
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The Tumblr Empire →
But Tumblr is growing up, fast: the site expanded its user base by 900 per cent in the year to June 2011. In 2010, it served under two billion monthly page views; now, it generates about 14 billion, more than Wikipedia or Twitter. Its 36 million users so far have created 42 million posts each day — 13.5 billion in total. According to Nielsen, it was the UK’s second most popular...
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How To Write About Apple And Not Sound Like An... →
A great piece by Chris Rawson at TUAW:
So many bloggers (and an exponentially greater number of commenters) are used to seeing Apple as this grand dystopian force in their lives that literally everything the company does must have some mustache-twirling, villainous motivation behind it. That mindset is both sad and dumb.
Some other things to add to this post: Don’t ever say that Apple is...
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Technology Does Not = Happiness →
Brian Lam for The Wirecutter:
I had a powerful moment of reflection when applying for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s Journalism fellowship last year. I realized I didn’t have as many clips I was proud of. I was spinning my wheels online. I didn’t get in. I would say over 5 years, my animal instincts were enhanced to the point where I could guess how many clicks the...
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Phantom Menace Nostalgia →
Mike Ryan for Moviefone:
I saw “The Phantom Menace” four times in theaters on its initial release. Each time, it got worse. Whereas, on its first viewing, I focused on the still glorious final lightsaber duel, the second viewing the next day (yes, the next day) felt like a different movie. Like most people, it became impossible to suppress my feelings toward Jar Jar Binks — who...
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My New Favorite App: SpotON Radio For iPhone
I recently caved and bought a premium Spotify subscription. This means that I get millions of streaming tracks on all my devices for only $9.99/month. It’s a much more fluid experience than using iTunes Match, and I like having the peace of mind that I have instant access to any song I could want to play (most of the time).
SpotON Radio is a gorgeous app for the iPhone that lets you...
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Apple Has Helped Create 466,000 U.S. Jobs Since...
Apple recently announced that it has payed over $4 billion to third-party developers since the launch of the App Store on July 10, 2008. Apps are an essential part of the modern smartphone, and Apple continues to pave the way with the growing success of the App Store year after year.
Sparked by Apple’s initiative, 466,000 U.S jobs have been created through what is now called the “App...
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The Death Of The Signature →
My journalism professor, David Wheeler, writing for The Atlantic:
Even at checkout counters that require customers to sign on paper, cashiers rarely question a signature. Such routine acceptance of almost any mark inspired John Hargrave at the humor website Zug to ask the question: “How crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice?”
He started by...
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