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‘If You Lose a Son, It’s Possible To Get Another. There’s Only One Maltese Falcon.’
Adam Savage talks about the series of events that led to his attempt to create a fetishistically accurate replica of the prop Maltese Falcon used in the 1941 film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic novel.
I feel the same way about my Klein replica, which was also designed by working backward from photos found online. But as Adam Savage says:
“I have to admit that achieving the end of the exercise was never the point of the exercise to begin with, was it?”
MacWorld Announcements
Too bad this new product didn’t make it out the door in time for the holiday gift season:
Turn On, Tune In, Jump Over the Fence
The details of Dr. Timothy Leary’s 1970 prison break are really quite remarkable. A Hollywood screenwriter couldn’t make this kind of thing up:
On 21 January 1970, Leary received a ten-year sentence for his 1968 offense, with a further ten added later while in custody, for a previous arrest in 1965, twenty years in total to be served consecutively for less than a half ounce of marijuana. When Leary arrived in prison, he was given psychological tests that were used to assign inmates to appropriate work details. Having designed many of the tests himself (including the “Leary Interpersonal Behavior Test”), Leary answered them in such a way that he seemed to be a very conforming, conventional person with a great interest in forestry and gardening. As a result, Leary was assigned to work as a gardener in a lower security prison, and in September 1970 he escaped. Leary claimed his non-violent escape was a humorous prank, and left a challenging note for the authorities to find after he was gone.
‘Instead, the Confirmation Bias Seeps In…’
An extremely insightful post by Jonah Lerner, on the danger of blindly trusting models:
People love models, especially when they’re big, complex and quantitative. Models make us feel safe. They take the uncertainty of the future and break it down into neat, bite-sized equations. But here’s the problem with models, which is really a problem with the human mind. We become so focused on the predictions of the model - be it the cod population, or the risk of mortgage derivatives - that we stop questioning the basic assumptions of the model. (Instead, the confirmation bias seeps in and we devote way too much mental energy to proving the model true.)
Why Was Podcaster Really Rejected?
Everyone seems to be freaking out about Apple’s decision to reject Podcaster for inclusion in the iTMS App Store.
Despite what was included in the rejection email, I’m inclined to think the real reason for the rejection has more to do with protecting the qualitiy of service on AT&T’s 3G network.
The iPhone won’t currently let you download audio files from the iTMS unless you’re connected to a wifi network. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume this restriction was made at the request of AT&T. Podcast files can get very large, and they have the potential to generate a large amount of network traffic.
And, as others have pointed out, Apple hasn’t rejected any other applications that duplicate functionality of bundled applications.
It just makes more sense to assume that Podcaster was rejected to cover for the general capacity inadequacy of AT&T’s 3G network. It was better for Apple to make an specious excuse about duplicated functionality than to publicly admit that the only network you can use their device with isn’t up to scratch.
Today’s Tom Sawyer
This video of the members of Rush playing Rock Band while backstage at The Colbert Report is absolutely hilarious:
I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen a whole viral-marketing campaign based on videos of original artists “playing” their own songs on Rock Band while swilling beers in somebody’s rec room. That might even be more entertaining than playing Rock Band.
Wordpress for the iPhone
Today Automattic and Effigent released an Open Source iPhone app that enables you to “write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch.”
Hooray. Now we can look forward to even more douchebags “liveblogging” public events.
Who Needs X When You Have Y?
I like to keep my iPhone menu organized. I’m able to rearrange application icons and delete installed applications. However, the iPhone will not allow me to delete or hide icons for bundled applications.
Obviously, a user probably wouldn’t want to hide the “Phone,” “Mail,” or “Settings” icons. But many developers have now created better alternatives to the some of the applications that come bundled with the iPhone. Why do I need “Stocks” when Bloomberg’s free app has a better user interface and more robust functionality? Do I really need both icons cluttering up my menu?
I think, at a minimum, the iPhone should allow hiding of the following application icons:
- Calculator
- Calendar
- Clock
- Maps
- Notes
- SMS
- Stocks
- Weather
- YouTube
Sed Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
The trailer for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is finally online. It looks like this is going to be worth the two-decade wait.
I don’t think Hollywood could have convincingly pulled-off the special effects back in the late eighties or early nineties when Sam Hamm, fresh off the success of writing the screenplay for Tim Burton’s Batman, was actively shopping his script for a Watchmen film.
I’m think we can assume that Snyder’s Watchmen will be much more faithful to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s original graphic novel. Hamm’s treatment is, nonetheless, still worth reading.
In particular, it’s interesting how Hamm manages to communicate the counterfactual world that had evolved in the presence of a Dr. Manhattan:
A KID breaks free from his parents and sprints across the graves to join the excited throng. As he does, our attention settles on the VIETNAM WAR MEMORIAL.
It’s not the familiar stark black wall. It is, bizarrely, a chiseled marble representation of DR. MANHATTAN; his eyes are turned skyward, and he’s cradling a WOUNDED AMERICAN GRUNT in his massive arms, Pieta-style. On the pedestal beneath it, a bronze plaque bears the inscription:
IN MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO ACHIEVE VICTORY IN VIETNAM
Below it are the names of the American dead. There are almost four hundred of them.
In Snyder’s trailer, you actually see the ninety-foot-tall Dr. Manhattan walking through the Vietnam jungle.
That Is What My Youth Was For…
I’m a little skeptical of any claims regarding the Flynn Effect. Today’s kids just don’t seem that smart, particularly when they seem to need the help of Leslie Feist just to learn to count to four:
When I was a kid the Pointer Sisters helped me learn to count to twelve.
On a somewhat related note, check out this Sesame Street parody of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from a few seasons back. It’s a little shocking that the folks at the Children’s Television Workshop were willing to reference a show about sex-crimes as source material for kids programming.
Yes, the Richard Belzer muppet is awesome.
Where Are the Full-Featured and Time-Limited Trial Versions?
When it comes to software, I’m much more likely to purchase a license if I’m able to download a full-featured trial version and kick the tires for a few weeks. After a few hours of use, I’ll probably either get hooked or decide an application is not my cup of tea. Provided there’s adequate security in place to limit piracy, full-featured time-limited trial versions can be a winning strategy for both developers and consumers.
Support for this type of distribution method is also a critical feature that’s currently missing from the iTunes App Store.
Today I plunked down $9.99 for Byline. Within 20 minutes of using it, I decided I still preferred the mobile version of Google Reader as a web application. Now I’m left with an application I won’t use. I can’t even transfer it to a family member.
It would be easy enough for iTunes to manage a time restriction on trial versions, since it already serves as a gatekeeper for the installation and management of applications. I would think this isn’t any more complicated than the management of time-limited movie rentals, which iTunes already supports.
By making this type of functionality easily available to developers as a supported feature in the SDK, Apple could also limit the spread of free adware demo versions (like Exposure and Twitteriffic) and free crippleware demo versions (like Karajan Beginner) which are probably less likely to convert to an actual sale (that Apple can take a cut from).
Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me
Until I downloaded Remote last Friday, I hadn’t even considered the potential for using the iPhone as a peripheral device to control and extend the desktop experience.
Sure, I would have assumed there would be a number of applications for controlling Keynote presentations, but I really hadn’t considered anything beyond that.
Now I’m intrigued by the wide-range of possibilities. Right off the top of my head I can think of a number of interesting ways to integrate the iPhone with the desktop:
- An application to utilize the iPhone as an external touchpad to enable multi-touch control on older Macs.
- An application to utilize the iPhone as a device for displaying application-specific control keys, which would change appearance and functionality with changes to the foreground task. Imagine this as a better alternative to the Optimus Mini Three.
- An application to utilize the iPhone as a series of sliding faders (like on a soundboard) for audio production tasks.
- An application to utilize the iPhone’s orientation-awareness to control onscreen perspective in a 3D environment.
- An application to utilize the iPhone’s camera as a portable UPC scanner for a Mac.
And that’s just what I was able to come up with in a few minutes. If you can think of any other possible uses, feel free to post them to the comments.
They Were Expecting Remy the Rat?
Patton Oswalt delivered the commencement address at Broad Run High School last month.
You really have to wonder if the school administrators were expecting his remarks to contain colorful metaphors like this:
All of you have been given a harsh gift. It’s the same gift the graduating class of 1917, and 1938, and 1968 and now you guys got – the chance to enter adulthood when the world teeters on the rim of the sphincter of oblivion.
Sphincter jokes notwithstanding, there’s some good advice in his speech and it’s worth reading in its entirety.
The Waiting Is the Hardest Part
During yesterday’s iPhone launch I found it particularly irritating that AT&T and Apple employees were actually barred from disclosing the quantity of available iPhones to those standing in the long lines that formed early in the morning outside stores.
From a business standpoint, I can understand the intention of the policy. AT&T and Apple wanted people at the back of the lines to continue to wait so they could eventually be cajoled into placing a direct fulfillment order after the store ran out of inventory. But I still think AT&T and Apple should have let customers make informed decisions about whether they wanted to wait to place an order. As a corporate policy, barring this type of disclosure demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the time of some of their most-loyal customers.
The In-Store Activation Blues
The in-store activation for my wife’s iPhone took over two hours this morning, despite the fact that we were both completely “iReady” for the ordeal.
The phone migration process was complicated by a computer error at the point-of-sale, which landed us in a bizarre and somewhat Kafkaesque Catch-22. Because of a hiccup during credit card processing, AT&T had already associated the new iPhone with our service plan before they were able to charge us for it. Unfortunately, they were then unable to charge us for it because their system indicated the phone was already associated with our service plan.
In a rational world, a sales rep would just ring up a $299 charge on a register and straighten out the resulting inventory issue without keeping the customer waiting. Unfortunately, the iPhone 3G roll-out was engineered to remove the element of personal discretion from all AT&T store employees. There was an air of fear in the store, as the employees seemed to believe that any deviation from a strict set of procedures would result in immediate and merciless termination. Even the store manager was afraid to do anything to resolve the situation expediently.
Instead, he had to place a call to a conference-line they referred to as the “war room” to await instructions. When they told me about this “war room” I immediately conjured a mental image of a group of mid-level AT&T executives sitting around a large table in a dark room smoking cigars and wearing fake military uniforms (much like the type worn by high-level “officers” in the Church of Scientology).
Eventually, the manager was able to thoroughly cover his own ass, which allowed us to leave the store with our shiny electronic bounty in tow.
The lesson from all this is that rigid procedures only make difficult operations more difficult. Things will go wrong with any sufficiently large operation. You can either (1) anticipate every possible problem and have adequate provisions for “error-handling” well in advance, or (2) you can give actual people the authority to use discretion to make intelligent decisions on the ground.
Today, AT&T seems to have done neither.
My Kingdom for an SSH Client
I’ve scoured every inch of the iTunes App Store and I still can’t find an SSH client. I can however find:
- Three different guitar tuners.
- Six different “to-do” list applications with eerily formulaic icons.
- At least eight Bible and Bible-study related apps.
- Multiple apps to help you use your iPhone as a flashlight.
- Absurdly expensive ($4.99 to $14.99) subway maps for New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
Wasn’t an SSH client one of the first priorities of the jail-breaking community? Why does it seem to be such a low-priority for developers now.
Kenny Wasn’t Like the Other Kids; TV Mattered, Nothing Else Did.
One of the more interesting programs to surface with today’s roll-out of iPhone applications on the iTunes Store is Remote, which was developed internally by Apple. It’s a free program that enables you to control music playback on iTunes, an AppleTV, or an Airport Express. It allows an iTunes library to be browsed and controlled via wifi from either an iPhone or an iPod Touch. It even displays album art right on the screen.
Basically, Apple gave Sonos the shaft, by replicating all the compelling technology in their Digital Music System, and at a fraction of the cost. You can buy an iPhone 3G, an AppleTV and an Airport Express all for less than half the cost of a “Sonos Bundle 130.” And Apple’s offerings will even let you play video on the AppleTV unit. I can’t imagine why anyone would buy a Sonos at this point.
Independent iPhone developers are giving Apple a cut of all application sales made through the iTunes Store. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I would like to think that this kind of financially symbiotic relationship will make Apple less likely to encroach on the turf of existing application developers.
It’s interesting to note that Apple could have easily released Remote as part of the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Instead, they chose to drive download traffic to the iTunes store, which will ultimately benefit independent developers offering their iPhone applications for download.
links for 2008-07-10
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It’s as if the Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts writers started making commercials for medical research lab equipment.
links for 2008-07-09
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If only these were reliable across browsers…
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Ten different performances. I particularly like the Punch Brothers’ treatment.
links for 2008-07-07
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Interesting and aesthetically pleasing soundhole placement.
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Some really interesting residential architectural work executed in concrete.
