From Owl City's "Fireflies":
'Cos I get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they try to teach me how to dance
A foxtrot above my head
A sock hop [squish!] beneath my bed
Disco ball is just hanging by a thread...
Huh?
Oh well, it's fun for playing Tap Tap Revenge to :)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
send cash, not ash!
Funny sight, driving to SFO this morning, saw two Boeing 747s, a Virgin Atlantic and an Air France at the International terminal, parked at almost 90 degrees, with their noses together. They had obviously been grounded since last Thursday,
According to Tino, it looked like the two planes were having a meeting.
Air France: "Euuuh, any news, brother?"
Virgin: "No, mate. But I heard they're letting some planes in at low altitude"
Air France: "Malheur! But that's not us, we're flying across the World"
Virgin: "Hey cheer up mate, want to head down over to Ausiellos for a...err.. gallon?"
Air France: "And you say that we have a drink problem en France?"
Virgin: "My tires are killing me. Hey Frog, how are those Dunlops doing for you?"
Air France: "Hey-lo, look who's here! Iceland Air and he's looking a litoll embarrassé!"
Virgin: "Ash-hole!"
The sight was almost exquisite enough to warrant a drive back to the airport with my brother's camera.
According to Tino, it looked like the two planes were having a meeting.
Air France: "Euuuh, any news, brother?"
Virgin: "No, mate. But I heard they're letting some planes in at low altitude"
Air France: "Malheur! But that's not us, we're flying across the World"
Virgin: "Hey cheer up mate, want to head down over to Ausiellos for a...err.. gallon?"
Air France: "And you say that we have a drink problem en France?"
Virgin: "My tires are killing me. Hey Frog, how are those Dunlops doing for you?"
Air France: "Hey-lo, look who's here! Iceland Air and he's looking a litoll embarrassé!"
Virgin: "Ash-hole!"
The sight was almost exquisite enough to warrant a drive back to the airport with my brother's camera.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Barnes and Noble's Nook: first impressions
After a rainy evening in Palo Alto, I decided to catch the latest headlines at Hillsdale's B&N. But I was drawn to the info desk and a prominent display showcasing B&N's new Nook device. The lady at the desk scurried away, and wheeled in her resident 20-year old Whizz Kid - armed with low cut jeans, sneakers and a bad attitude T-Shirt. He let me take a look.
Having had the opportunity to play with the iPad hours before (what else can you do on a rainy Saturday, eh), I was expecting something similar in experience. But it's like comparing a bicycle with a helicopter.
Do I want a helicopter? Hell yeah! Do I need one? Am I airlifting o-type blood to a disaster zone? No. And - on pain of death, nobody near by bike!
In case you were wondering, my iPad is the bike and the Nook is Barnes and Noble's heavily engineered (in-house, I am told, B&N have a secret hoard of hardware developers) helicopter.
You see, this isn't a war of readers. This is a war of purposes.
While the Book^H^H^H^HNook is busy trying to prove it's a better mousetrap than the Kindle, the iPad is taking a bet that being an Apple Computer its superior [looks|interface|versatility|everything] will make e-ink a non-issue. The way that the iPod Touch made playing MP3s (the way that Rio did, and did very well in 2001 while being incumbent during the iPod's gestation period) pretty much a non-issue.
OK here is my two bit summary:
- Interesting
- $250
- A little on the klunky side (takes very deliberate keypresses to select and open your book)
- You get a miniature color lcd "bookshelf" at the bottom of the device. On the iPad you get a full-screen bookcase! :) Just an observation, I don't really care.
- The e-ink emulates real ink very well, and looks like a 24-pin dot matrix printout of a book (letters are the right shape, but a bit faded, and not quite black enough to fool you into thinking you're reading a book)
- Slow - the e-ink seems to "stutter" in re-drawing the page. Not a biggie, but caused a double-take the first couple of times
- Crashed when I was trying to change font
- I kept being tempted to touch the screen - that's what an iPad does to you
- I didn't start crying within 5 minutes, like I did with the iPad
- No web browser (though it features an all-you-can-eat (I mean, all-you-can-pay-B&N-for-new-content) 3G wireless connection to AT&T)
Which would I take to bed with me if I had to read War and Peace? Neither.
Which would I prefer to read the NYT on? The iPad of course, as I'd read the free edition in Safari. The Nook requires you to buy the current edition.
About e-books in general:
I won't say I'm a dot-commie by any stretch of the imagination, and I think money should flow to the creative authors and the middlemen should keep a gold coin from the pile. But come on. $10 for a title I could pay $2 used for on Amazon marketplace can and WILL get old after a while. Because two weeks after I've read the book, my utility is close to zero.
I think the Nook has its uses and will find a market. But it's B&N's marketing equivalent of the Apple Newton. Sorry, but not quite there...
Having had the opportunity to play with the iPad hours before (what else can you do on a rainy Saturday, eh), I was expecting something similar in experience. But it's like comparing a bicycle with a helicopter.
Do I want a helicopter? Hell yeah! Do I need one? Am I airlifting o-type blood to a disaster zone? No. And - on pain of death, nobody near by bike!
In case you were wondering, my iPad is the bike and the Nook is Barnes and Noble's heavily engineered (in-house, I am told, B&N have a secret hoard of hardware developers) helicopter.
You see, this isn't a war of readers. This is a war of purposes.
While the Book^H^H^H^HNook is busy trying to prove it's a better mousetrap than the Kindle, the iPad is taking a bet that being an Apple Computer its superior [looks|interface|versatility|everything] will make e-ink a non-issue. The way that the iPod Touch made playing MP3s (the way that Rio did, and did very well in 2001 while being incumbent during the iPod's gestation period) pretty much a non-issue.
OK here is my two bit summary:
- Interesting
- $250
- A little on the klunky side (takes very deliberate keypresses to select and open your book)
- You get a miniature color lcd "bookshelf" at the bottom of the device. On the iPad you get a full-screen bookcase! :) Just an observation, I don't really care.
- The e-ink emulates real ink very well, and looks like a 24-pin dot matrix printout of a book (letters are the right shape, but a bit faded, and not quite black enough to fool you into thinking you're reading a book)
- Slow - the e-ink seems to "stutter" in re-drawing the page. Not a biggie, but caused a double-take the first couple of times
- Crashed when I was trying to change font
- I kept being tempted to touch the screen - that's what an iPad does to you
- I didn't start crying within 5 minutes, like I did with the iPad
- No web browser (though it features an all-you-can-eat (I mean, all-you-can-pay-B&N-for-new-content) 3G wireless connection to AT&T)
Which would I take to bed with me if I had to read War and Peace? Neither.
Which would I prefer to read the NYT on? The iPad of course, as I'd read the free edition in Safari. The Nook requires you to buy the current edition.
About e-books in general:
I won't say I'm a dot-commie by any stretch of the imagination, and I think money should flow to the creative authors and the middlemen should keep a gold coin from the pile. But come on. $10 for a title I could pay $2 used for on Amazon marketplace can and WILL get old after a while. Because two weeks after I've read the book, my utility is close to zero.
I think the Nook has its uses and will find a market. But it's B&N's marketing equivalent of the Apple Newton. Sorry, but not quite there...
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The iPad and me
It's very rare that I buy new things. If you know me well, you'll know that I have never bought a new car, never bought a new phone (my 2G iPhone was donated by Sherry to replace the other 2G iPhone that I lost, donated by my brother), even this Macbook Pro came out of a friendly Nicaraguan guy's raincoat in Hillsdale mall's Starbucks. [I later discovered that it had Apple Care - something that he didn't know. I know it wasn't raining on Feb 11, 2008, the day I picked it up].
I have therefore taken a very uncharacteristic move in buying not just one, but two iPads on launch day, and reserving them on the day they were offered for pre-ordering.
But first, I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the frenzy surrounding the product launch yesterday. I exchanged knowing smiles with the brave souls camped outside Palo Alto's Apple Store, and tried to fit into the frame of the KTVU Channel 9's camera as the channel interviewed them for the evening news. But failed, I think.
This morning, I realized that I had to be at TedX in Berkeley all day. My brother and his entourage waited almost an hour at Hillsdale's Apple Store and picked up my order for me. They even got served coffee and donuts while waiting in line.
OK I'll get to the meat soon. But first I'll say that I am grateful to my brother for buying me a neoprene iPad case which I didn't expect :)
Now, let's get down to business.
The name: it never even crossed my mind that i"Pad" was inappropriate for women, until I talked to my friend Anna-Marie.
Aesthetics: the device is reminiscent of the unibody Macbook pro. The buttons on the side look the same - squared, notchy (not wedgy) and click just right.
Screen: crisp and bright. Fonts seems incredibly smooth - more book-like and less computer-like
Sound: Mono speaker ports at bottom (3 grilles).
Controls: Volume up/down on right, similar to iPhone. New "Lock orientation" switch just above it. Very useful when you're in bed.
On/Off switch: behaves similar to iPhone's.
Headphone jack: in same place as iPhone.
On screen keyboard: huge keys. You seem to want to "peck" with two fingers, not touch type. Even so, you spend a disproportionate amount of time backspacing. Or I do.
Notes: Interesting overlay, like an HTML layer, with an index of all your notes, so you can keep the current note in view while browsing for another.
YouTube: super smooth. I love the new tracking functionality: you can scroll through the movie by whole minutes by dragging on the time bar, or seconds by scrolling far away from the time bar.
iBooks:just look
I don't know what it is about this device. But it just feels "right". reading the WSJ feels like I'm reading the actual newspaper, not just a web-page rendition. It's so comfortable. I don't have to FIGHT this computer. This is 1984. Bad hairstyles and all. I am very eager to download my favourite apps (NoteApp, MuniApp, Tap-Tap (yes, I do play occasionally), Google Earth, Google Voice (for the fun of it), and soon, iWork.) I do think that this is a content creation device as much as the iPhone is an email device (people have started sending more, shorter mobile emails, imperfect as it is, it's a blessing after T9)
This will be everywhere. Entire communities will skip the laptop and jump straight into the iPad. Medicine will be different. Research will be different. And of course, reading will be different.
Good night from CA.
I have therefore taken a very uncharacteristic move in buying not just one, but two iPads on launch day, and reserving them on the day they were offered for pre-ordering.
But first, I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the frenzy surrounding the product launch yesterday. I exchanged knowing smiles with the brave souls camped outside Palo Alto's Apple Store, and tried to fit into the frame of the KTVU Channel 9's camera as the channel interviewed them for the evening news. But failed, I think.
This morning, I realized that I had to be at TedX in Berkeley all day. My brother and his entourage waited almost an hour at Hillsdale's Apple Store and picked up my order for me. They even got served coffee and donuts while waiting in line.
OK I'll get to the meat soon. But first I'll say that I am grateful to my brother for buying me a neoprene iPad case which I didn't expect :)
Now, let's get down to business.
The name: it never even crossed my mind that i"Pad" was inappropriate for women, until I talked to my friend Anna-Marie.
Aesthetics: the device is reminiscent of the unibody Macbook pro. The buttons on the side look the same - squared, notchy (not wedgy) and click just right.
Screen: crisp and bright. Fonts seems incredibly smooth - more book-like and less computer-like
Sound: Mono speaker ports at bottom (3 grilles).
Controls: Volume up/down on right, similar to iPhone. New "Lock orientation" switch just above it. Very useful when you're in bed.
On/Off switch: behaves similar to iPhone's.
Headphone jack: in same place as iPhone.
On screen keyboard: huge keys. You seem to want to "peck" with two fingers, not touch type. Even so, you spend a disproportionate amount of time backspacing. Or I do.
Notes: Interesting overlay, like an HTML layer, with an index of all your notes, so you can keep the current note in view while browsing for another.
YouTube: super smooth. I love the new tracking functionality: you can scroll through the movie by whole minutes by dragging on the time bar, or seconds by scrolling far away from the time bar.
iBooks:just look
I don't know what it is about this device. But it just feels "right". reading the WSJ feels like I'm reading the actual newspaper, not just a web-page rendition. It's so comfortable. I don't have to FIGHT this computer. This is 1984. Bad hairstyles and all. I am very eager to download my favourite apps (NoteApp, MuniApp, Tap-Tap (yes, I do play occasionally), Google Earth, Google Voice (for the fun of it), and soon, iWork.) I do think that this is a content creation device as much as the iPhone is an email device (people have started sending more, shorter mobile emails, imperfect as it is, it's a blessing after T9)
This will be everywhere. Entire communities will skip the laptop and jump straight into the iPad. Medicine will be different. Research will be different. And of course, reading will be different.
Good night from CA.
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