YouTube darlings OK Go did a remarkable job threading the needle as they explained why their latest videos won't be on YouTube. It's nice to see bands that feel like they can actually talk to their fans like humans instead of communicating through their lawyers and RIAA. Music artists need to understand that the system has changed, and they need to evolve.
Here's an interactive application that allows you to move continuously through the objects in our universe from the largest to the smallest. I find it intriguing that there are such huge gaps in the small scales, but none in the larger ones. What an interesting place.
J.D. Salinger, perhaps my favorite modern author, died yesterday at the age of 91.
I encourage anyone who is unfamiliar with his work to read Nine Stories as a powerful and sometimes overwhelming introduction to his unique writing style. It will change you.
I often use the Apple methodology to explain why end-to-end development is such an important thing when it comes to certain types of products, notably consumer electronics. This generally irks the open source crowd who think that everything can be made better by standard-based interfaces and publishing your code. But that's not universally true. Stehpen Fry (an admitted Apple fanboi) does a great job of explaining why:
It is made by Apple. I’m not being cute here. If it was made by Hewlett Packard, they wouldn’t have global control over the OS or the online retail outlets. If it was made by Google, they would have tendered out the hardware manufacture to HTC. Apple — and it is one of the reasons some people distrust or dislike them — control it all. They’ve designed the silicon, the A4 chip that runs it all, they’ve designed the batteries, they’ve overseen every detail of the commercial, technological, design and software elements. No other company on earth does that. And being Apple it hasn’t been released without (you can be sure) Steve Jobs being wholly convinced that it was ready. “Not good enough, start again. Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough.” How many other CEOs say until their employees want to murder them? That’s the difference.
Apple repeatedly shows that when the efficiency, elegance, and utility of the user experience is your number one goal, there is no substitute for designing the whole system yourself. And it doesn't hurt to have a rabidly focused CEO that not only understands product design, but religiously pursues its perfection.
After seeing Avatar in 3D IMAX I was already convinced that it was the most technically significant movie since Star Wars. After seeing a short video on the making of the film that focuses on the many groundbreaking systems designed for this film, I was even more awed. I believe this film will go down in history as the point where live action, motion capture, and CGI began to merge into a single movie making discipline.
Here's a wonderful map that abstracts the geometry of our host galaxy. I like it—maps like this help me get a better idea of what's happening at large distances like tens of thousands of light years.
As a kid I build quite a few R/C cars. While Tamiya models were never as competitive as those from R/C and Kyosho, they were always fascinating in their detail and design. Below is an homage to the first 30 years of Tamiya, a brilliant Japanese company:
In 1976, Tamiya took apart a brand new 911, using what they learned to create their first remote-controlled car. This poster? What they accomplished over the next 30 years.
Brendan alerts us to a more sophisticated sleep monitoring system that attaches to your head and monitors brain waves directly. It's a lot more expensive than WakeMate ($249 vs. $49) but it may work a lot better. We'll see how effective WakeMate is when it arrives.
Turns out that celestial alignments could in fact affect the Earth through gravitational movement of subterranean water. The movement may cause tremors and eventually affect earthquakes that occur closer to the surface. Funny, that.
I'm fascinated by the science of sleep optimization. I used the iPhone application SleepCycle with mixed success. But I've just pre-ordered WakeMate which uses a bluetooth wristband to send information to your iPhone and provides detailed analysis of your sleep patterns which can help you get more out of your downtime.
Why not start 2010 with a unique 1948 prototype of the seminal Porsche 356? If genuine, it's a real piece of automotive history. The 356 changed the face of racing by putting an incredible level of performance in the hands of the privateer.
Kim Peek, the model for the Raymond character from Rain Man died this week. The NYTimes obit shares some fascinating information about his amazing abilities and his very special life.
Just in case you missed it, Iraqi insurgents used a $26 piece of shareware to snoop on video feeds from our drones which is a major security issue. But the good news is that this vulnerability actually extends to all military aircraft because the military didn't feel that video transmissions were worth encrypting.
Think about this: your order on Amazon.com this holiday season is far more secure than military video from aircraft in Iraq.
AT&T says it's investing heavily in its network to support the dramatic increase in data traffic (and profits) stemming from the rising popularity of smartphones. In reality, they are spending less overall which explains the crappy service you get on your iPhone.
