Posit a world where open source software triumphed over Microsoft.
Would all the billions saved in corporate spending of MS Office, et al, have resulted in a windfall for charity comparable to that of Willy G?
I suspect not. I suspect that any ‘savings’ would have just been spent on business development, or dividends.
Slave to the Needle hosted a tattoo convention in Seattle this weekend, so I thought I’d check it out. Saw lots of nifty pics of tats, lots of people getting tats, and even an iPad out in the wild.
Canceling xbox live is like trying to break up with a neurotic girlfriend. They have prominent links to “how to cancel your subscription” in help, but that link just takes you to another link to another link to another link that THEN gets you to the page where you start the cancel process. That page takes you thru 3 pages of ads for not-yet-released games that I guess are supposed to convince you that they won’t stop supporting them in a few years,just like they did for original xbox live games. Then they send you an email to let you know your subscription is going to expire, and you should renew now!
And even after all that, they still won’t let you remove your credit card info from their billing system.
It’s like a Lifetime movie, “The Gamer I Just Couldn’t Get Over: How I got convicted of stalking”, only without Lindsey Wagner advertisements in the middle.
It’s a lot of effort to keep a customer whose needs you’ve explicitly said you will never support again.
Opera makes a big announcement about getting their browser approved for the iphone. Hooray for them.
The press release makes no mention of an iPad compatible version being around the corner, or being rejected. It’s like having a big blank spot in the middle of your advertisement, an elephant in the room sort of howthefuckdoyounotnotice-ism. And lets be clear, the Opera browser looks like ass on the iPad. You have to wonder why they even bothered releasing a has-been-before-it-was-born product, instead of taking the 10 extra minutes to recompile as a universal plus application. I guess being a project manager at a one-product company, someone felt the need to justify their existence, at least for the short term, willfully ignoring how detrimental it might be to his/her career in the long-term, once everyone could see the finished product was so pathetic.
It definitely seems to prove my theory that Opera exists purely for the contrarian; Opera caters to people who care more about who their browser isn’t made by, than what features it actually provides, or if it actually works at all. I sure wouldn’t pay for it.
Opening night of this year’s production of “Poona the Fuck Dog” will be free. I dunno how good the play is, but with a name like that, it’s gotta be up my alley, right? =p
Last week, I show my friend the facebook episode of south park. As someone who abandoned facebook out of frustration at how much of a time-suck and drama-generator it was, I thought he’d find the parallels amusing. He did.
Then I see this morning, he broke his phone, and due to lack of contact backup, has had to restart his facebook profile to regather everyone’s contact info. LoL.
So, I’ve had the ipad for a full week of use now, and am still in love.
I have not yet worn the battery down below 45% in a single day’s usage, and that includes the first couple of days where I was either downloading new apps, or playing netflix movies, trying to use it all up.
Kindle vs iBook.app — the kindle app seems rushed. It’s got obvious flaws, like the way it’s status messages overwrite permanent screen elements, leaving neither readable while the message is up. iBook.books are in full color. Maybe some kindle books are offered in color, and I just haven’t found one yet.
WeatherBug – teh awesome!
DoodleBlast HD – still loving it. My goto show-off game when someone wants to see what the pad can do.
ComicPad vs GoodReader — The comicpad dev has been very responsive, but GoodReader supports such a wide variety of formats, most importantly pdf, such that I suspect I will likely convert any cbz/cbr I have into pdfs (thank you ImageMagick!).
GeometryWars-Touch – Keeping fingers in the control zones can be difficult, but it’s another game that makes people go “wow”.
Harbor Master HD – Fun and reasonably challenging.
Beatwave – One of the few music apps I can think of that is just as impressive with the sound turned off.
Tetris – Years ago, when tetrisDS disappeared from the market, I worried at the future of licensed tetris products. Glad to see that’s all been worked out. It is pretty. It is tetris. The controls are a bit iffy though. Many is the time I find myself banging on the screen harder and harder to get a piece to turn before it’s too late. Then it turns 12 times all at once.
I’m still not sold on the seemingly flimsy apple-branded case, but haven’t given up on it yet.
The whole iphone OS 4, no language before objective-C pronouncement doesn’t sit well with me, just because I’m a lazy programmer who likes write-once, run-everywhere frameworks. I guess it’s just more reason to learn HTML5.
If you have the opportunity to drop a TV on your own head, I strongly recommend against it. Even if you’re lucky like me, and don’t break your neck, it still won’t feel all that good. I’m kinda surprised the side of my head isn’t all black and blue today.
On the other hand, it’s opened up a sight line to the wall behind, creating a spot for me to hang some of my art that’s in storage currently due to lack of open wall space.
One of the iPad accessories seems to be shipped directly from the factory in china. The UPS tracking shows the package starting out in china, going to alaska, then down to kentucky, with a supposed delivery date back up here in Seattle tomorrow.
