A blog by Alesh Houdek
In Episode 5 of On The Fence, Steve and I talk about Greece, the Eurozone, Goldman Sachs, what the conviction of Michael Jackson’s doctor says about our medical system, and why foodies are terrible, terrible people. Anniversary episode!
If you haven’t already, you should subscribe in iTunes here.
In Episode 4 of On The Fence, we talk about the past, present, and future of the Occupy movement and the Move Your Money Project with local artist and Occupy Miami activist Misael Soto. You should follow him on Tumblr and on Twitter.
On Wednesday I posted my article predicting how the future Apple TV will work, and I emailed a link to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who’s been writing a lot about this stuff (here and here). No problem there, the guy’s busy, super-selective about linking stuff, and probably finds my ideas to be pretty obvious.
But then I listen to him on yesterday’s Talk Show, and holy crap. Gruber believes:
This is insane. Predicting what Apple will do based on what it’s done in the past is a great strategy, except when it’s not. My take-away from what Apple’s done over the last 5 years is that they’ve systematically become more and more realistic about what people need in a product to buy it, and putting that into the product. The obstacles that’ve kept people from getting an iPhone have been systematically eliminated (enterprise support, pricing, more carriers). So why the heck would they create an television that doesn’t work with cable?
Certainly there are people who get by without cable (I’m one), and the numbers are growing every year. But even more people can’t imagine life without cable. (I imagine Gruber is one, sports fanatic that he is.) Is your Apple TV going to connect to a cable box? I think Steve Jobs’ quote, “the simplest user interface you could imagine,” takes that off the table. So I’m sticking by my predictions there: the Apple TV will work equally well with or without cable. For those using it with cable, it’ll abstract away as much of the vestiges of cable — channels, schedules, etc. — as it can.
But the “apps as channels” thing is even crazier thing to me, for reasons that I don’t even think require explanation. Look at the mess that magazine apps have made of navigation. Do you really want every channel on your TV to have its own navigation?!
I usually agree with Gruber, but here I think he’s just as wrong as Marco was. John Siracusa will presumably discuss this today. I think he’ll be able to talk some sense to these people.
In Episode 3 of On The Fence, we talk about Gaddafi’s death and the future of the world, North Korea, the present of Occupy Wall Street, and Steve Jobs. You should really subscribe in iTunes so I don’t have to keep posting these links.
“I want you to play like you’re 7 years old at a recital. I want you to play like your mom’s in the room. I want you to play like you’re miles from home, and your legs are dangling from a boxcar. Or play like your hair’s on fire. Play like you have no pants on.”
— Stuff Tom Waits says to his musicians to get them to play how he wants
Here’s episode 2 of the On the Fence podcast. Steve and I talk about Occupy Wall Street, and whether there’s any chance at all of Herman Cain becoming president. But here’s the thing: you can now subscribe in iTunes.
I’d say the Herald Story got it wrong: There were at least 2,500 people at Saturday’s Occupy Miami protest.
Things started at 1:30 pm at the Friendship Torch in front of Bayside.
After a few hours, the march to Government Center began. (BTW, I was unprepared, so all these photos and and video are from my crappy old phone.)
City of Miami Police were exceptionally supported, despite the (unplanned?) march. The protesters (also extremely well behaved, it should be noted) stopped at the crosswalk when the light turned red, and an officer pulled up and handed out water and cardboard for signs, and was generally enthusiastic. Along the rest of the route, officers stopped traffic to allow the marchers through.
At Government Center, there was music, chanting, and a meeting that went into the night, and ended up with a number of protesters camped out at the site. Here’s some video I shot:
Some of the better signs:
Rate photos. I’m talking about the 0 to 5 score that can be stored in an image file’s EXIF data. I’m talking about getting a batch of photos previously synced to my Mac to the iPad (perhaps in a reduced size), viewing them in a Photos-like app that allows me to set the rating (and maybe make other EXIF edits, but that’s strictly gravy), and then sync the ratings back to the original files.
You have NO IDEA how badly I want this. I’m learning iOS development in hopes of building the app that’ll be able to do this (Filterstorm Pro comes close, but ends up failing I think). The reason: I believe that my photo library will outlast any single photo organization software. Hence the EXIF approach. It’s the reason I use Lightroom instead of Picasa or iPhoto (tho I’m considering just using Bridge exclusively). But for me, looking at photos and making judgements is 100 times more pleasant on the iPad than on a computer. On the Mac, it feels like work — like a chore. On the iPad, it’s practically a game. I don’t know why, but I NEED this. Eventually, Apple will make an amazing iPhoto for the iPad the way they did with GarageBand. But I can’t wait any more. Help!
“Like a father fingering his Blackberry rather than playing with his kids, Congress shows us that we don’t matter.”
— Lessig begins to lay out his arguments for reforming Congress.
Published yesterday, my rant at The Atlantic about text messaging fees and how the new iOS begins to do away with them.