Jon Ive’s Retromorphism

Jon Ive’s vandalism revamp of the Steve Jobs/Scott Forstall original iOS design can best be summed up by comparing two icons:

Ive hated the textures and real-life mimicry in iOS.

Yet he went retro for the Camera icon?

I can imagine all the young kids with an iDevice later this year asking Mommy and Daddy WTF that weird black shape is. Because it looks nothing like the camera of the iDevice itself.

Jon Ive should be restricted to hardware design.

Additional:

A Comparison Of iOS 7 Icons Vs. iOS 6 Icons [Infographic]

Previously here:

Apple Reveals iOS 7

WTF? SFWA

SFWA is the most backwards-looking organization I belong to. We can write the future, but we can't even live in the present.—
Jenn Reese (@jennreese) May 31, 2013

Dear SFWA

Dear SFWA Writers: Let’s Chat About Censorship & Bullying

another sfwa sexist gaffe

Feeling heat for your ideas is not censorship or thought-control

“And speaking of the SFWA Bulletin column as referenced in that last link–I managed to get my hands on a scan of the column in question.” (Scroll down)

Another Book Publishing Mafia Member Falls

Penguin pays $75 million to settle US eBook price-fixing case ahead of Apple’s June trial

The Attorney General also confirmed the settlement earlier today, noting that the investigations and resulting litigation has recovered in the region of $164 million so far.

Boldfaced emphasis added be me.

One hundred and sixty-four million dollars.

I wonder if that even wipes out the collusive profits they made?

Apple thinks it’s invincible.

But it will fall next.

Why?

Jaron Lanier’s Sleight Of Hand

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class

So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period.

Wait one minute.

Does he really think people are that stupid?

More people can take pictures than at the height of Kodak’s wealth.

Because cameras are now inside phones and tablets — not to mention standalone digital cameras themselves. People who would have never been able to before take thousands of photos can now do so, cheaply. Without having a middleman extracting money between clicking and seeing.

And there are probably more employees around the world making those cameras (or camera elements) than there ever were employed by Kodak.

To blame the Internet for the downfall of Kodak is to sidestep the bad decisions of Kodak’s management. And what about Polaroid and its bad decisions? And Fuji Film and its bad decisions?

Store Sign Of The Future?

Sign on small store door in Chinatown, NYC, today, Tuesday May 6, 2013:

And no, this wasn’t a bookstore or an electronics store. It was some kind of crap “collectibles.” I was in a rush and so stunned by the sign that I didn’t bother to photograph the store itself.

This Page Is Why The Internet Sucks

James Bond was orginally called Barry Clams [Note: Typo in original headline at post time.]

Go look at it.

According to Letter Count, the entire item people are meant to read — including headline — is just 415 characters.

Saved as a plain text file, that’s just 423 bytes (according to Windows XP Properties on a plain text file from WordPad).

Yet if you save that page as HTML, it’s a whopping 1.59MBs!

Over a megabyte and a half of absolute crap — ads, links to extraneous stuff — to deliver what can be read in less than ten seconds!

Advertising on the Internet is worse than it’s even been on TV.

And no, I don’t have a solution. I’m just fed up with bloated web pages and point to this as one of the worst examples.

Rah Rah Rubbish

A rather rah-rah and mostly unbelievable post — which is actually an extract from a book — in Reason magazine has this truthful tidbit:

We should consider the impact of another tool that does not get the credit it deserves for changing the world: the prepaid phone card. The growth of calling-card usage leaves the Internet’s growth in the dust. Now prepaid calling cards are giving way to prepaid mobile phones. Prepaid cellphones have displaced those that require a long-term subscription and bind the user to a service provider through an elaborate contract.

What he has failed to notice (yet?) is the rise of prepaid gift cards. A subject I’ve harped on several times in this blog (The Gift Card Advantage, Google Play Wakes Up To In-Store Gift Cards, and Google Play Gift Cards: No Credit Card Required).

As for the rest of that rubbish excerpt, here’s the real-world antidote: The Rise of the Praetorian Class.

By the way, expect much more of this David Beats Goliath stuff this year, as the extended promo campaign for Gladwell’s new book heats up.

Meanwhile, just recall how nationwide Occupy Wall Street was crushed and scattered. Power is never defeated — it collapses from its own internal corruption.

Scott Turow Opens His Yap Again

The Slow Death of the American Author

I’m just going to address a few nails-on-chalkboard points:

Last month, the Supreme Court decided to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, which are often cheaper than domestic editions. Until now, courts have forbidden such activity as a violation of copyright. Not only does this ruling open the gates to a surge in cheap imports, but since they will be sold in a secondary market, authors won’t get royalties.

WRONG! How could any editor at The New York Times let that absolute lie through? The authors get royalties on those foreign editions, where they are being originally bought. A sale is still a sale whether it’s in a domestic or a foreign market. International rights are never granted royalty-free.

Wars And Rumors Of Wars

The CIA says North Korea is incapable of reaching the contiguous 48 states with a nuclear-loaded missile.

This is the same agency that:

1) Didn’t foresee Sputnik
2) Didn’t foresee the fall of the Berlin Wall
3) Insisted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

Credibility: Zero.

Today’s Second Dose Of The Stupid

Has March 31st become National Stupidity Day?

Need a Job? Invent It

We teach and test things most students have no interest in and will never need, and facts that they can Google and will forget as soon as the test is over.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

How the hell does he know what anyone will “need”?

Did Steve Jobs ever think he “needed” calligraphy? No.

But he did!