IMDb - The rating for ‘This is Spinal Tap’ goes up to 11
/via treitmaier
The brilliant "Don't Be Evil" bookmarklet
MG Seigler (parislemon):
Kudos to Facebook (with some help from Twitter and MySpace) for having the balls to do this. It’s a bookmarklet that replaces Google’s new “People and Pages” area, the hardcoded social search area, and the search completion drop-down, with organic results.
In other words, it makes the new Google behave more like the old Google.
Though as Watts Martin put it in his response to the story:
Facebook chiding Google for being evil is kinda like Voldemort telling Sauron he needs to lighten up about the hobbits.
Apple predictions for 2012
Macworld’s recent 2012 Predictions article rounds up a few Apple-inclined blogosphere members and gets them to predict Apple’s moves for the coming year. I thought I’d give the game a try myself.
Mac OS X
While OS X itself won’t get any big changes this year, what with Lion having just arrived last year, Apple’s Mac software may get some attention. We’re about due for a new version of iLife, though probably not until later in the year, and we’re well overdue for a new version of iWork. I’d expect most new Mac software to build on iCloud somewhat, integrating better with iOS versions of the same apps. It will be interesting to see how Apple approaches iLife updates, since it will be their first since they were made available on the Mac App Store.
iOS
While I seriously doubt we’ll see an Apple TV set, I think we will see an update to the Apple TV box, and an expanded iOS to go with it. This could even extend to third-party app development for Apple TV.
I think on the iPhone and iPad side, we’ll see Siri’s capabilities expanded, though not to allow third-party integration just yet. We may also see Apple’s replacement for the Maps app to move away from reliance on Google.
Hardware
A new iPad early in the year is almost a given. Rumours suggest it will have a retina display and an A6 processor, and I don’t doubt it. I also think Apple will keep the iPad 2 around, making it a cheaper option in much the same model they use with iPhones.
For the iPhone 5, I’m going to go against conventional “wisdom” and suggest that Apple will not dramatically change the industrial design. It may get lighter and slightly thinner, but my prediction is that the iPhone will still look pretty much the same. I’ve been planning a post on just how well considered the iPhone’s industrial design is, and for Apple to change such an excellent and iconic design just doesn’t seem to feel right. Sure, the rest of the industry changes their industrial design every 3 months, but why should this not be another area in which Apple goes against the industry? I have a lot to say on the issue, so I’ll continue in a future blog post.
I also think we’ll see the first MacBooks Pro that look like MacBooks Air, raising the bar further for “Ultrabook” makers.
And probably a new Mac Pro too.
Pie-in-the-sky wish
I’d love to see an iTunes Match for movies, though I seriously doubt this would happen any time soon, if at all. At least a better way to buy (rather than rent) HD movies would be nice, which you currently can’t do in Australia at all. It would also be cool to be able to buy a movie at a discounted price if you’ve already rented it, kind of like Complete My Album.
Also, retina displays on Macs would be nice. The MacBooks Pro would be prime candidates to get something like this.
We Are The 0.6%
Hard to pick the most ridiculous element of these updated numbers.
Is it that just 0.6% of Android users have Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) two months after it launched?
Is it that of the remaining 99.4%, only 55% are upgraded to Gingerbread (2.3), which came out over a year ago?
Is it that over 30% are stuck on Froyo (2.2) which is 20 months old?
Is it that 8.5% (something like 10 million devices) are stuck on Eclair (2.1), which came out two years ago?
Is it that only 3.3% are using Honeycomb (3.0), which means that all those highly-touted tablets last year are clearly huge flops?
I can’t decide. You choose.
Android users, this is why you can’t have nice things.
Alan Moore's alternative Thought for the Day
If you’ve got a spare two minutes, give this a spin: Alan Moore succinctly explains his made-up religion on BBC Radio 4. Or, check out this transcript from the Forbidden Planet blog:
“Hello everybody, my name’s Alan Moore, and I earn a living by making up stories about things that have never actually happened.
When it comes to my spiritual beliefs that’s perhaps why I worship a second century human headed snake god called Glycon, who was exposed as a ventriloquist’s dummy nearly 2000 years ago. Famed throughout the Roman Empire, Glycon was the creation of an entrepreneur known as Alexander the false prophet, which is a terrible name to go into business under.”
A live, tame boa constrictor provided the puppet’s body, while its artificial head had heavy-lidded eyes and long blond hair. In many ways Glycon looked a bit like Paris Hilton, but perhaps more likeable and more biologically credible.
Looks aside, I’m interested in the snake god purely as a symbol, indeed one of humanity’s oldest symbols, which can stand for wisdom, for healing, or, according to etho-botanist Jeremy Narby, for our spiralling and snake-like DNA itself.
But I’m also interested in having a god who is demonstrably a ventriloquist’s dummy. After all, isn’t this the way we use most of our deities. We can look through our various sacred books and by choosing one ambiguous passage or one interpretation over another we can pretty much get our gods to justify our own current agendas. We can make them say what we want them to say.
The big advantage of worshipping an actual glove puppet of course is that if things start to get unruly or out of hand you can always put them gak in the gox. And you know, it doesn’t matter if they don’t want to go gak in the gox, they have to go gak in the gox.
Anyway, thank you very much for listening and from both me and Glycon, a very happy new year to you all.
(Via momentofmoore)
2011: the year in pictures
I am still amazed at what an eventful year 2011 was. So much happened that really changed the world, for better or worse.
Boston.com’s Big Picture series shows a lot of the historic (and not so historic) events.
They don’t have any photos of the local historic event, the Queensland floods. In any other year, the significance of Queensland’s disaster would not have been over-shadowed by the far more catastrophic natural disasters internationally.
