Apple has posted a video about the creation of the 13" Macbook that features some footage of the elusive Jonathan Ive ("Jony"), one of the current pantheon of design deities. Can't help but love the way the Brits pronounce aluminum, and watching those machines carve the unibody out of a solid 2.5 pound block of aluminum is engineering porn. Someday I would love to work on the design of a physical product.
I was back at Stanford recruiting last week, and I assign Apple all credit and blame for the dozens of product design majors who visited our table.
Joannie and Mike were in Temecula this past weekend visiting the folks, so I went down to visit them all and check in on Connor who is now over a year old.
He's still a serious and cautious little guy, but we managed to get a few laughs out of him during the weekend. I learned that he enjoys walking up small hills and mounds. Up and down, up and down. And, for a minute or two, at least, he found the swing set amusing.
By the way, adjustment brushes in Adobe Lightroom 2? Awesome. Worth the price of the upgrade. How long, I wonder, before they migrate to Photoshop?
We'll be carrying the third and final Presidential Debate tomorrow at Hulu. You can watch it live at Hulu, or you can watch it here in the embedded video below, or you can bring it to the masses by embedding it on your own site.
Palin's ignorance and lack of qualifications to be our Vice President, let alone President, are a source of both humor and horror, but now that she's been set loose to fan the flames of racism with unsubstantiated rhetoric, I can't look at her without recoiling in anger and disgust. For McCain to tolerate the types of things Palin is saying at campaign stops these days is to ensure that the last thing people remember about his legacy, once he loses this election, is the turn towards the darkside.
I see video of people holding up signs saying that Obama is a Muslim even though he is easily proven not (with all due respect to Muslims, the term is not a slur, though the Republicans have no qualms about using it that way), or equating him to Osama bin Laden and a terrorist, and I mourn for the death of reason. More than that, I fear what some ignorant loonies might do, their passions stirred up by Palin on the campaign trail through her reprehensible wielding of innuendo and slurs. She's an amateur playing with Molotov cocktails, and it needs to stop.
What’s undeniably true is that Republican rallies and the incendiary language of party leaders are stirring up the darker, destructive mob passions that have a long history in American politics. At the very least, the Republican ticket is making sure that, if Obama wins, he’ll be regarded as an illegitimate and dangerous President by thirty or forty per cent of the country.
Palin is too shallow to understand the weapon she’s playing with; she’s just thrilled to be the birthday girl and the object of so much semi-erotic devotion. But McCain knows better. His manner in debates and at rallies tells me that he’s conflicted about the forces his campaign is unleashing. Win or lose, he’s already damaged his cherished reputation beyond repair. But there’s still time for him to show leadership and do what’s necessary. The responsibility lies with him. In his speeches and at the final debate next week, McCain should say: “Barack Obama is a decent man and a good American. I deplore his policies, I doubt his judgment, I don’t think he has the experience to lead the country. But no one who supports me should question my opponent’s patriotism or his right to stand alongside me in this race. I would rather lose than win with the votes of fear-mongers or bigots.
The use of Twitter for basic info, where you are, what you're doing, is not nearly as amusing as using it as a new comedic form, among which one of the more amusing niches is fake celebrity tweeting.
You know of Fake Sarah Palin by now, but one order higher on the complexity scale of humor is interaction between fake celebrity Twitter accounts.
If Im groggy in the am I get a triple venti espresso from starbucks and dump it on the first homeless person I see in downtown LA. It works.
EverycharacteronMadMen seems to have their own Twitter accounts, though they don't quite do it for me. Part of the charm of those characters is their entrenchment in that time and the inscrutability of their inner lives, so the self-conscious and reflective nature of a Twitter account doesn't fit (AMC briefly had Twitter take them down, though they've since been restored).
Daring Fireball has, via Engadget, details on the new Macbook Pros to be announced today (which, to be fair, includes some speculation). I'd be surprised if his report was far off from the truth. Most of the updates are minor and/or cosmetic, like the switch to the Macbook Air-style keyboard, a new single-piece aluminum chassis, and a clickable glass trackpad. The biggest deal, to me, is the inclusion of two Nvidia GPUs, the 9400M and the 9600M GT.
Selfishly, the more people out there with computers with modern, high-powered GPU's, the smoother Hulu videos will play. Some users write in complaining about videos that stutter, and in most cases it's either a computer that can't keep up or problems in the network. The videos, I can assure you, play fine--it's an easy thing for us to test in-house to remove the variable of the network and the computer from the equation to test the underlying video.
Our first movie premiere at Hulu is the documentary Crawford, about the effect on the small Texan town when George W. Bush moves in.
Producer and Director David Modigliani was kind enough to answer a few questions I sent his way, and you can read that Q&A here. A taste:
Q: We're used to seeing states divided into red and blue on electoral maps, and in press coverage of each election. How do you think Crawford helps us to understand the reality of that view of the U.S.?
A: I think the film shows that the US is a purple country, even in Crawford, Texas. It behooves each party to demonize and stereotype the other -- to draw divisive lines and oversimplify things into a lame dichotomy. I think there's this notion that small-town "Red State America" is filled with ignorant people who are somehow "other" than people in other parts of the country. When I first arrived in Crawford, I had some of those preconceptions. Instead, I found people who were warm, hospitable, bright and funny. They had political viewpoints across the board, but -- and this sounds trite -- they were people, above all else. I would say to "Blue State America" that people in small towns are folks to engage, rather than to write off. If the political parties and their rampant advertising -- and the media and its lust for conflict -- would get out of the way, I think we'd see more connection and union in the country, which would allow us, in turn, to face our problems together instead of across divisive lines of fire.
There will be a variant cover featuring Colbert swinging through the city with Spider-Man in tow (as seen to the left).
This is sure to get play on The Colbert Report, and I'll try to remember to link to the clip once it appears on Hulu.
In the meantime, I'm surprised by how many serial comic books are still in circulation. I suppose they serve the same purpose as patent applications, allowing Marvel to license properties out for movies and toys. The stories themselves matter little now, which is ironic since Hollywood turns to comic books for story franchises. Comic book characters are like pre-existing concepts which, in their built-in awareness, offset enough marketing spend to justify hanging just about any plot on them.
High viscosity chamois cream didn't sound snappy enough, I suppose, so this new entrant into the chamois cream market called it's product dznuts and took the tagline "protect your junk."
On Dec 9, the complete run of The Wire, all five seasons, comes out on Blu-Ray. Those of you who watched The Wire don't need my endorsement. Those who haven't and own a Blu-Ray player? Treat yourself to a holiday gift of the best television series, or telenovel, ever.
The usual e-mail from political campaigns are all similar - some pseudo-personalized message from someone associated with the campaign, e.g. Biden or Gore - ending with a plea for a donation, in an amount that seems related to the size of your previous contribution. Or a call to join a phone bank or swing state canvas trip.
The latest e-mail from the Obama campaign takes a different approach. It appeals for supporters to convert family members.
If your family isn't already supporting Barack, it's time for you to have "The Talk."
With so many rumors and misperceptions out there, it's incredibly important that you sit down with parents or other family members. Tell them who Barack is, what he stands for, and why you're supporting him.
You may be the only person who can convince them.
But it can be difficult to bring up the subject, so here are a few tips:
Send an email. You can scroll down for some talking points, but feel free to add your personal touch.
Breaking the ice can be hard. Start by asking if they saw the debate on Tuesday and what they thought about it.
Have some information handy. We have one-page summaries of Barack's positions on various issues. Look for the issues you know are important to your family.
Share Barack's speech from the Democratic National Convention or Meet Barack, a video about who Barack Obama is, where he comes from, and what his values are.
For more resources, and to share your story about talking to family members, go to:
Earlier this year, as one national leader after another announced support for Barack, there was a common refrain -- they said their kids persuaded them that Barack was the right candidate to bring about real change.
Family members talking to one another about Barack is one of the ways this movement has grown so large. Even if your parents are already convinced, talk to your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Once it was parents who had to have the embarrassing "Talk" with their kids about the birds and the bees. Now the tables have turned, and it's the children who have to sit their parents down to broach politics.
Will it work? I suppose I'll find out Oct 17-19, when I head out to Las Vegas to canvas for Obama. Will those from my parents' generation want to hear from people of mine, or will it seem presumptuous? Why do I suspect I'll feel like I'm introducing a girlfriend to strict parents?
Because he is losing right now, McCain is on a more urgent mission to turn around his campaign. Because he is under attack, Obama feels the need to show he won't let his rival push him around. The effect is the same, which is to degrade the political dialogue at a moment when the nation faces some of the most difficult challenges in a generation or more.
In a month, one of these candidates will have won and the other will be asked to help rally behind the new leader to tackle the economic crisis. That would have been easier if the dialogue had not turned as it has the past few weeks.
When the final showdown came down to McCain and Obama, one might have held out hope that this Election would be different, that it would be a clean fight. But it only takes one corner willing to punch below the belt before everyone wades into the mud. Voters are partially to blame, because they are susceptible to Swift Boating and other such unsubstantiated attack methods.
McCain, as the underdog, initiated, as is logical, and he and his campaign have been stepping up the character attacks in recent days as Obama opens a gap. Obama and his camp have responded with their own videos, like the Keating Five video, though a good number of his ads still focus on the issues, where Democrats are seen as stronger.
Will the Ayers attacks and their like work again? I hope not, but I'm fearful to see the depths to which McCain and Palin and their campaign team will sink in the remaining weeks.
UPDATE: The NYTimes Public Editor chides the Times for feeding into this phenomenon by spending too many inches of column space on negative campaigning issues, the headline using the same term as I did, "mud," to mark this phase of the election: "Urgent Issues, Buried in the Mud"
I am saddened at the thought that the McCain campaign could descend to the level of a made-for-TV wedding between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, but given that it would probably be televised on Fox, I must admit some self-interested daydreaming about how many views it would generate on Hulu.
Now that the stock market is in the toilet and my retirement looks to be further out in the future, I'm readying a backup plan. Assuming the McCain campaign loses the election, I will try and convince Sarah Palin to let me and a camera crew follow her family around for a reality TV show called The Palins. It would be the highest-rated reality show of all time.
Some possible names for the show:
The Simple Life 6
Raising Alaska
Raising Trig
Bristol and Levi: The Newlyweds 2
Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow, Trig, and Alaskan Grizzly bears, oh my
Warner Home Video announced two Blu-Ray editions of The Dark Knight to street Dec. 9. The limited edition will come in a Bat-Pod display case and, if the art is correct, looks to include a small replica of the motorcycle.
Amazon has a sign-up page for the Blu-Ray release, and it will likely flip into a pre-order page shortly when the SKUs come through.
I wonder if there will be an in-video option to toggle to pillar boxing just for the IMAX sequences. On a TV it actually will reduce the viewing real estate, but you'll see the full frame of the IMAX print.
Okay, we've probably squeezed all there is to squeeze out of the Katie Couric interview of Sarah Palin, but Hendrik Hertzberg's comments in his New Yorker blog left me with a few final chuckles.
COURIC: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…
COURIC: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are right next to our state.
This seems to be a case of incoherence of thought leading to incoherence of syntax. Pronouns wander in search of antecedents like Arctic explorers in a blinding snowstorm. Homophones confuse the transcriber. For example, one of the Governor’s answers could as sensibly, or insensibly, be rendered as
PALIN: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And they’re…
Sasha Frere-Jones discusses Timbaland in this week's New Yorker.
When you hear a rhythm that is being played by an instrument you can’t identify but wish you owned, when you hear a song that refuses to make up its mind about its genre but compels you to move, or when you hear noises that you thought couldn’t find a comfortable place in a pop song, you are hearing Timbaland, or school thereof.
If you're interested in watching or reviewing the first Presidential Debate, we have the full video up at Hulu.
We also have plenty of clips and post-debate commentary here and here.
The post-debate polling indicates a strong win by Obama, though many pundits preferred McCain. What an odd role reversal. For once, Obama appealed more to the average voter, while McCain appealed to lots of pundits.
McCain threw out terms like earmarks that political novices don't understand, and that hurt him during the economy section. Obama looked at McCain and seemed more congenial (yes, John, we know you are not Miss Congeniality, your running mate is the beauty pageant queen), while McCain would not look at Obama and came off as more elitist and fiery. If we went to Howard Lederman in the corner, I think he'd say McCain threw more punches and seemed more aggressive.
McCain seemed agitated a few times. I wonder if at one of these debates, Obama will be like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men and decide, screw it, I'm going to press him. The moderator will try to cut off Obama as he shouts at McCain over and over again, "Did you order the code red?!" and finally McCain will finally look at Obama and shout, "You're Goddamned right I did!"
Not the most scintillating debate. I wonder how many viewers made it through to the bitter end. I did policy debate in high school (yes, I was a debate team dork, and yes, I saw that Kirk Cameron movie about policy debate), and that seems a better format for determining a winner than these Presidential Debates. We had to have note cards and cite evidence, whereas our Presidential Candidates can say whatever they want during the debate without any challenge until post-debate analysis.
So here's my proposal: Policy Debate format, two on two, Obama-Biden versus McCain-Palin. They alternate being on the affirmative and advocating a resolution. I would cough up $49.99 to see that on pay-per-view.
