Fyfe Dangerfield – High on the Tide

I just got back from a weekend trip to San Francisco; the first of its kind even though I’ve been here for a year. I did fall for the city, like I do for almost every big city. Wandering through the forest of skyscrapers, I feel connected. It doesn’t really matter what city, I just am at peace, and I often feel an omnipresent smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

The same thing happens in nature. While running at the beach today (my life is so hard), this song came on the iPod. It made me simultaneously feel in touch with the beauty of the ocean and my memories of the beauty of the city.

Jaill (sic) is a band from Wisconsin, of all places, but they play good power pop, often with a surf rock vibe. They’re touring with The Hold Steady down the coast right now, but unfortunately, I’ll be out of town when they hit SB.

I’ve been on a summer kick lately; perhaps this has turned out to be one of the more invigorating ones in recent memory. I think I’ll have to make a power pop mix to accompany its slow fade.

I’ve had this sitting in my iTunes for a month – how in the world have I not yet listened to the new Menomena? I’m a moron. I think I started listening to it once, and it felt like it was going to be too intense, so I gave up. Leave it to an insomniatic night to solve that problem.

This one sounds like a dream you can’t wake from: typical pounding percussion, new storylines dancing at the edges of the consciousness and weaving themselves into the narrative just enough for it to seem otherworldly, abrupt and inexplicable shifts in tone and texture. But that’s what makes Menomena great, and propels the group effort above each member’s solo work.

I have been feeling better and better lately. Today I realized that I’ve regained my old skills at talking to people and making them feel comfortable. I always felt like my natural shyness only existed when at my most weary (or wary). But lately I’ve felt more comfortable with others lately, and I daresay that has allowed me to be more accepted by others right off the bat. Having a talkative roommate and new fun friends has certainly helped.

I don’t want to say there is or was a terrible love. I just think that I’ve been freed from whatever web had me ensnared.

(This is, btw, the best version of this song I’ve heard).

(with special apologies to Bill Shakespeare, of course).

Allo’ Darlin – Kiss Your Lips

A summer that started off poorly has been generally pretty fun of late – good friends, good times, renewed friendships and old acquaintanceships blossoming; good weather, sun, and life. After the slow and miserable end of the school year, I’m enjoying a well-deserved period of relaxation. And I’ve been loving Allo’ Darlin. Pure pop perfection, as in the song above. And really, a true summer song. Other songs, like ‘If Loneliness Was Art’ or ‘Woody Allen’ are wrenchingly and beautifully twee.

On the subject of summer music, I made a summer mix and posted it here.

I’ve said it before and will say it again – I love and want to live in Montreal.

Phonogram looks interesting, and I don’t even like comics.

I’m about halfway unpacked, but I can’t wait to print and frame and hang my wall decorations. Using old photos I’ve taken, which sounds narcissistic, but fun and encouraging.

Thieves in the night

Tonight’s thieves stole sleep. One book down, some work to do, and then some more skimming before an hour or two in bed. Yay!

A Colorful Retreat

As my friends in DC become inundated with snow (and those in CO are watching it leave) would it be unfair to post the aftermath of the worst storm we’ve had out here this winter? It did dump 2 or 3 inches of rain, after all. Anyway, these are the clouds in retreat, bunched up against the Santa Ynez Mountains. They are lit by sun setting behind me over the ocean.

Lost is like a Chocolate Fountain…

.. one that only dispenses questions.

I know, that analogy didn’t really work. But that’s because my mind’s still blown from Lost tonight – the final season premiere. I’m not even sure what to say about it yet.

A Late Summer Sunset

Hoo boy. The past – what, 4 hours? – have been spent fighting Microsoft Word for Mac’s archaic means of equation entry. And before that, I was going over the math I’m trying to put into Word. So I’m exhausted, but I still have to tackle some R work tonight. But I needed something with an organic feel, hence the Lissie, a singer-songwriter from Rock Island, Illinois who actually lives up the road in Ojai, CA now, according to her Daytrotter bio. Which is excellent, and highly recommended, btw.

The picture is from one of my last days in DC. I’d taken the afternoon off to get one last look of the city before I headed back West. After the Newseum, and a few hours wandering around the mall, trying to soak the last of any available political energy from the area, I headed back up toward Dupont so as to take the bus up Connecticut. It was a beautiful day – early September, but not too hot, just a light breeze rustling the leaves. One of those days to be glad you’re in DC.

Of course, the bus never came, so after about 40 minutes of waiting, I decided to just walk. The sun was setting over Rock Creek Park as I crossed the Taft Bridge; a shock of color that threw everything into silhouettes. It was breathtaking – I had to stop and take the shot.

And as I put the camera away, the bus rolled by.

Tech Lust

Two big events today – Apple’s announcement of the new, ahem, iPad, and President Obama’s first State of the Union. Though the latter is far more important in terms of effect on people’s lives, I wasn’t actually around for it, so I’m going to focus on the iPad instead.

Just a few thoughts:

• This thing is designed with the K-12 education sector in mind. Think about it – have a library of books on it, you can write documents and presentations on it, do simple calculations…all in a package that’s intuitive, in which you drag things around with your fingers (kids seem to like to touch and feel the things they’re learning). Winner
• This blows up the old modes of thinking about Operating Systems. It completely abstracts the user from the inner workings of the OS. As a friend noted, this is as big as a shift as the jump from the command prompt to Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). I suppose one could say the iPod and the iPhone did this first, but those were in different market segments, so they weren’t really challenging that paradigm – just saying it didn’t apply to portable devices. Winner
• That being said, I’m not sure this is as big of a challenge to netbooks as would be needed to kill them off. Besides the obvious Mac vs. PC issues, as well as the difference in price (at $499, that’s basically the high end of a netbook these days), it only appeals to one of the two types of netbook users. The first type is those who use their netbook primarily for web browsing and checking email. Maybe this is done in front of the TV or while traveling. On the other hand, as I sit in my graduate classes, I see a 40/40/20 split between netbooks, macbooks (and pros), and gigantic Windows laptops (they’re always gigantic, if they’re not netbooks, though this may be a consequence of a direct comparison to their little brothers). All of these people are furiously taking notes on their machines.

  The iPad simply wouldn’t fill their needs, at least not until software catches up. Sure, you can plug in your iPad to the keyboard dock, but you don’t get the same mobility that you do with a netbook. Moreover, I think writing a paper on one of those might be a bit of a challenge.

  So it is geared more toward the casual web browser/email checker. And man, that thing is beautiful for it. I can no longer sit and watch a movie and do nothing else at home because I’m constantly looking at my iPhone or laptop. The iPad would be so much more enjoyable to use than either because of form factor. NEUTRAL

• I love the eReader functionality. First, it’s using an open format, meaning a) no new format to deal with and b) the possibility of standardization, so what you see on one device will be the same on other. Great. I just hope it also means that you can load other eBooks, much like you can load non-iTunes music and movies on an iPod.

  I also love the appearance, and despite some of what I’ve been reading, I think the page turning animations are great and make it more book like. I also think the tone of the page and text seems just about the right contrast, and the store looks much better than Amazon’s (though I wish it had Amazon’s review base). Did I see in some of the pictures that books are going to be $4.99? That’s kind of hard to believe, but I’d love it. What cracks me up though – since the iPad runs any iPhone app, you could theoretically have both Apple’s iBook app and Amazon’s Kindle app on there at the same time.

  Some things that we need some more information on, though, and I think these are particularly important in ensuring these are usable in the higher education realm: can you highlight? Can you cut and paste text? How about notes? I think to be useful, it needs to be just like Preview on OSX: cut and paste swaths of text, highlight, underline, take notes. I doubt much of this functionality is there (reportedly it’s in the Kindle, but I’ve seen some disgruntlement on that front).
  WINNER, but that could change.

• Background wallpapers on the application screens – about damn time. This better migrate to the iPhone!WINNER
• I don’t know how I’ve gotten this far without mentioning the name. Really, iPad? That was about the worst of the possible names (I personally liked Canvas or MacTablet). Were there no women involved in the name selection process? Or no guys who’d ever seen a feminine hygiene product commercial? Twitter and Facebook are lighting up with jokes about it (now with wings!), as well they should.

  But wait – people thought the iPod was a dumbass name as well. And, more recently, the gaming community was aghast at the Wii’s name, especially since the codename up to that point had been the much more awesome Nintendo Revolution. But you know what? now everyone just calls it the Wii and the iPod. Sometimes the former prompts sophomoric jokes, but most of the time it doesn’t. I think the same will happen here.LOSER – but that will change.

• Software: That New York Times app was the killer one for me. Can they just license it to other newspapers please? I really would love to see the local paper in this kind of format and only in part because they have no online presence – they’re crusty old luddites over there. I still like the feel of newspapers, of sitting down on a Sunday morning with a paper over a luxuriously lazy breakfast. I don’t do that anymore, because I don’t like the newsprint, or the cleanup, or paying the damn bill. But integrated into the chunk of my funds that already goes to Apple, in a format that allows me to dig deep into articles, displays high resolution images and videos and (hopefully) interactive graphics – an amazing re-imagining of newspapers’ halcyon days.

  MLB shows that they know how to leverage new technology. The NBA has a very minimal app, minus any interesting stats. Where the hell is the NFL or NHL? Again, they need to license some of MLB’s technology, because that app was amazing.

  Finally, that Brushes app isn’t really my thing, but I see it’s potential more for touching up documents or taking notes. People can’t exactly write with their fingertips, but they can draw, and a good chunk of notetaking is drawing tables, charts, pictures, arrows, etc. When the inevitable notetaking apps appear, they better include some kind of hand touchup feature, and they should base it on Brushes.
  WINNER

• This is already far longer than I wanted it to be, so the next few items will be as brief as I can be. First, some additional things we need to know, in addition to the highlighting issues above: Can we sync an iPhone or iPod to this thing (like through the dock connector to USB cord? In other words, can the average person completely ditch their computer and have just this? Because it would be wonderful to start an eBook on here, move it to the iPhone and have it open in the same spot (assuming the eReader app is integrated into the iPhone/iTouch) while you’re out and don’t have the means to carry the iPad, and then have it open back up to the place you left off on the iPhone. True portability, in other words. This might require Wifi syncing.

  Are we going to see an HDMI out dock? What about notifications? Will we ever see some kind of status screen, perhaps on the welcome screen or in some app that will stay on when plugged in? Can iBook show videos or any interactive charts?

Final thoughts. This is, in my view, a very solid product (though it doesn’t actually fill a glaring hole for me, so I won’t be picking it up). It has a really great price point, and I do see it as a first step toward a new computing workflow. Furthermore, it’s far better than any of the Windows competitors or eReaders in numerous areas. Expect to see some copycats in a couple years. Hopefully they’ll be better than the Zune.

And it’s not too late to think about v2.0. Remember, the original iPhone had about 8 apps. It was simply a phone with a great web browser, media player, and hardware. It was only through subsequent updates, mostly software, that it transformed into the juggernaut it now is. I see the iPad in the same way. There probably won’t be too many hardware changes (maybe a camera or two, a faster processor, way in the future some tactile feedback). But software changes – almost limitless. Assuming a better processor – not that this one isn’t a screamer – multitasking will be a must. Improvements in user interface. Some of the note taking issues I mentioned above. Magazine integration into the eReader. And so on. And I think that that’s when it will match the iPhone in market share. Like the iPhone, market share in a market segment they created.

I Can’t Hardly Wait.