Valhalla Island

From Adam Quigley’s fantastic, detailed look back on six years of Lost after seeing the final...

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:07:26 +1000

From Adam Quigley’s fantastic, detailed look back on six years of Lost after seeing the final episode:

“Across the Sea”, the Jacob/Man in Black flashback episode, is the break-up.

For some, I suspect the series finale was the make-up sex.

For me, the series finale was like being forced to watch my six-year lover blow another guy.

For me it was make up sex followed by an empty feeling a couple of days after I’d realised what I’d done. Nonetheless, a bad breakup doesn’t nullify 6 years of good times.

iMac or Mac Pro?

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:15:39 +1000

Marco Arment:

Today’s overdue Mac Pro update is a welcome change, but for a computer that’s so expensive, why not just get an iMac?

This is exactly the question I faced when upgrading to my current computer, a low specced 27” iMac. Three things weighed most heavily into my decision:

A lowest end Mac Pro plus a cinema display is way more expensive than a lowest end iMac. The higher the specs on each model the lower the margin but I have no need for extreme performance.
Six months ago you couldn’t buy a 27” LED display outside of an iMac.
Unlike previous generation iMacs and thanks to the wonders of DisplayPort I can use use the iMac’s display as an external display for a Mac Pro in the future.

So come 6 or 12 months when my low specced iMac starts to feel unbearably slow I’ll buy a Mac Pro and reap the benefits Marco lists while keeping the most valuable part of the iMac. There’ll be a computer sitting on the back of the iMac not doing anything but that’s a small write off.

Curious details from the Safari 5.0.1 release notes: Fixes an issue that could cause borders on...

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:12:00 +1000

Curious details from the Safari 5.0.1 release notes:

Fixes an issue that could cause borders on YouTube thumbnails to disappear when hovering over the thumbnail image

Fixes an issue that could cause Flash content to overlap with other content on www.facebook.com, www.crateandbarrel.com, and other sites when using Flash 10.1

Makes it sound like Apple’s fixing bugs for specific websites. Weird.

Gillard pledges cash for clunkers scheme

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:38:08 +1000

Gillard pledges cash for clunkers scheme:

To summarise, Gillard is proposing pulling money from 100% emission-free solar power schemes to encourage people’s replacement of their heavy emission producing cars for slightly less heavy emission producing cars, a dependance on which causes a number of emission-unrelated problems.

Car manufactures will be doing backflips and punters will be stoked they can buy an expensive car even further out of their means.

A good time to remind my Australian readers that the Greens are the only responsible way to vote in the upcoming election. They are not a one policy party, they have detailed, well organised and presented policies in all key areas published on their website.

"It’s a sync’ed VoodooPad document that I “web export” into a Dropbox-managed folder. Dropbox is also..."

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:37:19 +1000

“It’s a sync’ed VoodooPad document that I “web export” into a Dropbox-managed folder. Dropbox is also running on the web server (conveniently an Xserve), and I symlinked from my htdocs to the Dropbox sub-folder where the VoodooPad export lives. So, I can export from VP, and the site updates a few seconds later.”

- I love these kinds of website publishing methods.

The iPhone 4's Issues

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:36:00 +1000

So Consumer Reports can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

And the iPhone 4 is Consumer Reports highest rated smart phone.

I am as excited about getting Consumer Reports highest rated phone today as I was the day it was released. Why?

On the whole, reception is way better than previous iPhones. Many are reporting if they try really hard they can reproduce the problem but in real world use they’re dropping far fewer calls with the iPhone 4 (I should stop right here, it’s all that matters).
The “problem” is 100% solved with a case or small piece of tape (and that’s probably a much bigger piece than what’s actually required).
It’s Consumer Reports highest rated phone. Higher even than Consumer Reports second highest rated phone, the iPhone 3GS, a phone with no reception issue hysteria.

Then there’s the flakey proximity sensor issue the likes of which Garrett Murray is experiencing.

What a fantastic reason to use the hands free headphones and not hold a microwave transmitter next to your brain. Even if the link isn’t clear it’s not worth the risk.

The only thing that frustrates me about these issues is that it’s obviously delaying the iPhone 4’s release in Australia.

It’ll be interesting to see what Apple announces at its Friday press conference.

Today I saw the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Queensland GoMA....

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:51:14 +1000

Today I saw the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Queensland GoMA. Months after the exhibition opened it was still crowded and rightfully so, the pieces are surreal.

It didn’t even occur to me to take a camera but it seemed the huge majority of patrons were taking photos. Flash photography wasn’t allowed but many were using flashes anyway (I think most people have no idea how to turn their flash off nor want to know how). People were moving to a piece, taking a number of photos from different angles, moving to the next and shooting again. There were more camera phones than point and shoots and there were no SLRs.

There are many photos of Ron Mueck’s work online.

I genuinely want to know what’s going through people’s minds when each individual from a group of three is documenting the exhibit with their own terrible phone camera. For what reason are they doing it? To go back and reminisce about that time they went to the art gallery and took photographs? To prove to others that they went? To enjoy the art all over again to make up for what they missed while they were actually there?

I don’t get it.

"iPhone 3G horribly slow after the iOS 4 update? Back up and restore. Totally fixed mine."

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:25:24 +1000

“iPhone 3G horribly slow after the iOS 4 update? Back up and restore. Totally fixed mine.”

- I can confirm this information from Andy Baio. The speed isn’t earth shattering, as it wasn’t on 3.x, but it’s definitely back to pre-iOS 4 levels. I’d been really resenting the iOS 4 update and had been dying for the iPhone 4 to be released in Australia up until now.

This is the redesign I was working towards when I first started...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:24:00 +1000

This is the redesign I was working towards when I first started A Solid Base at the start of the year. I’ve been steadily posting and meticulously tagging to a point where I have enough content to add some useful navigation. I particularly like the navigation by colour.

It wasn’t until I was about 4 hours in that I realised how similar it is to the Valhalla Island design structurally. I think the 500 pixel wide limit on photo post images in Tumblr somewhat dictates things.

A real domain now too, asolidbase.net!

Extreme Mollycoddling

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:27:00 +1000

Extreme Mollycoddling:

An English couple are under fire for letting kids cycle to school. It’s a 1500m route along footpaths that the parents have taught their children. The most “dangerous” part involves crossing one road manned by a lollipop lady.

Needless to say, this is madness. I started cycling to school from grade 2 and I still remember the liberation I felt being able to ride to school and friend’s houses. There was a huge bike lockup at my primary school which was always filled to the brim with bikes.

Ironically, it’s the convoy of automobiles carrying one child each and the infrastructure to support it at the expense of safer bike and pedestrian facilities that make such independence at all dangerous to begin with. No primary school kid wearing a helmet is going to die in even a bike on bike accident. I fell off my bike more times than I can remember riding to and from school, a little road rash does nothing but teach kids how to deal with crises, albeit small ones, independently.

It seems that even in the 12 years since I was in primary school such freedom has been eradicated. I’d be very interested to go back to my primary school to see how full the bike rack is now.

"I don’t want to stare at some photo of me at 21 when I’m 50 and contemplate everything I was, or..."

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:02:00 +1000

“I don’t want to stare at some photo of me at 21 when I’m 50 and contemplate everything I was, or could have been. I don’t want to have to drown in partial truths, grasping at a falling memory to paint in details. I’d rather either remember, or not.”

- I couldn’t agree more with Jack Shedd about photographs.

The cat is lost in the negative space.

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:11:58 +1000

The cat is lost in the negative space.:

I absolutely lost it while reading this. Upping the comedy ante perfectly.

"So, if Rainn Wilson (or anybody) keeps encountering angry cyclists, he may want to consider the..."

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:58:52 +1000

“So, if Rainn Wilson (or anybody) keeps encountering angry cyclists, he may want to consider the possibility that he’s actually a really bad driver, in the same way that a man who wonders why women “never have orgasms” might want to look instead to his own lack of sexual prowess.”

- Bike Snob NYC in response to Rainn Wilson’s tweet on angry cyclists. Bike Snob has been producing some especially fantastic writing lately.

"My new standard of cool: when I’m hanging out with you, I never see your phone ever ever ever."

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:40:40 +1000

“My new standard of cool: when I’m hanging out with you, I never see your phone ever ever ever.”

- Scott Simpson. A good rule I’m trying to live by.

iOS 4 Let Down

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:12:00 +1000

There were four new features I was looking forward to in iOS. Unfortunately the iPhone 3G only gets two of them.

The 3G doesn’t have the power to support multi-tasking so the fast app switching widget isn’t included, unfortunately the iPhone orientation lock is part of the fast app switching widget and also excluded. Bluetooth keyboard support just isn’t there.

Worse than the missing features I was most looking forward to is the slow down of the system in general. This release has obviously erred on the side of providing a better experience to the more powerful 3GS and 4.

There’s one feature of one application which has particularly suffered. Unfortunately it’s my favourite feature of my most used iPhone application: tilt scrolling in Instapaper. Under iOS 4 it’s severely jaggy with none of the fine control available under iPhone OS 3.

With any luck it won’t be too long until iPhone 4 is brought to Australia and I can retire my ageing iPhone 3G.

In an extraordinary feat of endurance the first round Wimbledon...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:06:00 +1000

In an extraordinary feat of endurance the first round Wimbledon match between American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut has gone to an epic 59 games each in the 5th set. At a match time of 10 hours, it’s already three and a half hours longer than the second longest tennis match ever played.

And it’s not over yet. Play was unfortunately suspended due to poor light early this morning and will resume on day 4 of competition tonight.

New Flickr Photo Pages

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:45:00 +1000

New Flickr Photo Pages:

For six years Flickr has had the same frustratingly insufficient photo pages and navigation between them. Two months after I create my own thing to address the problem Flickr fixes every issue natively. Albeit currently as an opt-in beta.

At first I wasn’t worried, the default size was still too small and navigation was still too slow. Then I saw the incredible zoom option with big photos, dark background, super fast keyboard navigation and loading times. It completely blows Darkroom away and it’s available on every kind of Flickr output.

My happiness as a Flickr user outweighs my disappointment as Darkroom developer.

C’est la vie.

New Features in iOS4

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:06:00 +1000

New Features in iOS4 :

My iPhone 3G is starting to show its age. The home button is hard to press properly and there’s some scuffs on the screen but mostly the software, especially third party software, feels slow.

Luckily my iPhone 3G contract ends in August so I’ll be able to pick up the iPhone 4 not too long after it’s released without having to pay any more than I do now. Besides a massive speed jump (same processor as the iPad but double the RAM!) iPhone 4 will unlock a few iOS features not available to older iPhones. Here’s the new features I’m most looking forward to:

Spell check. Often on the iPhone I’ll find myself guessing letters, deleting and guessing again until the autocomplete kicks in to spell a word I don’t know how to spell. A real spell checker is better.
Blue tooth keyboard support. This is awesome. I used to use BluePhoneElite to send text messages through my phone from my computer. Typing out even an average length message on an iPhone sucks when you’ve got a keyboard in front of you. I’m interested to see how this will work with a Bluetooth keyboard already paired with a computer, ideally there’d be a switch to flip pairing.
Screen orientation lock. It doesn’t bother me that it’s only a software switch because I’ll turn it on and never turn it off again.
All in one Mail inbox. Long overdue.

Judging by this it looks like one of my top three iPhone activities — reading Instapaper articles — is going to be vastly improved. I can’t wait to actually see it.

"Part of this is because stupid people say things that aren’t true, things that aren’t true don’t..."

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:57:00 +1000

“Part of this is because stupid people say things that aren’t true, things that aren’t true don’t make sense, and things that don’t make sense are hard to understand. But you can also look at it from the other end: if you genuinely understand something — really, truly understand it — then it doesn’t seem complicated and you can explain it rather simply.”

- Aaron Swartz sounding very smart with his beautifully clear explanation of the “you sound smart” paradox.

This is exactly the situation I’m facing while I try to read Infinite Jest. I have this preconceived notion that David Foster Wallace was an extremely smart man but every message, nay, every scene in the book so far seems buried underneath a mountain of long, obscure words mashed together in barely decipherable sentences.

I was excited about this gorgeous Lost map printed on canvas....

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:14:00 +1000

I was excited about this gorgeous Lost map printed on canvas. Then I saw the full print with its terrible, cramped, centre aligned system font typography in the corner. The entire bottom section is unnecessary. Part of the print’s original appeal was the lack of branding but the useless eyesore of a fake brand totally ruins the whole thing.