Time Stamps in iOS 7 Messages

October 7th, 2013

If you haven’t already discovered this by now, Koi Vinh shows how you can see individual time stamps for text messages in iOS 7.

Perhaps you made a poor design choice if…

October 4th, 2013

Sink Urinal

…you have to label your sink to keep people from peeing in it.

Is That a Tower in Your Pocket?

September 28th, 2013

Since I’ve been using iOS almost exclusively in my music making for the last few years (mostly with custom apps I’ve built using iRTcmix), it’s been exciting to witness the progress in the computing power of these devices. I’ve idly speculated about their power relative to their Mac predecessors, but I haven’t seen any direct comparisons. The current devices, while still limited compared to MacBooks, have started to feel a lot less computationally cramped. Considering I replaced my 2008 MacBook relatively recently, this comparison from John Gruber was encouraging:

The iPhone 5S and 5C:

To put that in context, the iPhone 5S beats my 2008 15-inch MacBook Pro by a small measure in the Sunspider benchmark (with the MacBook Pro running the latest Safari 6.1 beta). The iPhone 5S is, in some measures, computationally superior to the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro from just five years ago. In your fucking pocket.

And it looks like Gruber just about called it 5 years ago.

BlackBerry vs. iPhone:

If a 2007 iPhone is loosely equivalent in terms of computing power to a 2000 PowerBook or 1999 Power Mac, that puts the spread at around seven or eight years. Extrapolate forward, and it’s therefore not at all unreasonable to think that a 2014 iPhone will pack the computing power of today’s MacBook Pro.

Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests

September 28th, 2013

Oh My Yes

September 27th, 2013

20130927-141517.jpg

Why yes, I am tired of typing. Thanks for asking! On the other hand, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, fuck you.

What is a Game?

September 23rd, 2013

Playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.

– Bernard Suits

This Might Get Old Fast…

September 22nd, 2013

…but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be fun.

(via ParisLemon)

Groovin’ on a New York Afternoon

September 22nd, 2013

This…er…perfectly captures the mood of wandering around NYC…right?

10 Bets You Will Always Win

September 17th, 2013

Click Your Heels

September 16th, 2013

There's No Place Like Home

Neato

September 13th, 2013

Low Bridge

September 13th, 2013

When faced with a user interface problem, perhaps you should consider changing the interface.

Doing the Same Thing

September 12th, 2013

If other people are putting in 40-hour workweeks, and you’re putting in 100-hour workweeks, then, even if you’re doing the same thing, you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.

– Elon Musk

If other people are putting in 100-hour workweeks, and you’re putting in 40-hour workweeks, then, if you’re doing the same thing, you can achieve in a year what it takes them four months to achieve.

– Damon Holzborn

Minimalism is Boring (and that’s ok)

September 11th, 2013

I Care if You Listen:

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that there is “no such thing as an uninteresting subject, only an uninterested person,” and minimal music has opened me to the truth in that statement. If I know that beauty can be found in 468 fourths, then perhaps it can be found in other places as well—my disinterest more and more gives way to curiosity.

One of the strengths of minimalism, like chance and indeterminate music before it, is that it embraces new approaches to listening. Much new music (or New Music) suffers from a failure to promote a manner to reach it.

Less Dorky than Glasses?

September 11th, 2013

Part of me wants to think this is kinda neato. The other part of me thinks that these guys saw Google Glass and thought it just wasn’t privacy violatey enough.

Via momupro.

Awww….

September 10th, 2013

America: Land of the Free and the Home of the Marginally Happy

September 10th, 2013

United Nations report: U.S. 17th happiest country in the world.

Via The Big Waah.

Game Over

September 9th, 2013

Horace Dediu gets to heart of the gaming device issue:

That is where mobile is the clear winner. More people will hire mobile devices for their primary gaming activity. And as mobile devices get inexorably better, they will be hired for use in the setting where consoles have been king: the living room.

Whether dedicated gaming machines are better for gaming is moot. There just may not be enough hardcore gamers to support the industry. Smartphones are nearly universal (in the markets that would matter to game companies, at any rate) so devices that can play games are already ubiquitous. Since a smartphone comes with gaming capabilities “for free,” more and more people are forgoing the dedicated device, as Dediu’s charts demonstrate.

Now That’s Making!

September 7th, 2013

Anna Ng

September 7th, 2013

Speaking of They Might Be Giants: Anna Ng and I are getting old.