Today Byword 2.0 for iOS was released, and though I am not a Byword user it has one major new feature that makes the app a serious contender for my usage: publishing. Available as a $4.99 in-app purchase you can now publish directly to places like Tumblr and WordPress.
This is a great addition and something I very much hope more apps start to support.
**Update**: I missed this at first, but the Mac app got the same publishing treatment. Very nice.
I’ve been testing [Felix for iPad][1] for a while now and my biggest complaint is that the developer made me choose between putting it on my iPad mini, or retina iPad. The iPad version is seriously good and I feel lost without it on my iPad.
Felix is hands down the best App.net client out there. [Buy the iPad version][2].
*(I hear a rumor the [iPhone version][3] might be free for a few hours.)*
[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/felix-for-app.net-ipad-edition/id653222239?ls=1&mt=8
[2]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/felix-for-app.net-ipad-edition/id653222239?ls=1&mt=8
[3]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/felix-for-app.net/id562447652?ls=1&mt=8
[Brian Merchant argues that cars][1], or driving, is dying in part because of communities that allow people to move about without their own cars and he also clues into social networking like Facebook. The argument being that “we” wanted cars so that “we” could connect and talk to others and now “we” don’t need cars for this because of Facebook and the like.
Thus kids are less interested in cars and driving, and the rest of the world is starting to follow suit in that thinking too.
And so cars are dead, long live cars.
I don’t entirely disagree with the notion that the automobile is losing its prestige in America, but I think there is something more to consider/blame than just urban planning and social networking.
Merchant is mostly looking at cars only as a means to an end: Owning and driving a car is for transportation and nothing else.
That’s a rather short-sighted view because driving a car is an experience. Or rather it *used* to be. Now the driving experience is consumed by:
– GPS systems instructing you.
– Phones ringing.
– DVD players rolling.
– iPods jamming.
– Subwoofers.
– 18 cup-holders.
– McDonald’s double cheeseburgers. ((The best item on the menu, clearly.))
Driving, even when I was a kid, was a challenge. Your car gave you feedback, you felt the road, you got lost, you were on your own. Traction control wasn’t standard, GPS was just becoming available, and few people had cell phones.
Modern cars have effectively eliminated all of these challenges in one fell swoop. Phones never allow you to get lost or disconnected. Entertainment systems never let your mind relax. Modern suspension, steering, tires, and engines remove the sound and feeling of the car — and people rarely lose control.
You never get lost driving any more, and you never actually *do* the driving — you just control a *thing* which happens to be propelling itself down the road. This is what we now call driving.
Now the driver is so disconnected from the experience of driving, that they are more of an operator. That is: driving is not a skill anymore, as much as a mechanical thing that anyone can be taught.
I think this is important to note when talking about driving and cars in America. We used to be a society that loved to drive, not for the utility of transportation, but because we loved the feel and experience that driving gave us.
Right or wrong, technology has slowly eaten away at that experience and taken all of the challenges out of it. And while that has made driving safer and no doubt more reliable — it has also made driving a whole lot less interesting.
I’ve mentioned before that our family car is a Dodge Journey. Which is neither a great car, nor a bad car. It’s just a car. I drove it as our only car for 6 months and it was boring. I didn’t like driving any more, it was just a necessity.
So when we needed to get a second car for me to drive for work I immediately started looking at the oldest cars possible that I thought my wife would sign off on. I was close to acquiring a 1988 BMW M5 — a sedan that might just be one of the most interesting and pure driver’s cars out there. So simple in its beauty and operation that a BMW guy can’t help but lust for it.
Instead I settled on a 2002 BMW M5 because I knew I would get far less grief from my wife should it run into a mechanical problem. The E39 M5 is really the last true driver’s M5 in this man’s opinion. While the newer M5’s are simply amazing cars, they also do a lot of things *for* you. ((That’s not to say I don’t like them — I love them and they are awesome to drive — but they aren’t mechanical enough to make you feel that you are one with the machine.)) With one button in the E39 I can effectively take away the modern safety controls and try my best to harness 400HP on the wet roads of Washington — not safe, but making your palms sweat a bit is living.
I love driving again.
I don’t think driving is dying among today’s youth because of suburban planning or Facebook — I think it’s dying because we as a society have effectively neutered the visceral experience of driving.
We’ve made driving too easy and too automatic.
There’s no risk, no drama, just the boring result of arriving at your destination on time.
While the decline in driving is undoubtedly good for the environment, it’s also sad to watch something that so defines your country become a misunderstood hobbyist activity.
[1]: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/facebook-and-brooklyn-are-killing-the-car
We will be meeting at [Radiator Whiskey in downtown Seattle][1] (near Pike Place Market). For the rest of the details [see this post][2].
Bring whoever, but the bar space is limited. I look like the picture on the [Colophon][3] so come up and say hi when you get there.
[1]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/radiator-whiskey-seattle
[2]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/04/hi-there/
[3]: https://brooksreview.net/colophon/
[Mr. Blanc on writing][1]:
> I wait to get started because I assume that if I don’t write something magical and clever as I’m typing it for the first time then I certainly won’t be able to improve upon it in the editing and re-writing process.
I’ve only felt the fear that Shawn describes when someone asks me to write something for them (e.g The Magazine, etc). I hate that, I hate that process, and I hate doing it because it locks me up.
Typically I’m too busy to write drafts. Typically if I have time to write, I better make words appear because that time is few and far between. So my typical “process” is:
1. Idea for something.
2. Write, or at the very least make a note of my thought with the post title (yep select that before I write) and my main point I want to convey.
3. Add to, or re—read the article.
4. Re—read article only if step three was add to and not re-read. (I only re-read things once, unless they get over 1000 words, then I read twice with the second reading trying to make sure flow is right.)
5. Determine if article is worth posting, and then determine if I send it to [James][2] for editing.
6. Post.
7. Fix typos as readers yell at me about them.
8. Back to work.
Over thinking writing always nets me a blank page, so from day one I have just put words down whenever I get time, or am so inspired.
[1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2013/05/the-root-of-non-writing/
[2]: http://jamesmart.in
You know what to do, donate like a mofo to take down a patent troll and [“save podcasting”][1]. No brainer.
[1]: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/save-podcasting
[Nick Guy posted an update to his ice cube tray post][1] on Sweet Home, following the challenge from [Dr. Drang][2]:
> I wanted to prove or disprove if using different ice cube sizes from our recommended Tovolo trays (big and small) would make a difference in taste.
I’m glad this came back up again because I have some additional points to make on this subject. In Guy’s test two out of three people could taste the difference, saying that the smaller cubes were diluting the drink more. Now this test is flawed for a few reasons:
1. The tester group was too small.
2. Allowing ice to melt and re-freezing the ice can/will cause a taste problem with the ice and is not a real world situation to begin with. A better test would have been multiple setups where the ice need not be removed at all.
3. It’s unknown how familiar the testers are with whiskey, or the flavor profile of the particular whiskey they were tasting.
The last bit is important, because slight dilution of whiskey with water can actually *improve* the flavor of the drink. Much like allowing red wine to breathe, good whiskey will need the same thing. It is not uncommon for a whiskey drinker to add a drop or two of water to the drink to “open up” the flavor profile.
You can read a bit more about [adding drops of water to whiskey on Quora][3].
[1]: http://thesweethome.com/reviews/the-best-ice-cube-tray/
[2]: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/05/big-ice-cubes/
[3]: http://www.quora.com/Whiskey/Why-add-a-drop-of-water-to-whiskey
I love [this passage from Karen McGrane][1] talking mobile websites:
> It’s frustrating and confusing for them if you only give them a little bit of what you offer on your “real” website. If you try to guess which subset of your content the mobile user needs, you’re going to guess wrong. Deliver the same content as your desktop user sees. (If you think some of your content doesn’t deserve to be on mobile, guess what — it doesn’t deserve to be on the desktop either. Get rid of it.)
Unfortunately McGrane has it wrong, the section that should be in parentheses is the entire article, with the bit that *is* in parentheses in bold instead.
[1]: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/the_rise_of_the_mobile-only_us.html
[Glenn Fleishman’s ending to the press release announcing the sale of The Magazine][1]:
> MARCO ARMENT is an ostensibly carbon-based life form currently residing in Hastings-on-Hudson, declared the Williamsburg of the North by the New York Times, whence he produces podcasts, blog entries, jeremiads, and software. He and his wife have one child and one dog. Neither is for sale.
Perfect.
[1]: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marco-arment-sells-the-magazine-to-its-editor-glenn-fleishman-209349501.html
[Dr. Drang debases the current douchebag-bourbon drinker trend of big ass ice cubes][1] ((I’m not saying all bourbon drinkers are douchebags, just the ones that drink it because it is the “in” drink at the moment. People who do that are clearly douchebags. It just so happens that this class of people get all hot and bothered over big ass ice cubes.)) :
> The writers of these articles seldom invoke the [square-cube law][2] explicitly, but that’s what they’re talking about. In some cases, they go beyond just saying that big cubes melt slower and also claim that they do so while cooling your drink just as much. These claims should be looked upon with a gimlet eye, because the cubes’ melting is what does the cooling.
So big ice cubes do dilute less, but at the cost of less cooling. As a whiskey drinker I have to say that there is little reason to use ice in good whiskey. The main reason people *actually* use ice is not for the temperature, but more often to dilute the strength of the drink, which is sad and wrong. Those that do that to any whiskey better than the run of the mill whiskey deserve to be banned from all whiskey for life.
[1]: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/05/big-ice-cubes/
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law
[Ryan Tate on Yahoo!’s expansion](http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/marissa-mayer-makes-portals-fashionable/):
> Buying Tumblr gives the company potentially valuable data on the interests of sophisticated young computer users; Summly lets it see what news you are interested in while mobile; Hulu would provide insight into what television shows you prefer. Meanwhile, each information source also doubles as an ad delivery channel.
*Fuck*, he’s right.
[The esteemed Thomas H. Benton](http://chronicle.com/article/The-Year-of-Dressing-Formally/45940/):
> Although it got out of hand, I think my year of dressing formally was a worthwhile experiment. In general, professors at liberal-art colleges are encouraged to be nurturing. But I found that a higher level of formality improved my students’ learning. My larger classes ran more smoothly. I had fewer disruptions, less chatter, more note-taking. I had fewer grade appeals, even though I graded more rigorously and made larger demands. I saw fewer bare feet, boxer shorts, bed hair, and pajama pants in my classrooms. E-mail messages to me almost invariably began with “Dear Professor” instead of “Hey.”
This is a really interesting article, which is not just about style, as much as it is about the effects that dressing formally can have on your life. I’ve personally found that I just get a lot better service, and more importantly, listened to more closely when I dress more formally. That’s relevant to me as I am seen as a bit young for my profession at times.
[I want to offer a huge congratulations to my wife,][1] as she will now be featured in Nordstrom’s wedding boutiques and Nordstrom.com for her work at her company [Serephine][2]. I know first hand all the long nights she has pulled to make this happen and I am very proud of her.
[1]: http://blog.serephine.com/post/51243668813
[2]: http://www.serephine.com
[Mitch Joel][1]:
> My niece is nineteen years old. When she was sixteen, she would come home from school, take out her laptop, plop down on the couch, lift the computer lid, turn on the TV, plug in her iPod earbuds, and set her BlackBerry down next to her. From afar, it looked like she was running [NORAD][2]. But fast-forward a mere three years, and now she comes home from school, takes out her iPad… and that’s it.
Whereas I come home form work, setup my laptop on my desk, grab two iPad and my iPhone and plop down on the couch — but the thing is I only really need one of those devices. And the argument that Joel is making isn’t that the iPad rules the roost, it’s that we can only look at one device at a time (duh).
More importantly Joel notes:
> All of that core content is now readily available on one screen. From content (in text, images, audio, and video) to communications (chatting with friends on Skype or via Google Hangouts), it’s all there on this one device that rules them all.
Everything that we used to *need* multiple devices to do, can largely be done on just one device. There are certainly things I can’t do on iOS, or OS X, but more often there are just things that I *prefer* to do on a particular device. Force me to choose, and well, it doesn’t really matter what device I choose.
This is why the App Store is such a profitable space, because the more you make the decision of choosing between devices irrelevant (via filling needs with apps), the more power you are giving to users. That translates into users willing to pay to get that “power”.
[1]: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/welcome_to_the_one-screen_worl.html
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aerospace_Defense_Command