Joe Mullin reporting:
> “The issue here is not about the right to assert one’s patent,” said McCaskill. “It’s not even really about the patent system. It’s about the deceptive and unfair practice of threatening consumers. It’s about scam artists preying on the vulnerable.”
Senator Claire McCaskill, my new favorite senator.
Fraser Speirs:
> I’ll leave you with this: my iPad Air is faster than that 11″ MacBook Air and it has the same amount of storage. My iPad gets at least twice the battery life of that laptop and tips the scales at less than half the weight. It cost 65% of the price of the MacBook Air and has integrated cellular networking that can’t be had on an Apple laptop at any price.
I love the iPad Air in a way that is seemingly proven less irrational everyday.
I have no clue why, but amazingly this works.
A good post from Richard Gaywood, and I think it is largely accurate. I am, however, a stickler about the fact that Gaywood (as stated in the article) is (might be?) going to work for Google, so he very much has a reason to *want* to like the device and I don’t think that fact should be discounted.
That said, I think it is a pretty good take, and if I didn’t distrust Google so much I might try one.
Good to know.
[Yesterday](https://brooksreview.net/2013/11/no-one-was-waiting-to-read-this/) I mentioned that one of the things I thought I still couldn’t do on my iPad was to edit RAW photo files. Turns out I was wrong — I hadn’t looked in a while. This morning I came across Filterstorm Neue that has a plethora of photo editing abilities, but importantly can import and edit RAW photo files.
I’ve been playing with it all morning, and while it will take some getting used to it is definitely a very good app.
The biggest issues that I have are:
1. No native export to anything but camera roll and FTP.
2. The noise reduction abilities are far behind Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture.
Other than that it is a pretty solid editor. If you like snapping lots of RAW pictures, but maybe don’t like to drag a computer with you, this is a good option (iPad and iPhone app) as it is touch driven (no sliders) and has decent masking abilities.
I just updated the sale page, and posted my Hard Graft Flat Pack. It’s a good deal for a really great bag.
Watts Martin:
> Microsoft needs someone who can come in and get rid of things that aren’t working, which appears to be the main appeal of Ford’s Mulally. But Elop has certainly demonstrated a willingness—some would say an unseemly eagerness—to shitcan things that don’t align with his chosen direction.
In other words, Microsoft needs someone to come in and start saying ‘no, HELL NO’.
Ten dollars nets you the full pack 100 parallax ready iOS wallpapers for both iPad and iPhone. John Carey’s site is my one stop shop for *all* my wallpaper needs, so I am really happy to be able to pay him for his fantastic work.
> Today, we’re releasing the BitTorrent Sync Beta API. The new API will allow developers to create distributed social media, communications, and enterprise apps on top of the platform. It’s designed to work across major operating systems; including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Here’s hoping some really great iOS apps start getting built around this. BitTorrent Sync is really a fantastic service.
Gave Weatherhead goes through how to setup server-side mail rules. I too use a lot of Mail.app rules, and that works for me since I have a Mac mini server in a data center, but server side rules are a lot better. Weatherhead has a nice view of how you get started here.
(I had been using OS X Server to filter the SPAM, but I don’t like the way it filters. It is simply ineffective for some types. I recently added [SpamSieve](http://c-command.com/spamsieve/) to the mix. I am still training it, but just a week into trying it and I am much happier with the performance.)
Matt Henderson, talking about why he is switching away from the universally loved Ristretto:
> First, its vertical orientation. When all my gear is packed in the bag, it’s quite tight in depth (from front to back). However, since it’s tall, there’s still a lot of unused (and unusable) volume in the top of the bag.
That’s a really astute point and one that becomes very annoying when you are trying to cram a bunch of crap into the bag to get home. I ran into that a bunch when I had the bag, but I never put it together as being part of the vertical nature of the bag.
Henderson bought the Co-Pilot (a bag that has always interested me) and has some good thoughts on his limited usage of the bag thus far.
The one thing I cannot be convinced of is that the Dyneema nylon looks good. I like the checkerboard design on the inside of the bag, but it looks silly to me on the exterior.
Bare Feats:
> The iPad Air is truly twice as fast as the iPad 4 running the three CPU crunch tests and two GPU intensive tests above. BrowserMark was the only exception.
Julian Borger:
> The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency.
And, my favorite bit:
> The German, French and Spanish governments have reacted angrily to reports based on National Security Agency (NSA) files leaked by Snowden since June, revealing the interception of communications by tens of millions of their citizens each month. US intelligence officials have insisted the mass monitoring was carried out by the security agencies in the countries involved and shared with the US.
Gabe Weatherhead:
> This is the bag you finish with, not the bag you start with.
Oh, and that’s 8lbs *empty*.
[Kerry Dawson](http://dailymacview.com/2013/11/02/twenty-four-hours-with-the-ipad-air/) on the iPad Air:
> It is probably one of the most exciting devices to have emerged from Apple for a while. Although the iPad Air has predecessors and nobody can say it doesn’t have a great lineage to call its own, it stands unique in its line.
*Agreed.*
Forrest Wickman:
> I, like everyone cool (or trying to be cool) in my high school, one-strapped all the way. It was a foundational tenet of cool—you might argue about what kind of music was cool, or what clothes, or what hairstyles, but it was a given that one-strapping was the only way to wear a backpack. Is one-strapping really not cool anymore? And if so, how could something once so cool become so not?
Absolutely fascinating look at pop culture in the US.
[Jim Dalrymple](lhttp://www.loopinsight.com/2013/10/31/j-d-power-tablet-numbers-dont-add-up/):
> So cost is the lowest percentage of importance. Apple scored higher in every category, except price which is ranked the lowest by percentage, but yet Samsung wins?
Matt Drance on the patent filings against Google:
> If you think that sounds like nearly 95% of Google’s revenue, you’re not alone. This sole patent feels like enough motivation for Google to have won this auction at all costs. Not only did Google not win, it made joke bids. What were they thinking?
Joe Mullin:
> The complaint tries to use the fact that Google bid for the patents as an extra point against the search giant. “Google subsequently increased its bid multiple times, ultimately bidding as high as $4.4 billion,” write Rockstar’s lawyers. “That price was insufficient to win the auction, as a group led by the current shareholders of Rockstar purchased the portfolio for $4.5 billion. Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit.”
This is going to get nasty. Can’t wait.