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While [Shawn Blanc thinks Fantastical 2 for iPhone is *the best*][1], I am more reserved. I think Fantastical 2 is tied with Horizon ((I have a business relationship with the developer of Horizon, but no business interests in Horizon itself.)) for a very close *second* place, as Apple’s built in calendar app stands atop the mountain.

First let me explain my two problems with Fantastical 2, as both can be seen with a screenshot.

1. When there are no events for the day, that is not immediately evident if you are prone to taking a quick glance. Instead one could be forgiven for mistaking tomorrow as today. (see the red arrow) I did this dozens of times while testing the app.
2. Why are all-day events given the same priority of time based events? That is, I think of all-day events more like reminders (hey garbage day idiot), than I do as appointments. I cannot be alone here. I would love to see all-day events de-emphasized a bit.

Other than that, Fantastical is a superb app. However I like Apple’s offering better for two specific reasons:

1. The live date in the icon without an icon badge is just killer. I know third-party developers cannot do this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it.
2. The “search view” in Calendar is excellent for my needs. (But suffers from the same problem as Fantastical’s #1 issues listed above. While they both handle “all day” events similarly, I give an edge to Apple here as I find it easier to note it is all day. That’s a highly subjective call though.)

I know a lot of people hate the new Calendar app, but I am not among them. For those that just hate it for some reason that I cannot comprehend, both Fantastical 2 and Horizon offer excellent alternatives. If pressed, I’d give a slight edge to Fantastical 2 over Horizon as I find it “fitting” better visually on iOS 7.

[1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2013/10/review-fantastical-2-iPhone/

After I found the Spyderco Sage series of knives I had pretty much stopped searching for a better everyday pocket knife. I was exceedingly happy, with the Sage I in particular. However, as things changed, I became annoyed by the physical width of the knife. Particularly when I wanted to keep it in my pocket, instead of clipped to the top, it was too wide to slide my hand past to get at other things in my pocket.

There was only one other knife I wanted to try: the Chris Reeves Small Sebenza. I ordered the left-handed model (which means that the blade lock and opening nub are flipped to make the knife accommodate a left handed person) and put it through a few months of testing.

Upon opening the knife I immediately noticed it’s build quality. The Spyderco knives are excellent but the Sebenza is an entirely different level of quality. The best evidence is the back of the knife blade: On almost every other knife I have tried the back is angular in some way. It’s not something you really want to touch if you can avoid it.

But the back of the Sebenza is something I really want to touch — a disturbing amount. The back edge is rounded and polished. It feels smoother than the back of an iPhone. Even the jimping, which is cut-in to provide better grip for your thumb in wet conditions, feels smooth and civilized.

In fact I think “civilized” is the most apt description for this knife. Every knife has a personality. Most SOG knives feel aggressive. The Spyderco Sage knives feel like trusted tools. The Sebenza just feels civilized.

The opening and closing actions are smooth as silk. There’s no jitter, even when the knife contains a bunch of pocket lint. One downside: This knife is slower to open than the Spyderco, but that’s largely due to the width difference and thumb stud versus large cutout that Spyderco is known for. Where the Spyderco can provide easier grip and more leverage, the Sebenza has neither, but makes up for it in overall width savings.

The knife itself looks absolutely stunning. The blade material is topnotch S35V. ((Older models use S30V, new models use S35V.)) The frame is a nice titanium finish, which will show wear.

Of all the knives I have tested this blade stands apart for two reasons:

1. It is shockingly sharp. I don’t know if it’s due to shape, blade design or the upgraded S35V steel, but it always feels sharper than other knives — even just after sharpening. I went a full two months without sharpening and it still felt sharp.
2. It collects a lot less “tape goop” than the Sage knives. (Tape goop is that crap that sticks to your knife when you cut open packing tape.)

The Sebenza, unlike any other knife I have tested, is truly a fantastic knife to use, look at and handle. It’s also three times the price of the next best knife. Is it worth it?

The Sebenza is absolutely worth every penny. However, as an everyday carry, it’s not that much better than the Spyderco Sage 1. If you prefer a smaller profile knife, then the Sebenza is the only other knife I would recommend. For me, the Sebenza is worth it, but it’s not a knife I would recommend to everyone. If you can comfortably pocket the Spyderco, that’s your knife. Replacement and guilt costs are lower with the Sage I. If you can’t pocket the Sage I, or you want the absolute best (price be damned), Chris Reeves Small Sebenza is the one.

Buy Them:

• Chris Reeves Small Sebenza (Left handed model)
• Spyderco Sage I

The iPad Air reviews are out, and they appear overwhelmingly positive. As for which you should buy, only [John Gruber tackled that question][1]. Here’s his wrap-up on how I suspect most readers here will be using the iPad (as a laptop companion):

> For me, personally, with my primary uses of the iPad being reading web pages, Twitter, email, and books,2 the larger display of the Air doesn’t have as much appeal. I think I’m going to hold out and buy a new iPad Mini for myself. But it’s a damn close call.

Impressive that it is that close of a call, leading me to believe it really is more of a personal call than a call that can be backed up with clear reasons why. Interestingly, Gruber notes that thumb-typing on the mini is very important to him:

> But for me, as an iPad thumb-typist, the Mini makes it easier to type.

He also notes that he doesn’t like thumb-typing on the Air, while [Jim Dalrymple on the other hand noted this about thumb typing on the Air][2]:

> This smaller size is great. If you have decent sized hands you can type with two thumbs on the iPad in portrait, something I wasn’t really able to do with the last generation iPad without a lot of stretching. Clearly a full-size iPad is not something you will be thumb typing with all the time1, but it does give you an idea of how much smaller the iPad Air is.

I still think iPad-thumb-typers are crazy, but it’s good to know the Air is making it possible for *some* people.

[Over at AnandTech they have a great photo][3] (hit the link to see it) of the new angle that the smart cover holds the iPad at when in “movie viewing” mode. It looks like it will be a much better angle for typing with a bluetooth keyboard too.

I will say the three-panel smart covers are crap compared to the four panel ones, but the omission of metal on the cover is, erm, *smart*. ((Apologies.))

I stand by my [assessment that the Air is the way to go][4].

[1]: http://daringfireball.net/2013/10/the_iPad_air
[2]: http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/10/29/review-iPad-air/
[3]: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-iPad-air-review
[4]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/10/air-always-the-air/

[Conor Friedersdorf](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/someone-is-lying-about-nsa-surveillance-of-angela-merkel/280907/):

> If I had to bet, I’d put my money on Obama having known all along. But if he didn’t know, it’s absurd to insist that it would’ve been too impractical to tell him.

Which is worse: the President not knowing what his own spy agency is doing (either because that agency is lying to him, or he doesn’t want to know), or the President knowing about it all, approving it, and then lying to the rest of the world (including those that elected him)?

[Federico Viticci on why he likes the iPad mini better,][1] includes this bit in his article:

> You don’t hear people saying that, because of the size differences, the 13-inch MacBook Air is for consumption and the 15-inch MacBook Pro is for creation.

Viticci’s post is really solid, but this is a really odd point. It’s odd because the better analogy is the 11″ and 13″ MacBook Air. Those two really mirror the iPad (and the coming Air) and iPad mini situation better, where the smaller is (seemingly) a lot more popular, but for many the slightly larger 13″ screen is likely the better option.

My assumption is that most people aren’t going to buy both, and are likely to use the iPad *a lot*, and given that assumption I still think he Air will be the better option (just as I would recommend the 13″ MacBook Air). If you want a smaller screen for portability, the iPhone 5S *is* the best choice.

[1]: http://www.macstories.net/stories/iPad-mini-for-content-creation/

The iPad air: is the iPad that you should get, but allow me to explain.

I’ve been mulling over which iPad to get, as I suspect many are. Before the event I figured on getting the retina iPad mini, but the Air really changes that. Right now, and I suspect with the faster chip and retina display, the mini is (and will be) primarily fantastic for three reasons:

1. It’s easier to stash in a bag, or on your person.
2. It’s easier to hold when reading for long periods. (Especially in bed, where I expect many mini lovers are using it.)
3. It may be the best wifi hotspot you can buy.

Ok, so number three isn’t really something I would consider when deciding which iPad to purchase, but it is still a fact. What the mini is not better than a full-sized iPad for is:

1. Actually reading. Perhaps this changes with the retina screen, but I have a hard time getting the font sizing feeling ideal in any app, and the mini sucks for reading web pages when compared to the full sized iPad.
2. Typing. I’m typing this on my iPad, and I type posts often on my iPad, but I actively try to avoid typing on the iPad mini. I even prefer to type on my iPhone over the iPad mini. The mini keyboard isn’t bad, it’s just very awkward to use because of the size of the device.
3. Games. Yes a faster mini will help with this, but it’s almost always a lot better to play games on a bigger screen. (I can’t think of a reason a smaller screen is better, but I don’t feel like fielding emails about this, so we will stick with “almost always”.)
4. Watching video. If smaller was better, we would have never moved beyond the original video iPod.
5. Sharing the screen with someone (i.e. “here, look at this”) is a joke on the mini. You may think this doesn’t happen often, but it does for me at work and I can’t imagine I am alone. I often share the screen when viewing PDFs, and pictures.

So unless you plan to only use your iPad when reading in bed, or a hotspot, and you usually need to quickly be able to stash the iPad — well unless you need it for *just* that, you will likely enjoy the full sized iPad air much more.

The iPad mini will always feel awesome when you pick it up, but that quickly fades once you start using it and realize that you just wish your large iPad was lighter.

Now it is.

Having both, I can say that I love the way the mini feels, but I almost always *want* to use the full size iPad if I can. I suspect that, with the iPad Air, I will have little need *or* want for an iPad mini.

[James Ball][1]:

> The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sorry, where’s the problem here? Is this not the NSA’s job?

I assume the story is that President Obama agreed not to monitor a leaders phone calls? I have to assume that because this seems an awful lot like *actual* best practices for national security to me.

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls

[Charles Arthur for The Guardian][1]:

> Yet writing in December 2005, the then head of search and user experience Marissa Mayer insisted that following a tieup to provide search for AOL, that besides never providing “biased” results, “There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”
> Asked why Google had gone back on that clear promise, Google said in a statement that “We’re currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries.”

I love the response from Google, well the non-response. It’s the old “but *our* ads are different, and users (read: advertisers) will love them.”

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-breaks-promise-banner-ads-search-results