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By Brian Filed in Links, Misc Tagged with Apple, Apple TV, chain restaurants, flu, flu vaccine, Life, Steve Jobs, television, universal flu vaccine October 27th, 2011 @ 11:30 am

Yeah, one of those posts.

For my birthday back in August, Bridget and Charlotte bought me an Apple TV. You’ve probably read that Saint Steverino of Cupertino considered Apple TV merely a hobby, mainly because what he was really after was a way to reinvent the whole television, not just some box to deliver iTunes. Fast Company says that apparently His Holiness was on the verge of something Insanely Great, but now that he has gone to live in The Cloud, can his minions left here on Earth be trusted not to fuck it up? (Oh, and we really like the little Apple TV hobby box, but I don’t know if I would buy an Apple television set).

Continuing with the shtick of tying these links to my personal life, last week I took Charlotte to the pediatrician for her annual flu shot. Well, not a shot, actually. She gets the nasal version of the vaccine, which is one syringe-ful of vaccine up each nostril, like shotgunning Flonase. Flu shots are a crapshoot — the CDC or the WHO, or some other three-letter-organization tries to guess which flu will be The Big One each spring so they can start making vaccine to have ready in the fall, and they don’t alway guess right. On top of which, the vaccines are effective for as little as 30% of the people who get them. But now researchers are closing in on an all-purpose flu vaccine that would eliminate the guesswork and be more effective to boot.

Okay, can I do this one more time? Let’s see. If you are one of the people who stalk me on Facebook, you might remember that a couple of weekends ago we took Charlotte for her first dim sum brunch in Chinatown. She tried almost everything, including one tiny, reluctant bite of the chicken feet (which were utterly delicious). Now that she has reached the ripe old age of 10, we can take her to more interesting restaurants than we could when she was wee. She LOVES pho, enjoyed her Australian meat pie at KO Catering in South Boston, chowed down on smoky shredded chicken with cayenne at Sichuan Gourmet, and loved the Korean tacos at Gogi in Portland. What this all means is that we bascially NEVER have to eat at chain restaurants anymore unless we are desperate. I could go the rest of my limited days on Earth without ever stepping foot again in a Chili’s, Applebee’s, or TGI Friday’s. So I am not exactly heartbroken to read that the Great Recession Mark II is killing them all off.

Hey, whaddya know? It worked!

Corrections

By Brian Filed in Links, Misc, News Tagged with "God particle", Apple, Barack Obama, birthers, higgs boson, iPhone, Large Hadron Collider, Obama birth certificate, right-wing wackos, typwriters April 28th, 2011 @ 11:08 am

Typewriters going extinct — not yet

Large Hadron Collider scientists finding the “God Particle” — not so much

iPhone tracks your every single movement and rats you out to the Feds — sort of, but not really, and Steverino swears they’ve got a patch for that

Barack Obama releases birth certificate, proving he was born in Hawaii — still a no-good sekrit Muslin nigra according to almost 25% of the entire population of the U.S.

Reading List

By Brian Filed in Links, Misc Tagged with Apple, Apple Store, Boston, Boston sports fans, clinical death, David Letterman, death, economic equality, Joseph Stiglitz, medical ethics, multi-camera sitcoms, N+1 magazine, organ harvesting, organ transplantation, Popular Mechanics, sitcoms, Splitsider.com, Stanford School Of Medicine, television production, Vanity Fair, WFMU April 8th, 2011 @ 11:56 am

A collection of articles you might take some time to read:

This Stanford Medical School journal article considers the question of at what point is a patient “dead enough” to ethically permit organ harvesting. Clinical standards of “brain death” developed in the 1970s and ’80s are giving way to a determination of death based on the cessation of cardiac activity alone as a way of procuring organs for transplantation very shortly after “death” to address the time-critical nature of transplantation, but it has met with resistance from medical ethicists and physicians.

It’s Opening Day at Fenway Park today, and thousands of Boston sports fans have suddenly developed all sorts of 24-hour illnesses that prevent them from going to work, but not from going to the baseball game, even though the Red Sox are off to their worst start since 1945. The Boston sports fan is a particular and peculiar beast, and this n+1 article about sports radio in Boston offers some insight into the nature of the animal. And I *do* mean animal.

If you’re a federal employee, you might just find yourself with plenty of spare time on your hands by the end of the day today. The Republican jihad on America continues full-blast, and just in case you haven’t been paying attention, they aren’t going to stop until they have destroyed everything in the middle, leaving a nation of serfs and super-millionaires only. Joseph Stiglitz, one of the economists who tried to warn us all about the economic collapse in 2008, has written a piece for Vanity Fair entitled “Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%” that now tries to warn us about the perils of the wealth inequalities 30 years of Republican slash-and-burn economics have given us. You might also read this opinion piece at MarketWatch from a couple of weeks ago that sums it up neatly: “Tax the super-rich now or face a revolution”. (Personally, I am in favor of revolution)

The always-awesome “Beware Of The Blog” from ur-radio station WFMU recently had this piece about David Letterman’s early years as a performer, and how he developed his comedy through the 1970s equivalent of the old vaudeville circuit — radio DJ, local weatherman, late-night movie host, stand-up, bit performer, the works. It includes the stories of a number of other famous names from 1970s comedy, and revisits a lot of obscure TV shows from the era.

I also liked this Popular Mechanics article that’s a first-hand account of what it’s like to work at an Apple Store. There’s a lot of Kool-Aid you have to drink, apparently, and despite the casual appearance of the workers, it doesn’t sound like very much fun at all for what is essentially a glorified malljob. Better off sticking to the Playmobil version.

Finally, if you’re a student of television, you will immediately appreciate this Splitsider.com article called “In Defense of the Multi-Camera Sitcom”. As the very genre of the sitcom itself has waxed and waned over the years, the production format has similarly seen shifts in popularity. The multi-camera style features three or more cameras filming or taping what amounts to a live performance of an episode, played in front of a studio audience like a theatrical production. The single-camera style is shot more like a movie, with individual takes of every angle in every scene. Each has its advantages, both in terms of creativity and budget. The 1970s were a Golden Age of multi-camera shows like “All In The Family” and “Mary Tyler Moore”, while today’s sitcoms are predominantly single-camera.

Ignore That Man Behind The Curtain

By Brian Filed in Links, Media Tagged with "Frasier", advertising, Apple, Apple 1984 ad, broadcast television, Ken Levine, Peter Casey, Peter Pomerantsev, Russia, Russian television, Steve Hayden, Super Bowl ads February 1st, 2011 @ 11:12 am

The “1984″ commercial that introduced the Macintosh computer during the 1984 Super Bowl has become legendary over the years. Not only did it help launch the new computer, it also was one of the first “must-watch” commercials to run during the Super Bowl, transforming that event from an often so-so football championship match into a huge media vehicle. This year’s Super Bowl ad rates are running at $3 million per 30-second spot. Writing in Ad Week, former Chiat/Day ad exec Steve Hayden tells a behind-the-scenes history about the business machinations involved in even getting the commercial made, and how the Apple Board of Directors almost killed it before it ever saw the light of day.

Another fascinating behind-the-scenes story is this one in the London Review of Books from Peter Pomerantsev, a British television producer who was invited to join a Russian television production company to make knock-offs of popular reality series like “The Apprentice” and “Big Brother” (!) for domestic Russian TV. Though I have no reason to doubt the stories he tells, it’s almost like a running gag of every stereotype about corrupt Russian bureaucracy and Soviet-holdover attitudes. As it turns out, he says, many of the concepts that are popular on reality series in the U.S. and U.K. don’t translate into Russian culture, where people are disbelieving of “rags-to-riches” makeovers and the shenanigans of “bachelors”; most popular are the “Survivor” knock-offs and other competition shows.

One more behind-the-scenes story, just for kicks. Sitcom writer/director Ken Levine has one of the most interesting blogs about television that I have encountered. His insider’s perspective about how sitcoms get made and his stories about the golden days on the sets of shows like “M*A*S*H*” and “Cheers” are full of tidbits of TV history and trivia. Once in a while, he also invites people he knows/works with in the business (and by “the business”, I mean “the industry”) to post. Back in December, he featured this post from Peter Casey, one of the co-creators of “Frasier”, explaining the backstory of how that series was devised (including some interesting bits about the casting)

And For $29.95 A Month, Paul The Octopus Will Come To Your House And Operate The Remote

By Brian Filed in Tech Tagged with Android, Apple, Apple TV, Google, Google TV, iTV, remote controls, Sony October 15th, 2010 @ 10:55 am

So, back in early September, Apple announced their revamp of Apple TV, and everybody was interested for about three minutes until they all realized that it didn’t matter if the little box was cool because the service still sucked.

Around the same time the first rumors about Apple TV (now iTV, of course), Google announced that they, too, would be putting together a similar sort of service package, but instead of making a box themselves, they would simply license out the Android-based software to the regular assortment of electronics manufacturers and let them figure it out. This worked pretty well with Android on smartphones, which has taken off quite strongly, while Google’s own Nexus One phone crashed and burned in the space of six months. So, sure, let someone else make the hardware.

Though there isn’t the same legion of frothing fanbois that Apple has at its beck and call, the initial response to the announcement generated a lot of hyperbolic optimism like this because Google has managed to hang on to a lot of positive feeling in the techie crowd, despite a whole slew of dud projects over the last year. However, the first actual “Google TV” product was unveiled this week by Sony, and you can almost hear the lead balloon hitting the floor. The remote control alone will kill this sucker deader than a doornail. This TechCrunch post captures the profound ambivalence from the technogeek crowd pretty well, because most gearheads look at a remote like that as a challenge to be mastered, but even they realize that this has no chance in hell with ordinary consumers.

Like other attempts to jam the Internet and television into the same appliance, this hits the same wall: people may like to watch TV on their computers, but they don’t seem to want to use their TV *as* their computer. In this case, the iTV actually ends up looking better than the Google TV, since it adheres more closely to the idea of being a service enabler for your TV, even if the service offering is kinda weak. Yes, the iTV will probably make some apps available to run on your TV, but Apple seems to realize that there is a gulf of perception between the iPad and iTV in terms of how people will use the device, despite being able to bring the exact same stuff to either device. If Sony’s first-guy-in-the-pool effort is emblematic of how Google TV will position itself, get ready for another entry into the Unloved Technology Hall Of Fame right next to WebTV and laserdiscs.

The Sound Of A Million Fanbois Fapping

By Brian Filed in Tech Tagged with Apple, Apple TV, iTV August 26th, 2010 @ 10:13 am

And you thought it was the cicadas. Nope, they’re working up into a high whine over next week’s product announcements, with all signs pointing to this serious makeover of the otherwise underwhelming Apple TV set-top media box. This Fast Company post features FC’s usual unrestrained overzeal (while trying to pass the buck on to Kevin Rose of Digg, but we know better, right?) about the coming total revolution in all human communication that will be caused by the iTV. And Wired, also known for its willigness to get down on all fours for the PR boys from Cupertino, couldn’t wait to tell us how awesome it would be to rent TV shows from iTunes for 99 cents with our new awesome life-changing devices, which will make everything awesome. The one lone voice of sanity that I heard was over at CrunchGear, where writer John Biggs flat out says the existing Apple TV sucks and that the new one, which will bring the tightly-controlled content delivery mechanisms of the iPhone/iPad and iOS, is likely to be even less adaptable to anything but Total Submission To Steve.

Coming To A Riesenfernseher Near You!

By Brian Filed in Media, Tech Tagged with 3DTV, Apple, Apple TV, CES, consumer electronics, Consumer Electronics Show, iPad, iTV, riesenfernsehers August 12th, 2010 @ 11:19 am

While Hollywood still seems intent on turning every movie made into a 3D extravamaganza whether it needs to be or not, apparently TV makers are now running away from 3D like residents of Tokyo in a Godzilla movie. Two years ago, they couldn’t get on board with the upcoming All-3D-All-The-Time Revolution fast enough, but the 3D backlash is so in full-swing that even Time Magazine has reported on it. CrunchGear says that with four months to go before CES 2011, electronics makers have already stopped promoting 3DTV and have moved on to another fad: apps. And by “apps”, they mean the combination of built-in wireless networking (a feature that has been coming along without too much fanfare for a while) and software widgets that let viewers access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on. Verizon added that functionality into its FiOS service last year, but this would be independent of your service provider because it would be controlled by the television itself.

The reason they’re all talking about this now instead of waiting for CES? The Apple fanboi propaganda machine started spinning in overdrive this week for what might be the Next Big Announcement at Apple’s September press event: the much-anticipated overhaul of Apple TV into a cloud-based set top box redubbed (what else?) iTV. All the gadget websites are talking about the leaked details this morning, but here’s Fast Company’s run-down. The box will drop Mac OS for iOS, and the video output will only be 720p, but in addition to streaming video and music, the iTV will be able to download and run iTunes App Store apps natively because it will essentially be that ginormous iPad we all joked about. Unlike some of the more fanciful pre-launch rumors about the iPad, the stories in the tech press are all pretty consistent and reasonable, and Apple needs to do something to make up for the gaffes with the iPhone 4, so I think the confidence level about this should be a lock.

It Just Works…After These Messages From Our Sponsors

By Brian Filed in Tech Tagged with advertising, adware, Apple, Mac OS, The Register.com July 28th, 2010 @ 10:22 am

While everybody has been obsessing over the iPhone 4G “Antennagate” issue, the British IT news website The Register notes that Apple has submitted a continuation of a patent they submitted in 2009 that integrates advertisements into the operating system in a way that literally stops everything the computer is doing and forces the user to watch the ad before letting them continue working.

The code would allow the user to temporarily delay the ad, as shown in the diagram above. The revised code in the new patent filing does remove provisions that would deter users from disabling or tampering with the function by causing the OS to stop responding to an input device (keyboard, mouse, etc.) or by causing the application that was running to “cease generating output”.

Apple explains the idea as a way to let people have “free” OS upgrades — instead of paying the typical $69-$129 that Apple charges for a major upgrade, you could have it for free in return for letting your computer be crippled by occasional advertisements popping up, with no way of escaping them. Building in ads in return for free software isn’t a new idea — I have a couple of apps that I use all the time that always display an ad because I didn’t want to fork over fifty bucks — and there were even some PC makers who literally gave away their computers to people but forced them to have a frame of ads around their web browser window at all times, so I suppose it was just a matter of time before somebody applied the idea to the whole damn OS. It’s just disappointing (not surprising, just disappointing) that Apple might be the first one to implement it.

Probably Not What Steve Jobs Has To Say

By Brian Filed in Tech Tagged with antenna problems, Apple, Apple Time Capsule, iPhone, iPhone 4G, overheating, Steve Jobs, time capsule repairs July 16th, 2010 @ 10:58 am

Steve Jobs is making a big public announcement today, and it’s expected that Apple will announce that they’re going to do something to fix the problem with the antenna on the iPhone 4G. Personally, I think it would be AWESOME if Apple promised to send each and every iPhone user a big ol’ roll of duct tape, but that’s probably not what’s going to happen.

Also probably not gonna happen: no official endorsement by Steverino of this awesome faux bacon carrying case for your iPhone (via bookofjoe), but I’m betting that Steve himself probably carries his duct-taped iPhone 4G in one of these beauties and shows it off to all the other bajillionaires at his Bajillionaire Club meetings.

Meanwhile, to much less fanfare…Apple has quietly announced that they are beginning a fix-or-repair program for Time Capsules purchased between February and June 2008. You will recall that there has been a well-documented problem with the hard drives inside Time Capsules overheating and failing after about 18 months of use. I’m guessing this isn’t high on Steve’s deck of Powerpoint slides today, either.

Maybe Apple Meant We Should Bury Them In Our Yards For 50 Years

By Brian Filed in Tech Tagged with Apple, Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register, drive failure, Mac OS, overheating, Time Capsule November 4th, 2009 @ 11:36 am

For my birthday this year, I convinced Bridget to buy me a Time Capsule network backup server. Apple had just launched the 2TB model and retailers were dumping the older 500GB model, so it was easy to find deals on the smaller ones. Charlotte and I both have Macs, so it seemed like a good way to add a painless backup solution AND the wireless access point built into the Time Capsule let me extend the signal of our home network so that I could sit in the living room and have a nice strong signal. 500 gigs isn’t as much as it used to be in terms of storage, but it’s more than enough for our backup/archival needs.

Now I’m reading that Time Capsules seem to have a disturbingly consistent lifetime limitation of about 18 months. After that length of time, apparently the hard drives wear out from overheating, and, due to Apple’s design of the device, which doesn’t really allow you to open the box and tinker around, the whole thing turns into a lovely white-plastic-and-brushed-aluminum brick. Moreover, because this happens AFTER your warranty has expired, Apple disavows any responsibility for fixing or replacing the thing. Charming.

The writer of the Guardian article has tried to get Apple to own up to the issue; consumer protection laws in the U.K. are a bit stiffer than they are here in the U.S., and there’s a case to be made that Apple does have to replace the drives in units sold there. He also notes that thermal damage is a repeated theme in Apple hardware: similar problems have affected AirPort Express nodes and at least one Mac laptop model. This Gizmodo post about the problem points to a website called The Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register, which hopes to collect enough serial numbers of bricked Time Capsules to demonstrate that Apple is deliberately ignoring the problem.

Since I have a bit to go before my Time Capsule hits that 17 month-17 day wall, I am not quite in disaster recovery mode just yet. I happen to have another 500GB external drive that I was using on my Windows PC, and once I get that cleaned up and reformatted for Mac OS, I can use it to make an archival copy of my Time Capsule drive and set it aside for that fateful day.

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