He shoots...

..he scores. Of course.

In case anyone missed it, enjoy:



This guy can't be for real.

Looking up

I've lived in New York City for thirteen years, but I will never take the buildings for granted. Every time I walk by one of the big ones, I can't help but stare, and often snap a photo.

Today was a good day for that.

The Obama "New Yorker" cover

I'm sure you've all seen it.

My $0.02? It's a mildly amusing portrait of an image of what a lot of Obama supporters would like to think a lot of the Obama haters have in their minds when they think about him.

In a certain way, it's "cute". But it's also obvious, not very clever at what it's doing, and it's certainly controversial given the media climate.

It's more controversial than clever or creative, which is what I think the big shame is. It's easy to be controversial. I'd be all for something that was potentially way more offensive, if it was more clever in its approach than this cover was. This was just obvious and didn't push any boundaries.

Anyway, they've got a right to print it. I suspect everyone who sees it and appreciates it is already an Obama supporter. And a few people who are not will latch onto it as propaganda for their anti-Obama cause, regardless of whether or not they "get it". So net-net, I think this harms the Obama campaign a little bit, if it does anything at all. That's not "The New Yorker"'s concern, of course.

But regardless, what's refreshing to me is that the person with the most reasonable take on the whole thing turns out to be- drumroll please- Obama himself. Check it out- he's note-perfect in my opinion, from beginning to end:



There's also a great clip of him at a press event where he is first told about the cover, before he's actually seen it. As he's listening to the reporter describe it, he gives a comically exasperated look and shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "This whole thing is silly." I can't find that clip, but it's gold.

I love this guy.

Christopher Lloyd's reel

Not really, but this is great. I almost stopped watching it halfway through, but I'm glad I didn't.



One of my favorite movie quotes of all time is at 1:28, and the best bit of this montage immediately follows, starting at 1:32.

Link courtesy Mike.

Good bug post

I really like reading about intricate software bugs and the resulting solutions. And I'm not afraid to say so in public.

Wil Shipley's got a good one here. (Courtesy Daring Fireball, of course.)

Great quote: "The old adage (not mine) is that 99% of the time operating system bugs are actually bugs in your program, and the other 1% of the time they are still bugs in your program, so look harder, dammit."

Explosions

This is one of the funniest videos I've ever seen:



It's funny to me for many reasons that I think are tough to explain, but I love imagining the story behind the camera. I love watching the progression of explosions. I love watching how the miniature scale causes absurd things to happen (see especially 0:13 and 0:37).

My favorite moment is this one: 0:43+. What is going on? Not sure, but putting myself in their shoes, it must have been awesome.

And I'm very proud of them at the end, where they've just pulled off something big in front of a crowd where maybe even their parents were present and clapping.

Good work, guys.

The Onion

Every once and a while it's worth mentioning how spot-on The Onion can be every once and a while. There have been quite a few good Onion videos recently. Check out this one:


Entertainment Scientists Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013

Here's a picture I took at a suburban grocery store today:

Happy Fourth of July

Our president sucks and we're a nation that's been practically
ignoring all of our serious challenges, but I love my country and I'm
proud to live here.

Indy 4 take 2

There's a great line in Bottle Rocket where Luke Wilson reflects on a conversation he just had with his younger sister, who has demonstrated wisdom beyond her grade-school years. With frustration and confusion in his eyes, he asks, "When did Grace get so cynical?!"

That's how I felt as I walked out of the theater after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday afternoon. I was thinking about myself, and how bitter I had become after I saw the movie a month ago for the first time.

After my initial letdown, I knew I had to go back and see the movie again to come to a more informed conclusion about how I felt about it. I was expecting to have my disappointment and anger cemented, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The conditions were perfect. I walked out of my office at 12:30, heading out for the long weekend. I walked a few blocks, and the city had that magic NYC feel to it- all kinds of people walking by you, the Empire State Building peering down at you over the tops of the shorter buildings in the Flatiron district, taxis all over the place. It was bright and sunny.

I walked to a theater on 19th and Broadway, nothing fancy but a place I have memories of seeing many movies in, with many people, over the years. I grabbed some popcorn and sat down. I was one of very few people in the theater. A few rows behind me there was an older man sitting next to what looked like his grandson, which I found touching.

And then I watched the movie, and the things that bothered me so much the first time I saw it didn't bother me as much, and the things I liked the first time I liked even more.

When the credits rolled, I sat there for a while, thinking about how my strong negative reaction about the movie the first time probably had more to say about me than about the movie itself.

I would rank Indy 4 as the weakest of the four films, but it is not an abomination.

I think I need to chill out a little bit. Maybe pay a little more attention to Dignan, and less to Grace.

Thoughts on iPhone 3G and AT&T

AT&T has inspired me to begin podcasting.

Stomp!

I am proud to call Dave Hill a friend of mine:

Twitter suggestion

Here's a set of functionality that would dramatically improve Twitter's usefulness:

1. The ability to group people you follow and assign those groups priorities. So, for example, friends might be priority one, casual acquaintances priority two, and people you follow for fun- bloggers, say- category three. Or something like that.
2. A sliding scale at the top of the Twitter window that allows you to dynamically raise or narrow the scope of your Twitter message stream to include only category one messages, or category one and two, or all three.

You get the idea. A system like this would make it easy to quickly expand the scope of people you follow without constraining your ability to focus on the content you want to focus on, when you want to focus on it.

Sorry, Bill

If this is true, Bill Clinton can kiss my ass.

Shame.

From an inspirational, if flawed, presidential success story to a pathetic loser.

Classic NYC moment

"Look at that guy, stuck in gridlock while people walk all around his car and prevent him from getting out of the interesection. I'm just going to hold back for a second and let him pass. Come on, people... Screw it, I'm crossing."

The pace of iPhone development

John Gruber has a post that contains this astute observation on the pace of Apple's iPhone development in comparison to the iPod:

"In short, if you want to know what to expect from the iPhone product platform going forward, consider the iPod. Given how successful the iPod has been, I can’t see any reason why Apple shouldn’t follow a similar timeline with the iPhone.

The original iPod shipped in October 2001. The second generation model came the next summer, and the only signficant difference was that it switched from a moving click wheel to a touch-sensitive one. Most notably, Apple didn’t expand to a second form factor until January 2004 with the iPod Mini. Photo support in the fall of 2004, video support in 2005. One new thing at a time.

In one year with the iPhone, we’re getting three: 3G, GPS, and a full-fledged third-party SDK. The iTunes Music Store didn’t appear until April 2003, and it didn’t support Windows users until October 2003, two full years after the debut of the original iPod. So with the App Store coming just one year in, if anything, the iPhone platform is moving faster than the iPod did.

So, patience. "

He brings up good points and I think he's fundamentally right. However, there is one crucial difference between the iPhone and the iPod: the iPod was in a league of its own when it launched, with little to no competition. The iPhone is playing in an intensely competitive market where Apple cannot afford to move at the same pace it has in the past.

Done

Just finished "A Feast for Crows", the fourth (and last published) book in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.

The first four books tally 3,882 paperback pages. There are three more books expected in the series; the next- already several years late- expected possibly this fall.

To call this work an epic is an understatement.

More to come on this in the future, but if you're interested in epic fantasy/adventure/whatever you want to call it, this is the stuff.

Return of the Jedi cut scene

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