Christmas Comes Early

Hands-On: With Wii U’s Touchscreen Controller, Nintendo Could Radically Change Games | GameLife | Wired.com: "As Link duked it out with a giant hairy spider on the TV screen, we could see all sorts of secondary info on the controller screen: the dungeon map, Link’s health bar, the items he was carrying. These icons no longer cluttered up the TV screen and got in the way of the high-definition visuals. The cool part was this: With one tap of an icon on the touchscreen, the images flipped. Suddenly, seamlessly, the game was running on the touchscreen and the map, etc., was on the television."

Aahhh. So awesome.

Notification Center: "You get all kinds of notifications on your iOS device: new email, texts, friend requests, and more. With Notification Center, you can keep track of them all in one convenient location. Just swipe down from the top of any screen to enter Notification Center. Choose which notifications you want to see. Even see a stock ticker and the current weather. New notifications appear briefly at the top of your screen, without interrupting what you’re doing. And the Lock screen displays notifications so you can act on them with just a swipe. Notification Center is the best way to stay on top of your life’s breaking news."

Ahhhhh. Awesomesauce.

iTunes Match:"Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality."

Knockout.

Apple and Nintendo should just marry each other. They would have kids as cute as baby pandas, but who hit baseballs like Albert Pujols, and dominate basketball like LeBron James.

Weezer Covers Radiohead's "Paranoid Android"

I love the fact that Weezer has, probably more than almost any band out there, completely embraced what it means to be a band in 2011. Because every once in a while it leads to something incredibly cool.

Like a perfect cover of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android".

(Originally found this via Pitchfork.)

Super Excited Birthday Kid

My new favorite picture. And the title of this post is the google search that lead me to this bit of awesomeness.

And it's better animated.

Testing Out Quick Photo From The Phone

Conjecture, Magic, and A Fools Hope →

Minimal Mac | iCloud – Conjecture, Magic, and A Fools Hope:

• But what about the stuff I bought from Amazon? Ripped from CD?’ Buy it from Amazon? Rip it from CD? No matter. If iTunes sells it you can stream it.
• ‘But most of what I listen to is not on the iTunes store!’ Then, this service is not for you.

I really, really, really hope that this is how the much-prophesied Apple Streaming Music Locker Magic Box of Bits works. I doubt it will work this way (I have my doubts the music industry would go along with it), but if it did work this way, and all I had to do was upload a list of the music I wanted in my Magic iTunes Music Locker, and it was immediately available, well, that'd be enough for me.

(Via Minimal Mac.)

The Amazing Serendipity of the Interwebs

I think, by far, my favorite thing about the interwebs is the ability to randomly stumble across an incredible story you didn't even know you were interested in. Today, while just doing my normal web reading—hitting a handful of pages, RSS feeds, Twitter, etc.—I stumble across someone mentioning the John 3:16 guy.

You know, this guy:

He's the guy who any sports-loving kid who grew up in the early 80s knows as the random rainbow wig dude who showed up every major sporting event and managed to get on TV. I'm guessing, like me, pretty much everyone assumed he was a well-intentioned goofball, just trying to get on TV.

I think we all just assumed he was a precursor to the modern day Jumbotron morons who get wear stupid outfits, do stupid dances, or hold up stupid signs, all in the name of getting on the in-arena Jumbotron (not even getting on real TV).

Except, turns out, he was a grade-A certifiable nutjob. And that's the amazingness of the interwebs. You can start your day reading about technology, sports, the weather, whatever, and end up seeing the John 3:16 guy, finding him on Wikipedia, reading some of the articles about him, and then adding the documentary about him to your Netflix queue. Learning about how he went from wearing a rainbow wig to attempting to buy a gun to shoot then candidate Bill Clinton.

So yeah, he's not just a cuddly crazy guy, he's a legit crazy guy. It's worth the read. A guy who, in a different era, would have been likely exiled to the dustbin of history, only remembered in microfiche, has his story told in a documentary, written into Wikipedia, and available to everyone at the end of a hyperlink or search query.

Ah, the interwebs.

You Can’t Replace Email if You Require Email — The Brooks Review →

"You can’t replace pants with shorts when your definition of shorts is: everyone buy pants and cut the legs off — pants will still be a viable business (the consumer is just altering the usage). Same too with Twitter, Facebook, et al, they are still relying on email for certain parts of their service (like adding new users or sending notifications) while wanting to replace email at the same time."

I hadn't really thought about the ubiquitousness of email from this angle before. Even the services that are trying to replace email as the primary communications channel require you to have an email address. Obviously, this is because a) today email is the way they are used to getting their communication of passwords, logins, etc., and b) you have to have a way to communicate to people before they start using your service.

But, it would be pretty ballsy for some new service to require either email or a phone number (or <insert your method of identity here>).

(via The Brooks Review)

It’s about striving to be better than everybody else.

I said you need to strive to be better than everyone else. I didn’t say you needed to be better than everyone else. But you gotta try. That’s what character is. It’s in the trying.
Coach Eric Taylor

The most recent episode of Friday Night Lights had a great scene between Coach Eric Taylor and his quarterback, Vince Howard. (I've embedded the clip below for you to see for yourself.) In it, Coach explains to Vince about what character is. It's not necessarily about being better than everyone else. It's about trying to be better than everyone else.

And, that, in a nutshell summarizes my complete and utter disappointment with the American people.

The news of Osama bin Laden's death on Sunday night was an amazing moment in American history (and possibly in world history). Here was this man who—without any doubt—is one of most evil people to have set foot on earth. He was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, and thousands more people around the world. He was a scourge on the Earth and I am glad he is dead.

His death was cathartic. It was closure for the wounds that were opened ten years ago.

And, for just a moment, it looked like we, as an American people, might be able to move on from this chapter in our history. President Obama's address that night was measured, and of the right tenor. It did not glorify this death. It was perfunctory. He was a danger to the US, he was a mass murderer, and we did what we needed to do.

Character. President Obama seems to have it.

The rest of the American people? The American media? Not so much.

The vision that we, as Americans, shared with the world upon this momentous occasion should have been one of relief, maybe satisfaction that a mass murderer had been brought to justice. And then we should have reflected on the events of ten years ago, and attempted to exude the same quiet dignity that the President exemplified.

It’s about the character. It’s about striving to be better than everybody else.

Instead, what did we see? A bunch of drunken, spoiled, asshole college students celebrating like their team had made the Final Four. It wasn't about the moment: it was about being on TV. Maybe being the person to get interviewed on CNN. An excuse to get drunk in the middle of finals.

America, it seems, is full of douchebags.

Why were they celebrating?

Are we safer as a country? Marginally, maybe. But not in a meaningful way.

Were they dramatically impacted by 9/11? Possibly, but probably not any more so than the rest of us (and since most of them were probably in middle school, many probably less so).

Was it an outburst of good old fashioned patriotism? Maybe.

Most likely, they're just enormous fucking douchebags who thought it was cool to go get on TV, throw huge riotous parties, and make the rest of us look bad.

You might be asking, why do you care? Well, I only care inasmuch that I think this reflects horrendously on all of us, as Americans. We claim moral superiority. As a country, we lost our shit when we saw the video of unnamed Middle Eastern citizens celebrating 9/11 or Mogadishu (even if the footage was out-of-context). How dare they celebrate the deaths of Americans like that?

America, it seems, is full of douchebags and hypocrites.

I'll reiterate: I am glad we killed Osama bin Laden.

But, as Americans, we should strive to be better. We should strive to be the world leader that we are. We can be happy that bin Laden was killed, but we shouldn't rejoice in it. It does not "fix" terrorism. It very likely makes us, in the short-term, less secure. It is a cathartic and fitting end to a murderer.

But we should not relish or celebrate a death. As Coach Taylor eloquently pointed out, we should have character. We should strive to be better than everybody else. We don't have to be better, but we have to try.

And, sadly, it just doesn't feel like people care to try.

BOOM-SHAK-A-LACKA (NBA Jam on the iPhone)

On Friday, a bunch of sites mentioned that EA was having an Easter weekend iTunes Store. An assortment of EA games were at reasonable prices (then again, a bunch of EA's games are shite, and they should pay me to play them).

But, 99 cents for NBA Jam?

It didn't really matter how bad it might have been, because that's a price I couldn't possibly pass up.

And, oh, how it is awesome.

To be fair, let's start with the bad.

• As with almost any iOS action game, the controls are an on-screen joystick and buttons. It doesn't matter how well they're implemented, it's still a shitty control scheme and probably the weakest part of iOS as a gaming platform.
• If you're not wearing headphones, your hand is going to cover the speakers and you won't hear the sound.

That's pretty much it.

What's awesome? Everything. The rosters are pretty up-to-date and full of awesome unlockable and hidden players (Bird and McHale, Spud Webb and 'Nique, Stockton and Malone). The gameplay is simple enough that the touchscreen controls, as cumbersome as they might be, work well enough. The graphics are fun and solid. The sound is good, and has brought back the announcer (or at least a sound-alike) from old-school NBA Jam.

Basically, it's the same old NBA Jam with prettier graphics, modern players, and it's on a device that fits in your pocket.

Oh yeah, and it's 99 cents.

If you enjoyed NBA Jam at all when it was in the arcades or on the home systems in the 90s, you'll like it now. There's a difficulty that works for everyone, you can pause a game at any point and pick it back up again. There's a campaign mode that let's you work through all the teams, unlocking players and special attributes as you go.

NBA Jam for the iPhone will be your favorite time killer for at least a couple of weeks.

Go buy it. Now.

Instacast: A Quick Review

A good number of folks have been pimping Instacast lately, as a replacement to iOS' built-in podcast management.

Why would you need to replace iOS' built-in podcast management? There's only one reason, really: if I want to get new podcasts on my device, I have to physically sync it (or go through a ridiculous process of finding that podcast in the iTunes store and downloading it or syncing it). That's annoying.

So, what does Instacaster having going for it?

• It's got the basic functionality you need (stream, download, play, pause, double-speed)
• It's got OPML support (as of version 1.2) to let you easily (not quickly, but easily) add your podcast subscriptions
• It let's you pseudo-automatically download new podcasts right on your phone, without having to sync it

That last bullet is pretty much the big one. You can refresh your list of podcasts (on 3G or wifi) and pull down any new episodes, reasonably quickly. So, if you're away from your computer and need something new to listen to, there's always something available, and it's easier than the iTunes phone interface.

What's not so hot?

• The interface isn't the most straightforward thing ever. Expect a good bit of "oh, that's what that button does" and "wait, why isn't this thing cached on my phone" until you figure it out. It'll only take you a few tries.
• It's hindered by a fundamental limitation: the iOS APIs won't let you add songs into the device's music library. That means that I have to listen to these tracks inside of the application. That's fine, but it makes it much harder to listen to stuff through my car's iPhone interface. I have to keep track of where I was at for when I get to work and switch to using my computer and headphones (whereas podcasts in the iPod player simply sync their location and you're good to go.)

The app is $2, so regardless of the limitations, it's worth it to me to have the convenience, but if you're on the fence, wait until you see iOS 5. It wouldn't shock me to see the podcast interface overhauled, rendering the app obsolete.

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