By John Gruber
Mux — Video for developers
Linked List: September 15, 2008
Monday, 15 September 2008
- DFW: ‘Roger Federer as Religious Experience’ ★
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Another terrific non-fiction piece by David Foster Wallace: this August 2006 piece on Roger Federer for The New York Times’s Play Magazine.
- From the DF Archive: Closed Is Open ★
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Vis a vis the aforelinked item regarding Microsoft’s “choice” mantra, here’s a DF piece from 2003: “Reading between the lines as Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media division, lays out Microsoft’s shamelessly Orwellian party line regarding digital music.”
- Joe Wilcox on Microsoft’s ‘Choice’ Strategy for Windows Mobile ★
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Joe Wilcox on Windows Mobile:
Microsoft executives harp on about choice. That’s fine if businesses or consumers choose your product. The local supermarket offers lots of choice, but I can walk to the pricier convenience store. The point: Choice is good but it’s not a market differentiator. People need good choices, and Windows Mobile doesn’t feel like one of them right now.
The “choice” mantra was Microsoft’s oft-repeated response to the iPod back circa 2002–2004, and their entire explanation as to why PlaysForSure was going to win and the iPod would be relegated to some sort of Macintosh-sized niche. I’ll have to do some research to see how that turned out.
- LED Football for iPhone ★
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Peter Cohen reviews TouchGrove’s LED Football game for iPhone — a replica of the late-’70s handheld electronic game from Mattel. Could just be that, at age 35, I’m in the bull’s-eye for this game’s demographic, but I love it. At just $1, it’s a steal.
- HP Working on Their Own Desktop OS? ★
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Interesting report by Aaron Ricadela at BusinessWeek:
The ecosystem that Microsoft has built up around its Windows operating system is showing signs of strain. In one of several recent moves by partners that sell or support the company’s software, Hewlett-Packard, the world’s No. 1 PC maker, has quietly assembled a group of engineers to develop software that will let customers bypass certain features of Vista, the latest version of Windows. Employees on a separate skunk works team are even angling to replace Windows with an HP-assembled operating system, say three sources close to the company.
It’d be a big bite to chew, but if there’s any company in the world that could do it, it might be HP. I hope it’s true.
- Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update ★
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In Software Update now. Long list of fixes in the release notes.
- Best Buy Buys Napster for $121 Million ★
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Seems like a clear response to the iTunes Store’s rise to the top spot in the U.S. retail market. Selling music on CDs is quickly turning into a niche.
You’d think they could have built their own online store from scratch for less than $121 million, though. I think Best Buy’s been taken to the cleaners on this deal.
- A Modest Proposal ★
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Jeffrey Zeldman:
If you’re selling toothpaste, your claims must be vetted by legal and medical professionals. But not if you’re selling a candidate.
If you’re selling a candidate, not only can you lie about his record, but more to the point, you can lie about his opponent.
- Harper’s Magazine: David Foster Wallace, in Memoriam ★
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Harper’s has published its collection of work by David Foster Wallace. “Ticket to the Fair” and “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage” are two of my favorites, but it’s all good. “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise” became the title piece of his essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.
- Air Sharing 1.0 ★
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Air Sharing is a terrific utility for the iPhone. It uses Bonjour networking to run a WebDAV file server. You mount the server as a volume in the Finder (or on Windows or Linux), and you can send files back and forth to your iPhone. On the iPhone, it provides file viewers/players for a slew of common formats, such as iWork, Safari web archives, PDF, RTF, movies, audio, and images.
The regular price is $7, but the introductory price is free. (Via Michael Tsai.)
- Financial Russian Roulette ★
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Paul Krugman on today’s Wall Street news:
For example, today much of the Fed’s portfolio is tied up in loans backed by dubious collateral. Also, officials are worried that their rescue efforts will encourage even more risky behavior in the future. After all, it’s starting to look as if the rule is heads you win, tails the taxpayers lose.
- Hope ★
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Photograph by Michael David Murphy.
- Trip Cubby ★
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Remember TripLog/1040, the mileage and expense logging app for the iPhone with the, uh, questionable UI aesthetic? Trip Cubby is the same idea, done right. Looks like a winner if you need this sort of app.