Alex Payne, developer for Twitter, sees the release of the iPad as, potentially, the “Tinkerer’s Sunset.” I am keeping my fingers crossed for the perseverance of “openness”.
The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write. I wouldn’t have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents.
The release of the iPad is stirring mixed feelings in Steven Frank of Panic Software. In this article he tries to reconcile his understanding of the need for change in the pursuit of progress with his aging understanding of what computing should be.
I share his mixed feelings on the changing face of computing. I own an iPhone and love the ease and simplicity of it, but I grew up tweaking applications with ResEdit until they broke. I fear that by abstracting the machinery of computing away behind a shiny interface, people will eventually lose both the interest and the ability to use computers to their full potential.
Personal computing — having a computer in your house (or your pocket) — as a whole is young. As we know it today, it’s less than a half-century old. It’s younger than TV, younger than radio, younger than cars and airplanes, younger than quite a few living people in fact. In that really incredibly short space of time we’ve gone from punchcards-and-printers to interactive terminals with command lines to window-and-mouse interfaces, each a paradigm shift unto themselves.
Ultimately, sustainability means coming to terms with natural biophysical limits. So we have to get past this idea of planning around extrapolation of past trends. That the future may be different than the past is the first thing that we need to come to terms with.
On the surface, riding the train in a loop sounds like the actions of a crazy person, but I think I get it. It must be hard to work from home, and still have that sense of responsibility that comes from sitting in an office with a bunch of productive people.
I guess one way to add that back in, would be to get outside, sit amongst other members of the workforce, and maybe read the paper, as opposed to just shluffing over to the computer in your PJs.
When I first left a full-time job to begin freelancing, for a brief time, I would run, shower, dress, and ride the train in a loop from my apartment and back again to begin work at home. Ritual is important.
Bici is the italian slang for bike/bikes. Every Bertelli bicycle is a unique design object that you won’t find in any store in New York City. Every part is assembled by hand, finished and fine-tuned by me, Francesco.
These bikes are damn sexy. Go get yourself one.
The Thirty-Nine fuses a classic surfboard shape with colors reminiscent of early surf culture and then injects itself with a modern approach to board construction and performance.
It’s as if this country’s fate and culture are hot blooded lovers poised on the verge of an outburst, ready to tear each other apart, and neither one knows whether it will be fighting or fucking.
You know it's not going to get fixed that way. It's like pushing on string. You need some yanking ability, I think, with string.
The Minton Hill House strikes a delicate balance between the engaging of its panoramic hilltop position and the provision of a protective domestic environment. The house is at once an environmental filter, a view-framing device, and a series of interior and exterior gardens and courts.
