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not, not as onederful

Friday,  01/14/11  05:51 PM

I haven't posted in a few days, and you may be wondering why (or, in keeping with a theme, you may be onedering :)  I am too.  On Wed I woke up early in a crummy mood, and I began a post titled "not as onederful".  I ran out of time and didn't post it, and as the day progressed crummy stuff happened, and as I piled on in the not-yet-posted post it became a negative froth.  After work I had a nice workout, and didn't feel "not as onderful" anymore, so I didn't post it.  Yesterday was amazing - a great day capped by a nice dinner with a friend - and I no longer connected with "not as onderful".  All day that title has been staring at me from my desktop.  So here goes, I've deleted "not as onderful", and am moving on :)

Happy Birthday to Wikipedia; now ten years old!  Of all the things that have happened on the Internet (Netscape, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) I'd have to say Wikipedia is the most unexpected and wonderful. 

And Happy Birthday to iTunes; now ten years old!  Yes, it did revolutionize online music, in fact it revolutionized online media, as it proved people would pay for "easy" even if "free" was available.  I remember well that a key was making iTunes available on Windows; at the time there was debate but in hindsight it was clearly the right decision. 

And so we have the Verizon iPhone.  Dan Lyons thinks the Verizon iPhone is too late... to save the iPhone from Android.  "The iPhone, in contrast, is a bit like the situation people once had with Henry Ford’s Model T, where you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black.John Gruber notes "The Model T was a massive hit, dominating the market for over a decade", and then wonders: "I can't decide whether Lyons is really this wrong, or if The Daily Beast makes its writers post eye-rollingly contrarian stuff like this just to get links."  He's really that wrong.  BTW this is the same Dan Lyons who writes the awesome Fake Steve Jobs blog. 

Frickin Lasers: fact vs fiction.  Good to know. 

Moth worlds!Even cooler than frickin lasers: frickin Moths!  These little hydrofoiling sailboats have my attention.  Ah, if I only had time... 

Mark Pilgrim: Dive into 2010.  As I play with HTML5, I am finding his Dive into HTML5 book to be an awesome resource.  And you have to love this: "I write free books and people buy them.  It works out surprisingly well.

Why am I not surprised: IE9 tries to implement HTML5, hilarity ensues.  "Microsoft announced with much fanfare that they included support for <canvas> in IE9.  Unfortunately I took their word at face value and assumed that my existing HTML5 code would seamlessly start working..."  I actually don’t think MS intends to be incompatible, I just think they have fostered an environment wherein compatibility is not valued.  They should read Mark's book! 

The reason I am investigating HTML5 is that iOS doesn't support Flash.  But the Samsung Galaxy does, and Bertelen Mesko tells me it supports it well.  Yay.  So do other Android devices... 

Here we have hex words.  Some of them are quite useful, like F005BA11.  I remember the first time I saw a core dump from an IBM Series/1; main memory was filled with DEADBEEF! 

VC pioneer Bill Draper takes stock of the VC industry.  On listening to the founder of OpenTable:  “I used to always say to the CEO, ‘Why don’t you charge $2 per reservation, instead of $1? He'd say, ‘Bill, you don’t get it, we want to own the market.’ Or I'd say, ‘Why do you lease the machines, why not make them pay you for them?’ He'd say, ‘Bill, you don’t get it, we want to own the market.’ Thank God he didn’t take my advice.”  I love it.