I have begun watching Star Trek with my sons.

Our fourteen-episode mission:

1. Where No Man Has Gone Before
2. The Corbomite Maneuver
3. The Devil in the Dark
4. Errand of Mercy
5. The Squire of Gothos
6. This Side of Paradise
7. City on the Edge of Forever
8. Amok Time
9. The Deadly Years
10. A Piece of the Action
11. Mirror, Mirror
12. The Trouble with Tribbles
13. The Ultimate Computer
14. Day of the Dove

This roster was crafted, in response to my call for recommendations, by dearest friend and Trekkie nonpareil Alec — with “The Corbomite Maneuver” and “City on the Edge of Forever” added at my suggestion. I further advocated for “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” but I have heeded his advice to omit it from this run. Perhaps we’ll catch that later.

Jen is 14 and Kels is almost 12. This is their first Trek. It is most certainly not mine.

Dialog from the iPad’s “Photos” application:

Delete media? Like, dematerialize the memory card?

Image from Glenn Fleishman’s iPad Camera Connection Kit review at TidBITS.

From Engadget’s JooJoo review:

Our biggest problem with the basic [web browser] viewing is the 16:9 screen ratio, which renders regular sites with extra room on each side in landscape, but crops in on the sides of sites when held vertically. We appreciate that JooJoo is trying to provide a straight pixel-accurate representation of web sites, but they could’ve picked a better screen ratio to do it.

Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo reminds us that new computer interface paradigms have regularly met resistance from the old guard — and become the new standard.

Normal people don’t like today’s computers. Most loathe them because they can’t fully understand their absurd complexity and arcane conventions. That’s why the iPad will kill today’s computers, just like the latter killed computers running with punchcards and command lines.

Speaking of the next generation:

John DeLancie and Brent Spiner — Q and Data — play with an iPad. Dude.

Photo item via Gizmodo.

I’ve been looking forward to this birthday.

6 April 2010.

Paul Thurott echoed several other iPad critics:

Why isn’t this widescreen? It’s so obvious.

Because it’s a general-purpose computer that can be used in both portrait and landscape orientations. The screen would be too tall and skinny in portrait mode if it were widescreen in landscape mode. That’s so obvious.

I guess Thurott doesn’t remember Radius. Back before anybody else made large monitors for personal computers, Radius came out with the Full Page Display, a portrait-orientation greyscale monitor for the Mac. This made it possible to view and edit a full letter-size page, which was a godsend for page layout.

Remember the Radius Pivot?

Beautifully-designed monitor that could rotate 90° on-the-fly. The desktop would automatically reorient itself for the changed aspect ratio. I worked with one of these for a couple of weeks in the early ’90s; it was amazing to simply turn the screen to fit the content.

In portrait orientation, the iPad is a full-page display, and its aspect ratio is correct. Its automatic reorientation makes it a descendant of the Radius Pivot.

Now I want one even more.

Paul Thurott article via Daring Fireball.
Photo courtesy of Radius Pivot designer Terry Oyama.

I don’t think of my life as a career. I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That’s not a career — it’s a life!

Steve Jobs, interviewed by Stephen Fry.

id·i·o·zeit·geist n. an individual’s perception of the defining spirit of the ideas and beliefs in one’s society. (idio- Greek, “private, personal” + Zeitgeist German, “spirit of the times”)

i.e: What you think everyone thinks.

Youth social networking researcher danah boyd has observed that many people presume the way they use social networks is the way everyone uses them. “I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men,” she says. “I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it’s often hard to see beyond that.”

(Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb: “The Man Who Looked Into Facebook’s Soul“)

All “zeitgeist” is idiozeitgeist.

This was on my screen when I returned to the office from my start-of-year vacation.

Just sitting there.

Item via Daring Fireball: Comcast Rebranding as ‘Xfinity’

• Philadelphia Inquirer: Comcast unveils new brand name and logo

Comcast Corp. said yesterday that it would re-brand its TV, Internet, and telephone services as Xfinity on Feb. 12 to signal to customers that this isn’t the same old company. [...]

This re-branding comes as Comcast has struggled to rebuild its reputation because of poor service and problems with its network that resulted in telephone and Internet outages. Its customer-satisfaction rating is among the lowest in the industry, but it has improved slightly in the last year. Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said the re-branding was not an attempt to distance the service from the Comcast name. “This is about our product. It is about providing our customers with products that just keep getting better.”

If it’s about improving the product, then improve the product. This is a name change. To claim otherwise is lying.

As a longtime Comcast customer who is tensed and ready to jump ship the moment Verizon FiOS comes to my neighborhood, I can only say I’m not surprised. As John Gruber said: “Many companies walk away from household name brands just for kicks. Sure.”

(Daring Fireball is my number one source for informative links and Mac/tech commentary. I read it every day. John Gruber, the author, is very much a man after my own heart.)