Angry Rage Monkey

"A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:35:29 -0700

“A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.”

- George Santayana (via Chuck Jones’ rules for the Roadrunner Cartoons)

Apple is a bad actor...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:53:00 -0700

I am taking it as a given that you know about the DOJ lawsuit against Apple and a group of publishers over price-fixing. If not, I can provide links :)

But this is what is pissing me off: Everyone I seem to encounter in podcasting, the press, blogs, et al seems to be focusing on the Agency Model vs Wholesale Model thing. As such you have people defending Apple (and to a much lesser degree the publishers) for standing up to Amazon and breaking their monopoly —

It is worth pointing out that it is actually far from clear if Amazon actually has a monopoly. In fact there is a much stronger argument (to my mind at least) that iTunes is a monopoly and exerts more control over pricing (though less now that a few years ago).

I just have one little problem with all of this: the actual price-fixing. If Apple and the publishers had just ended with holding firm that they would only accept the Agency Model, then fine, great, I don’t think we would even be having a problem. The moment Apple raised their voice and said “Aaaaaand we all agree that no one will set the price lower than on the iBooks Store, RIGHT?” they crossed the line into illegality and bad actors in the eyes of the law.

Because that is what the lawsuit is actually about. It isn’t about Agency vs Wholesale. It isn’t about Apple vs Amazon — or Bezos vs Jobs. It isn’t about one side having consumer’s best interests at heart.

It is about one thing: price fixing, and the last time I looked we were all against that…

John Cleese on Creativity. Go watch it, go watch it now. It is...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:27:17 -0700

John Cleese on Creativity. Go watch it, go watch it now. It is perhaps the best thing I have ever seen on the subject, and how to create the optimal environment to be creative.

Last night's fever dream...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:15:57 -0700

Last night’s fever dream: I was on a Segway tour of Scotland and visiting the yarn mines — you know where the mine for yarn — because there was a piece in the local paper about how they had hit a rich vein of pastel yarn.

As I road up to the mine, my head covered in solar panels to keep the Segway charged, I came across a heard of micro-rhino’s on the way back to their pen.

The micro-rhino (about the size of a sheep dog) sent down into the mines to break apart the boulder sized chunks of yarn that the miners would pull out of the mine with their hooks. This breaks them up into balls and skeins of yarn ready for sale. However the process fills the mines will fine yarn dust that coats everything, so the tiny rhinos were pastel colored (or since this was the UK: pastel coloured).

A soft purple colored rhino caught sight of me and broke loose from the herd and started ramming my wheel. The rhino herder whistled him back with the rest and then said “he must have smelled the yarn from where you are staying”

Nifty Snippets: Announcing Lineage

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:39:17 -0700

Nifty Snippets: Announcing Lineage:

My very good friend T.J. Crowder just announced his JavaScript library, Lineage.

JavaScript, being a prototype based language, is very powerful, and very fun to work in. Sadly it is also kind of half done (compared to something like Self, or Lua) in the inheritance department. You can do inheritance, but it takes a bit of work to get it right. As a result you see a lot of people with flat object hierarchies, or with stone-soup solutions.

Lineage solves that. It is a small, self contained, toolkit agnostic library to do class inheritance. But more than that it adds lovely things like mixins.

I have been using versions of this library for a long time now in my own software and love it. If you do any JS programming, it should be a part of your toolkit…

Mystery Theater: Five Minute Mysteries for the Kindle Fire!

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:28:08 -0700

Mystery Theater: Five Minute Mysteries for the Kindle Fire!:

I am very happy to announce that my app Mystery Theater is finally available for the the Kindle Fire!

To my mind the Fire is the second most exciting tablet on the market. While the iPad is the best overal tablet computer, the Fire holds a big part of my heart. It is the perfect size, amazingly inexpensive (but not cheaply made), and travels with me often.

For those of you not already familiar with it, Mystery Theater is a collection of 48 episodes of the old “Five Minute Mysteries” radio show. The app lets you listen along and see if you can figure out… whodunit?

So anyway, all you Kindle Fire users (and there are a lot of you), should go and check out the app…

"I like the “Objective” part, it’s the “C” part I despise."

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:05:04 -0800

“I like the “Objective” part, it’s the “C” part I despise.”

- Self (from an email about iPhone programming)

Keep Calm and Carry On — A History (via ze’s page ::...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:53:40 -0800

Keep Calm and Carry On — A History

(via ze’s page :: zefrank.com: “keep calm and carry on” :: a history)

Apple, please stop being a crapweasle....

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:57:24 -0800

Apple,

Today you announced your push into textbooks. I think this is great, it is wonderful. Even greater, even more wonderful, is the fact that you have released a authoring tool for ebooks that is perhaps the best ever made.

iBook Author is an amazing piece of work. It really is, I am deeply impressed. I really, really, want to use it; unfortunately I can’t, because you are being a crapweasle —

And people who know me know I avoid language like that, at least in public. When I recently wrote about the worst customer experience I ever had, I could have used any number of choice terms or salacious language, but I didn’t. So when I call Apple a crapweasle, please know I am feeling extra perturbed about it.

— You see, Apple has placed an interesting restriction on books produced with iBook Author: if I charge for them, I cannot publish anywhere but iBooks. This is unacceptable. As a author and a publisher (let us be very clear, Apple is not the publisher, they are the store) I get to decide where I sell my works. Apple is attempting to do the same kind of vendor lockin that they do with apps for the iPad and iPhone, but they are doing it for a format that is open and can work on almost anything.

So I can either use Apple’s tool, and then re-author for other stores, or I can just make a single version that will work everywhere. So then what is my incentive to use iBooks Author?

But, I hear the straw man in my head saying, they don’t care if you publish the book for free. That is something good right? Kinda, sorta, maybe, but I see some big problems.

Apple doesn’t define what they mean by non-commercial. Can I put ads in my book? Can I put ads on the page with my book? Can I charge for something else and then bundle my book with it? There are a lot of unknowns, too many unknowns for me to want to risk using iBook Author even for free works.

So please Apple, I want to use iBook Author, I really do. So change the license, or charge for a version that can be used on other platforms.

But no matter what you do: stop being a crapweasle…

No caption required…

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:13:35 -0800

No caption required…

I wonder which vegetarians they where?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:35:38 -0800

I wonder which vegetarians they where?

“Inessential.com” sucks

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:33:27 -0800

“Inessential.com” sucks:

Look I normally like Brent Simmons’ blog Inessential, but this post… well how can I put it… sucks.

Aside from linking to a Google search, he doesn’t explain what he means, he doesn’t cite any examples, he doesn’t talk about where is might be useful (almost nothing is universally bad), etc. All he does is make a blanket dismissal and make it sound like he is making a point.

Not every gamified app is bad. Part of the point of Foursquare is that there is a game element to it. It isn’t my thing, but I can understand why the friends of mine who love it do.

My most recent app — Mystery Theater – Five Minute Mysteries — is gamified (though I agree that the word is horrible). As just a list of episodes, it would have appeal for a core audience of Old Time Radio lovers; but the fact that I made a game opened up its appeal.

But according to Simmons my app sucks, because all gamifaction is bad. Therefor, though the transitive property, my app is too.

The simple truth is that gamification — like all techniques or approaches — has it’s place, and it bad if over applied. But it does not, in and of itself.

But do you know what does suck? Blanket judgements, and ire masquerading as argument.

More Mystery Theater Goodness!

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:10:30 -0800

At the beginning of the month I announced that I had made a new iOS app called Mystery Theater — Five Minute Mysteries. Well I am now happy and proud to announce that it is now available on Android*!

As many of you know I have a deep affection for old radio shows. So making this app was a labor of love. Since it helps to preserve these shows in a new form, and (hopefully) bring them to a new generation.

If I may quote myself:

This app contains Forty-Eight (48!) episodes of the classic “The Five Mysteries Program” which aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System from August 10, 1947 to March 27, 1950. Cast members included Jackson Beck, Staats Cotsworth, Michael Fitzmaurice, Timmy Hyler, Abby Lewis, Frank Lovejoy and Ian MacAllister. The famous Rosa Rio played the memorable organ music on every episode.
Each episode presents a story. A story of greed, jealousy, desperation, theft, larceny, and even… murder! All of the clues needed to solve the crime are given to the audience, leaving only one question to ponder: whodunit?

*: And soon for Windows Phone!

HTML5 is the new XML

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:21:03 -0800

HTML5 is the new XML

Dear Apple,

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:31:04 -0800

Why don’t you have real time sales statistics? That way I could obsess all day long about how my insignificant (but fun!) apps — Mystery Theater, Japanese Haiku, & Haiku: A Picture in Three Lines — are doing.

Instead I can only check the day before, and am forced to be productive the rest of the time, and who wants that?

Mystery Theater: Five Minute Mysteries

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:36:00 -0800

Mystery Theater: Five Minute Mysteries:

I am very happy to announce that my latest iOS app — Mystery Theater: Five Minute Mysteries — is now available in Apple App Store.

If I may quote myself:
This app contains Fifty-Four (54!) episodes of the classic “The Five Mysteries Program” which aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System from August 10, 1947 to March 27, 1950. Cast members included Jackson Beck, Staats Cotsworth, Michael Fitzmaurice, Timmy Hyler, Abby Lewis, Frank Lovejoy and Ian MacAllister. The famous Rosa Rio played the memorable organ music on every episode.

Each episode presents a story. A story of greed, jealousy, desperation, theft, larceny, and even… murder! All of the clues needed to solve the crime are given to the audience, leaving only one question to ponder: whodunit?

I am not innocentBut convict me pleaseOnly of what I committedAdd be assuredThey pain and pierceAnd...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:09:49 -0800

I am not innocent
But convict me please
Only of what I committed

Add be assured
They pain and pierce
And with my soul regretted

But that the tally known
Tallied, counted, and writ
That I’ve not admitted

Roller Coaster like sculpture in Germany (Magic Mountain by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth)

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:06:51 -0800

Roller Coaster like sculpture in Germany (Magic Mountain by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth):

It looks amazing, I would love to see it in person and climb it steps; but one part of this article struck me. It is when the artists say:

…the sculpture subtly and ironically plays with the dialectic of promise and disappointment…

Look I love big words as the next over educated pseudo-intellectual, but that is taking it a bit far. I love art, and artists, but when they start using big words to add meaning to their work, I just want to dope-slap them for the prats they are…

It is vital that we dream, that we aspire, that we strive. How...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:33:48 -0800

It is vital that we dream, that we aspire, that we strive. How else will we know we are alive?

Address Is Approximate (by theoryfilmsUK)

Factoid...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:38:54 -0800

A single Krill is approximately 1/3rd calorie.