Wednesday, 18 Mar 2015

You Kids Get Off Mark Zuckerberg’s Lawn  

Is it hypocritical that Mark Zuckerberg and others like him go to such great lengths to protect their privacy?

So what are we to make of learning that the merchants of transparency are going to extreme lengths to keep us from knowing that it’s walnut under their kitchen chairs when they sit down for a family dinner, and oak that lines the floors of their kids’ bedrooms, and that sustainable bamboo is the surface material beneath the stand-up desk on which they type out less and less prohibitive iterations of their corporate privacy policies?

Here’s exactly what we should make of it…

Dave Pell presents a compelling argument I can’t help agreeing with.

Friday, 13 Mar 2015

How Apple Makes the Watch  

Greg Koenig from Atomic Delights has a great analysis of the manufacturing process of the Apple Watch based on their Watch Craftsmanship videos.

This walkthrough is a detailed narration of what we see in Apple’s Watch Craftsmanship videos. Of course, we only get to see a mere fraction of the process; I’ve tried to provide plausible explanations for the likely steps taking place between the processes shown on film, but these are assumptions and are included only to provide a more satisfying and complete narration.

Considering the limited amount of detail displayed in these videos, he’s able to extract a lot of information from the various stages of the process. For example:

We see a few shots of the case in a 5 Axis milling setup with custom work holding, milling out the internal features at odd angles. In this shot, our part is flipped yet again and is being presented to the tool so the pocket for the Digital Crown and button can be milled. Machinists should note that Apple isn’t cutting the side button slot with a full-width cutter – the smaller end mill is slower, but produces a far better surface finish by avoiding chip thinning fluctuations.

Great stuff

Thursday, 5 Feb 2015

Mom records her two kids covering Hero  

The thing I like about The Loop is that every now and then they find something as simple as a brother and sister playing a cover of Family of the Year’s Hero in their kitchen. It's been around a while but its just great.

Via The Loop

Microsoft’s mobile inabilities  

Om Malik on Microsoft’s recent $300 million acquisition of Acompli and (rumoured) Sunrise:

It is a pretty damning indictment that Microsoft had to spend hundreds of millions on front end apps for its own platform –Microsoft Exchange — and it should send alarm bells ringing. Exchange is something Microsoft understands better than most and it should in theory be able to develop good apps as front end for it. And yet, it has to go seeking help elsewhere.

As usual Om cuts straight to the heart of the issue, software acquisitions do not help in changing a company’s culture. They solve immediate, short term needs but fail to resolve any deep rooted cultural issues.

Saturday, 27 Dec 2014

Horace Dediu: Biggest news of 2014  

Asymco’s Horace Dediu calls the Apple/IBM partnership the biggest news of 2014.

We must applaud IBM for having the courage to resist the featuritis which plagues enterprise software design. This resistance requires saying No to those who specify and are thus authorized to purchase software and hardware. IBM has had to essentially say no to those who buy and yes to those who are paid to use.

That last sentence is just beautiful. This has the potential of seriously disrupting the enterprise software market. One can only hope.

Saturday, 29 Nov 2014

Evening Star Building 1922  

I love cut away diagrams, this one is particularly fascinating as it shows in great detail the various processes involved in running a Newspaper in the 1920's. Click the image below to view the full size diagram.

Via kottke.org

Friday, 26 Sep 2014

#aspirational  

The future of social media:

Some might argue this future is here already.

Via kottke.org