Here’s what happened with Windows 8, in one sentence: Microsoft asked too much of its users. I could write thousands of words more on the subject, and come to think of it…I have. It’s a complicated subject. Microsoft needed to make Windows relevant in a new, multitouch world, and with an installed user base consisting
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Kotaku: “$900 Blade Runner Gun Looks Totally Worth It”. Having read the article and seen the pictures, I have absolutely no argument whatsoever with that headline. What is it about movie props that triggers the lizard/monkey/Ferengi parts of our brains? Our powers of critical thought abandon us, replaced with the single urge: WANT. (“Our” =
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DNA Lounge is putting together a robotic bartender competition. Competing robots will be judged on all good things. Does it make good drinks? Does it do it with a certain style and grace? Is it “Full-Assed,” in the sense that it’s a robot that makes drinks without a full pit crew hovering over it constantly?
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Mystery Portrait May Be a Lost Raphael. Has Peter Silverman done it again? He’s the art expert who spotted a nifty portrait of a young woman in Renaissance-style clothing, which had been attributed (and priced) as a mid-ninth-century work from an unknown German artist, and bought it on the hunch that it was actually authentic
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How about “the gun barrel sequence of every James Bond movie, ever?” C’mon. It’s not like you were going to get much done on a Friday anyway. You can tell that the first few use a stand-in for Sean Connery, and that the producers only ever reshot the sequence when a new Bond came in.
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One hell of a strong trailer for the upcoming Michael Keaton film “Birdman.” I’ve no idea what kind of movie this is, mind you. Is this, like, “The Wrestler,” if the lead character were a former A-list movie star instead of a former star wrestler? “Sideways,” only with fame instead of booze? Like that Marvel
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'Man on the Run' Excerpt: Paul McCartney Almost Kicked Linda Out of Wings | Billboard. It’s a clickbait-ey headline, but a nice excerpt of the new Paul McCartney biography. It ought to be pretty interesting: it’s based on firsthand interviews that McCartney granted specifically for the book. I’ve already pre-ordered it. This seems like a
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Not My Job: Project Runway's Tim Gunn Gets Quizzed On Terrible Fashion : NPR. Tim Gunn guests on “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Of course he’s wonderful. Be sure to download and listen to his recent “Fresh Air” interview as well. I’m a fan and an admirer. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that Tim
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Every time I travel for a conference — like, I don’t know, how about WWDC? — I get to experience the alpha and the omega of my brain’s memory skills. The alpha: I have a freakishly-good memory for hotel room numbers. The desk clerk hands me my key, says “You’re in Room 2713…the elevators are
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So I wrote back to Bill. “Dear Bill, I will do whatever you want, including setting my hair on fire.” via Ever Wished That Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Would Return to the Comics Page? Well, He Just Did. | Pearls Before Swine. Well! It turns out that Bill Watterson actually was ghost-drawing “Pearls
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Philip Seymour Hoffman on Happiness | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube. “I would definitely say pleasure is not happiness. Because I think I kill pleasure. Like, I take too much of it and therefore make it unpleasurable. Like, too much coffee, and you’re miserable, you know? And I do that to
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The Illogical Reasons Why You Love Giant Smartphone Screens | Co.Design | business + design. I’ve no idea why so many commentators are still so committed to “proving” that people who prefer phones with larger screens are wrong. At this stage, a larger phone — even a huge honkin’ pop-tart — is clearly just as
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travel . explore . create . THE ART OF DEANNA MARSIGLIESE: Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. During my hunt for a “Miss Pettigrew” image for the last post, I came across Deanna Marsiglie’s lovely sketches of some of the characters and their wardrobe.
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“Pearls Before Swine” sports a new art style this week. The running joke is that Stephan Pastis, sick of the regular complaint that he draws like a two-year-old child, arrogantly handed his pen to an actual two-year-old. And she’s kicking his butt. I noted the new style but the thought “Maybe Bill Watterson is ghost-drawing
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“Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.” It’s belongs to a personal movie genre: “Movies I love, whose fine qualities didn’t come through to me in the trailer.” The trailer and the ads just didn’t make any kind of impression, despite the fact that the movie stars the always-good Frances McDormand, and thus I didn’t see
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