Right now nobody’s interested in a mobile solution that does not contain the words “iPhone” and “app” and that is not submitted to a closed environment where it competes with approximately 2,437 similar mobile solutions.

Compared to the current crop of mobile clients and developers, lemmings marching off a cliff follow a solid, sensible strategy. Startling them out of this obsession requires nothing short of a new buzzword.

Therefore I’d like to re-brand standards-based mobile websites and applications, definitely including W3C Widgets, as “HTML5 apps.”

– “HTML5 Apps” on Quirksmode.org

*slow clap*

Pivot on Vimeo.

Throughout 2009, I recorded several dozen statistics about a) the pop culture I consumed, b) the people I talked to, c) the beer I drank, d) the places I visited, e) the vehicles I took to those places, and f) the amount of sleep I enjoyed each day. Those statistics spread across several thousand cells of a spreadsheet, which I then condensed and animated into the 2.5-minute video clip embedded below.

Dan Meyer has put together a really great short video summarizing some of his activities over the last year. In the same sort of tradition as Nicholas Felton’s Annual Report, it’s an interesting snapshot of someone’s life down to some nitty-gritty details.

Plus I’m just a sucker for infographics.

When the iMac came out, Apple drew a line in the sand. They said: we are no longer going to ship a computer with a floppy disk drive. The entire industry shit its pants so loudly and forcefully that you probably could have heard it from outer space.

Are you insane? I spent all this money on a floppy drive! All my software is on floppy disks! You’ve committed brand suicide! Nobody will stand for this!

Fast-forward to today. I can’t think of a single useful thing to do with a floppy disk.

-I need to talk to you about computers by StevenF.

*slow clap*

I’m still sort of on the fence on this tablet thing. I can definitely see how it’ll be immensely useful for lots of industries, or around the home (as an ebook reader, a portable newspaper/simplified browser, even a board game platform), etc. I don’t agree with all the “it’s the laptop replacement device!” hype going around through – for some tasks, you need a dedicated keyboard or some other way of inputting larger amounts of text than you can comfortably type on an on-screen keyboard. The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard is fine for typing out short text messages, etc, but you wouldn’t want to compose a novel on it.

I won’t be buying one myself, not yet at least, but I’m still incredibly intrigued by the love-hate reaction it seems to be getting at the moment.

Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize.

- Charles Stross, describing Egan’s book Blindsight

If that description doesn’t immediately make you drive to your local library or bookstore to find this book, there’s something seriously wrong with you. (or you can download a copy from FeedBooks.com.)

The recovery manager failed. So I tried from the recovery discs that I created when I got the machine. Failed again. Tried from the hard drive again. Failed again. No helpful messages, just failed. So I get on HP’s site and try out the HP Support online chat.

ISSUE DETAIL: System recovery runs but fails each time. Have tried once from recovery discs and twice from hard drive partition, and all three times it fails with “incomplete” message.
Michael Smith: From your issue description, I understand that you are not able to perform the system recovery using the disc or partition. Am I right?
Me: um, correct.

Brilliant minds they have there. Wait… is there a mind there at all? Not sure. Couple minutes later, disconnected while I ran a hard drive diagnostic as requested. Signed back on and got this guy:

ISSUE DETAIL: System recovery manager will not successfully complete. Have tried several times, from both hard drive and recovery discs.
Samson Roy: Could you elaborate the issue?
Me: Sure. I had to do a system recovery, but the process will not complete successfully. i’ve tried several times, from both the hard drive partition and from the recovery discs, and each time it ends with an “incomplete” message. my only options are “details” “save log” or “retry.”
Samson Roy: Thank you for the above information.
Samson Roy: From your issue description, I understand that you are unable to do system recovery. Am I right?
Me: yes, you are correct

SERIOUSLY? At this point, I’m convinced that at no time did I actually converse with a human being. Even someone who doesn’t natively speak the language (I’m going to assume that all the discussions I’ve seen are true and HP outsources 100% of their tech support to India) should be able to handle these issues a little more smoothly. And these were just the intros.

I was debating whether to just outright ask “ARE YOU A COMPUTER?” but figured it might be even more unproductive than just sticking with it. So now I’ve had to order new recovery discs from HP (at cost to me of course), and while they’re in transit I have a very expensive paperweight on my desk. AWESOME.

Just more reasons to never ever again buy HP, and to convince everyone I know never to buy HP. Ever.

While I think his 2008 Annual Report was a little cooler-looking, this year’s Annual Report (compiled from over 500 survey cards he handed out over the year) is still very well-done. Bravo, sir.

Check out the Feltron 2009 Annual Report.

It makes far more sense that Mario is psychotically delusional and Princess Toadstool and Bowser are peer monarchs courting amicably. While she’s out on dates this quixotic plumber is murdering and looting across her entire demesne.

@kwirq

And holy crap.

His handful of redesigns, followed by a couple takes by other intrigued and like-minded travelers, are awesome. Even taking into account the things that the current printing machines just can’t practically handle, these are a thousand times better than the current situation.

I’d almost consider flying more if boarding passes were designed like this. It’s 2010 for cryin’ out loud… when is the future going to get here? We live in a disgustingly old-fashioned world for living in the future.

See Boarding Pass / Fail