= 4 stars

Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis

Slave Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) leads a rebellion against the Roman empire.

The Good

• Amazing set pieces: epic battles featuring hundreds if not thousands of extras, tense gladiator flights, and Spartacus addressing his army in parallel with the Romans readying for battle.
• Core theme of the oppressed and virtuous overthrowing a cruel, undeserving ruling class, plus dramatic irony in the Romans being done in by their own creation of warrior slaves.
• Kirk Douglas as the well-oiled, gruff, and headstrong slave Spartacus, humanized through occasional weakness and difficulty carrying the burden of leadership. Lawrence Olivier plays a deliciously smarmy, pompous Roman general. There’s also an off-kilter appeal in the non-period, Bronx-accented Tony Curtis as a magician / musician, who is nearly seduced in a particularly odd homoerotic bathing scene hinting at the debauchery of the Roman empire.
• Rather bleak ending; but definitely appreciate the makers’ conviction in avoiding a more hopeful conclusion.

The Bad

• Occasionally cheesy in spots: Spartacus’ love interest (Jean Simmons), the old-school soundtrack, glaringly obvious matte backgrounds. There’s little trace of Kubrick’s distinctive directorial style.

Conclusion

Solid entertainment, particularly in the excellently directed battle scenes and classical acting, but don’t expect any Kubrick flourishes. Recommended.

IMDB: Spartacus
Wikipedia: Spartacus
Rotten Tomatoes: Spartacus

I still hold the opinion that Google faces a difficult enough task transforming itself into Facebook. But getting into consumer electronic hardware means they want to be Apple, too. Or Microsoft. And trying to become too many things at once just reiterates Steve Jobs’ thought that Google just needs to decide what it wants to be, and grow up already. The longer they muddle about, they unintentionally become Yahoo!. Plus I have no idea what an entertainment system has to do with indexing the world’s information.

Lastly, maybe they could come up with an original idea. The networked entertainment system thing is already being done by Apple and Sonos. And the very idea of copying other people’s ideas is, well, very Microsoft. It’s like they’re copying another company’s strategy of copying other companies, in and of itself, a borrowed idea.

My personal hope is the general realization that its P/E of 14 is actually pretty low for a tech stock (Google = 20, Amazon = 136 (!)), and Steve Jobs’ passing hasn’t affected things as much as the cynics had believed (or hoped).

Anyhow, I bought a humble position at $450, and it’s working out better than expected. Maybe I can retire at 85 vs. 86. And I must append the reality check of the Netflix debacle: this post from last year… followed by this one.

Above and beyond the music, should be interesting as a preview to how this whole Apple TV Proper thing might fly, with Apple propping up the content end of things via live events like this one.

Apologies, but I can’t help but think the most appropriate wearer sports huge bazoombies — providing a nice landing spot. Maybe wedge a few dollar bills in there.

And now we have the iPhone app Path, some social thing, that uploads the contents of your Address Book for some friend-finding purpose that’s supposed to be really great.

Problem is, I’ve used my Mac’s Address Book for years locally, well before the iPhone with no expectation that its contents would be shared. If that’s really true, it would totally change how I currently use it. And so Path’s comment (in comments below that post) that contact sharing is a current “best practice” among iPhone apps is deeply disturbing. Really? Maybe among trendy social app developers, but certainly not to end-users. If so, the more accurate term should be “worst-practice.” I’ve long assumed the Address Book contents were private and would expect to be asked permission before sharing.

So the end result is bad for Path. I’ve yet to download the app and am now unlikely to ever do so. The damage is done; whatever coolness this app provides is now tainted by the “icky feeling” — they care more about that contact list or my data than me as a user, so the service they provide is a shady cover, really. And that ickyness extends to other social apps until this issue is resolved — hopefully Apple will lock the address book down like location and fire an alert asking for explicit permission — at least once.

And in the future, possibly years from now, I look forward to aged relatives saying, “oh… I don’t want to download those app things… I hear they steal your address book and spam all your friends.”

Thanks for nothing, Path. You just made everyone — justifiably — a little more paranoid.

Update: Path is fixing things. Still not motivated to try the app anytime soon, though.

= 5 stars

Starring Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger
Directed by Oliver Stone

Synopsis

Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), a willing American soldier in the Vietnam war, finds the entire experience more than he bargained for.

The Good

• Well-known actors in early roles: Willem Dafoe, Forest Whittaker, Charlie Sheen, and Johnny Depp. Sheen is particularly amusing as the naive newbie soon considered useless by his unit. It’s twisted casting as father Martin starred in the Vietnam masterpiece Apocalypse Now.
• Oliver Stone’s — who served in Vietnam — heavy handed, serious, and epic.
• Captures the sleep-deprived, constant paranoia of guerrilla warfare, with enemies real and imagined lurking everywhere, graphic violence, booby traps, and emotional shifts from nervous anticipation to sudden violence.
• More cohesive plot than Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter. The stress of war causes the platoon leadership to crumble and move toward paranoia, revenge and amorality, and innocent civilians become collateral damage.
• Soundtrack: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

The Bad

• Occasionally comes across as Apocalypse Now light, usually during Charlie Sheen’s narration that takes one out of the grim proceedings.

Conclusion

What ultimately earned this film’s fifth star is a question posed near the end: why do men kill each other, and when is it justified? Irrational fear, self-defense, insanity, hate, revenge, and justice — it’s all here in spades. War may merely be a cover — a convenient excuse to justify unspeakable acts. Highly recommended.

IMDB: Platoon
Wikipedia: Platoon
Rotten Tomatoes: Platoon

Anyhow, watch the video and judge for yourself. My verdict: it ain’t getting past the spousal-approval test.

First, Siri and hand gesture control would do a great deal toward my present annoyance with too many boxes and remotes to control them. But my ultimate usability test will be the spouse — I look forward to visiting the Apple Store and plopping her before one of these manifestations of Steve Jobs’ final wishes… if she can figure out how to use this iTV with hand gestures or whatever within a minute or so, I’m sold.

Second, the whole “Minority Report” / Siri might put this device into an iPad-like strategy, where the device comes first and is so cool that the content holders feel the need to provide content for it, via apps, licensing agreements with Apple, etc. This device-first approach might be Apple’s only available strategy toward breaking the cable / reluctant studio stranglehold, anyhow.

Lastly, collaboration with cable companies implies that the TV may act as cable box, too. That would be such a huge coup on Apple’s part, I don’t believe it’s possible. But consider how through the iPhone, Apple already has relationships with AT&T and Verizon here in the states, both of whom provide cable services. Hmmm.

Anyhow — rather pointless to continue speculating about speculation, but at least the stock continues to benefit from the nonsense.

= 4 stars

Starring Phillip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Synopsis

Old time gambler Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) takes John (John C. Reilly) under his wing.

The Good

• Paltrow as smudged cocktail waitress Clementine with a shady second job, and the incomparable Samuel Jackson as aggressive gambler Jimmy. But best is the rock-solid Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, a man whose ragged face and somber demeanor initially indicate world-weary experience, but eventually, something else entirely.
• Gambling as metaphor for life itself — Sydney is a high roller (established in a highly amusing craps scene featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman) not only at the casino but in his personal life, bringing Clementine and John together and dangerously extricating them from a sticky situation.
• Comes together in the last half hour with a complicated feeling of Sydney’s initial alturism, turning his earlier motivation upside down and pushing that gambling = life metaphor to include death.
• Anderson’s amazingly good direction for a first picture: simple techniques communicating plot developments, like a camera zoom in to indicate the formation of thought , a character close up to indicate a particular mind-state, or a long tracking shot when three people sneak out of a motel. I got the feeling Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing with the camera and why.

The Bad

• Plot feels minimal and aimless in the middle; requiring some fortitude to reach the interesting payoff.
• John C. Reilly is a bit overshadowed by the other three performances.

Conclusion

Although the plot falters a bit and doesn’t live up to the darkest film noir, three solid performances and Paul Thomas Anderson’s confident direction kept me watching until the end, where a pretty solid surprise awaits. A character study to savor and remember. Recommended.

IMDB: Hard Eight
Wikipedia: Hard Eight
Rotten Tomatoes: Hard Eight

Anyhow, largely blank posters appearing in Manhattan subways are just begging for graffiti and that’s exactly what’s happening. My favorite is the giant rear end (which I imagine belongs to Midge). Course it would be funnier if someone who actually watched the show took out a Sharpie — what’s Don falling into? How about an Old Fashioned? A shoe box containing old photographs? Sal’s open mouth? A bed of money?

Gotta find some of these posters in San Francisco…

• Two-hour season premiere — a “Mad Men movie.”
• Season theme: “deal with your own problems by yourself.”
• At the end of season 4, Don proposed to Megan, and she accepted — but that doesn’t mean they get married (hmmmmmm.)
• Past season were chocolate ice-cream. This season is orange sherbet. If you don’t like it, you don’t like ice cream — it’s still ice cream.

Can’t wait ’til March 25 to see what the heck Weiner is talking about…

Yet I do believe the company is poised for a great 2012 and therefore, the stock has more room to run. Many reasons to believe it could continue to rise from here. One big one: the competition seems to be faltering. Google disappointed, now Amazon.

It feels like a pretty rich purchase at $450 per share, but I can see it crossing $500 sometime this year.

Perhaps this is nuts, but before iPad 3 and iPhone 5 seems like a good time to get in.

Well, maybe I’ll wait until after Greece defaults.

The closest thing I can compare it to was Google’s IPO back in 2004. At the time, the mood was actually pretty sour, with the dot com, Web 1.0 pain still fresh in people’s minds. But somewhere from there to here, Google persevered and diversified into other products, growing to be the next big Silicon Valley tech giant mentioned in the same breath as Microsoft, Apple, HP, Amazon, etc.

And while the overall mood isn’t all that bleak today (well, except for that Euro-recession-real-estate-bankrupt–thing), there are doubters.

But off the top of my head I can see many more reasons to pick up some Facebook stock than not. And no, none of them have much to do with business fundamentals. This is tech stock picking we’re talking about, here.

First, Facebook has essentially won the whole Web 2.0 social networking wave. Totally agree with Steve Jobs himself as quoted from the Isaacson biography: “We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don’t see anybody other than Facebook out there. Just Facebook, they are dominating this.” I feel a few leaders emerge from each tech wave, Amazon and eBay survived the last, and Facebook is clearly in line as next. This ain’t no Groupon, Zynga, or even LinkedIn. This is mother-freaking Facebook.

Personal observation supports this. I’d estimate the majority of my peers are on Facebook to varying degrees, and if they aren’t, they’ve at least heard of the company. Even the aged relatives inquire about whether or not they should sign up, or can they at least get a tutorial on what it is? Heck, they even had their own critically acclaimed movie. You can’t not know what Facebook is these days: it has become part of our culture. We may debate whether or not to use it, whether they’re evil or if you hate it, but we’re still talking about it.

Next we have Zuckerberg himself, a scary combination of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates — a young, charismatic, autocrat founder who can also code.

And another thing to consider: The shared enemy of Google could get Facebook and Apple to work together. While Jobs supposedly wasn’t able to overcome Zuckerberg’s “onerous” demands for a partnership last year, the continued pressure of Android and Google+ on both companies could force them to work together. And then imagine Facebook integration into iOS - something that will never happen with Google+.

I stand by earlier statements that all Facebook has to do after a successful IPO is follow the Google playbook (ads, email, office apps, search). They can match Google+ feature for feature in a Netscape / IE-esque war. Flush with cash, they’ll continue to attract employees and acquire competitors.

Needless to say, I never bought any Google shares. But I’ll get in on Facebook for sure. It has the next Google, Netscape, Yahoo! written all over it.

Note: Yes, I have bitched about Facebook’s evil privacy issues in the past. Yes, I don’t use the service much myself. Yes, I think using the service is largely a waste of time and the very definition of “fake work.” But I’d invest in McDonalds without ever eating there myself.

Just check out the site. There’s just a search box, the name of the website and a duck logo. Enter a string, get some results, and leave. I get the same clean, no-nonsense, just-brushed feeling — an emotion once associated with Google after years using Yahoo!.

The search results are solid, without any ads, animated logos that change daily, Google+ links, pictures, site previews, or YouTube links. A breath of fresh air.

And while Google leaves you with no choice when it comes to tracking all your data across its services, DuckDuckGo proudly doesn’t track. They don’t care where you go, and hope you care about your data enough to use DuckDuckGo.

I reset my browser home pages from Google to DuckDuckGo (which loads noticeably faster than Google) a few days ago and after a bit of mental adjustment, like the change.

I see this going down similarly to Blockbuster vs. Netflix or Tower Records vs. Apple. Infinitely easier for a tech company to take on a company entrenched in an obsolete business model than the latter turning themselves into a tech company.

Don’t bother with a Nook. Get a Kindle. Or an iPad. Unless you like doorstops…

I just came across this post by Tim O’Reilly on Google+:

Collecting data isn’t evil. It’s the currency of the future, a currency that we provide in order to buy useful services, many of which can ONLY be provided if that data is aggregated and analyzed and made relevant.

Sure, if you’re a publicly traded company with advertising as its only business model. But let me just go to the grocery store and see if they’ll accept my shopping data (which they already have thanks to that customer loyalty card) as payment for groceries, or ask my cell phone bill to be refunded since my location was tracked. And the credit card companies should just give me a refund on all the stuff purchased through them since they got my data in the process.

The whole business model of mining people’s data for profit only applies to a small subset of Internet companies. That’s a far cry from the “currency of the future.” And if I’m wrong, I look forward to the day when we can sit on our assess all day and retire wealthy just sitting around spreading our precious data all over the Internet. I’ll make sure to throw some disinformation in there just to make it all the more useless.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for a proper Google response to their not being a search engine anymore. Tim’s post falls under the banner of “don’t complain — it’s free.”

However — that’s not good enough for most investors — including myself. Personally, the stock has got to see another 100% gain from here for me to merely break even. And if by some miracle it gets there, I still lean toward dumping the stock.

Obviously, the company has a very long way to go to make amends for last year’s debacle.

= 3 stars

Starring Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne-Marie Duff
Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood

Synopsis

Taken in by his aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), teenager John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) is going nowhere fast, until his estranged, free-spirited mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) introduces him to rock and roll.

The Good

• Mines the unexplored, pre-Beatles portion of Lennon’s life (out of necessity with other periods duly covered). John is fifteen, hasn’t yet met Paul, and has yet to pick up a musical instrument. But instead of pop stardom, drama arises through a tug-of-war between Lennon’s carefree birth mother Julia, responsible Aunt Mimi, and absent father figures. It’s suggested Lennon resorted to music not only for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but as an escape from a deeply troubled life defined by a lack of options.
• Deftly lends power to the forgettable early Lennon / McCartney song “In Spite Of All The Danger” in one scene establishing The Beatles as John’s new, surrogate family, with long-sought emotional comfort found through his art.
• The nervous and out-of-sorts Johnson is passable as Lennon, but the real key performance is Scott-Thomas as the steely, grounded Aunt Mimi.
• Inspires a revisit of the average Backbeat featuring the early Beatles in Hamburg — no mean feat.

The Bad

• Paul and George look way too young.
• Meandering direction; could’ve used an aggressive editor.
• No Beatles music as none existed at the time.

Conclusion

Grounded by Scott Thomas’ performance, Nowhere Boy pulls off an interesting trick: it humanizes its subject by downplaying the standard rags-to-riches musical biopic plot, and is therefore more able to delve into the pain behind the pop tunes. Without half-baked covers of The Beatles’ familiar hits — we feel the pain driving those primal screams contained within “Mother.”

IMDB: Nowhere Boy
Wikipedia: Nowhere Boy
Rotten Tomatoes: Nowhere Boy

And of course, the cynical wonder if this was a fluke quarter. But looking forward to what Apple may have in store for 2012 — I believe this torrid, almost exponential growth can continue.

First, even if Apple plays it totally safe, we have iPad 3 early this year and iPhone 5 in the summer. The killer earnings of last quarter were for iPad 2 — a product nearly a year old. So: iPad 3 — even with incremental upgrades like a retina display and better camera — could seriously continue to dominate throughout 2012. Add something extra like 4G, and all bets are off.

Then we have iPhone 5. Consider that the hot-selling iPhone 4S was an incremental upgrade — the same case design as the iPhone 4 and a mere incremental speed bump like the iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS (even I called it “disappointing”). So if an incremental upgrade resulted in last quarter — well, I can’t begin to imagine what a new iPhone 5 release will do. Even the safe bets — a slightly larger screen, a new case design will see huge demand. Add in 4G or NFC and again — all bets are off.

And this speculation doesn’t include improvements to the entire Mac line. Or iCloud. Lion. Or the possibility of an Apple TV proper. Or an entirely new, secret product.

But to sum up: here’s a final thought that didn’t even cross my mind until recently. Looking back over all of 2011, the only Apple hardware we purchased was the spouse’s Verizon iPhone (we got an iPad 2 as a gift). The last Mac I bought was a MacBook Air in late 2010; same with the latest Apple TV. So basically, in terms of Apple hardware, 2011 was a wash — I contributed essentially nothing to Apple’s killer earnings all year.

Which means — even if Apple sticks to incremental upgrades, in 2012 I can already see purchasing the iPad 3, iPhone 5 (my iPhone 4 contract will end just in time), probably a new Mac Mini and MacBook Air, and an Apple TV (whatever form it takes) — five hardware products — possibly more than I’ve spent in an entire year on Apple products ever.

To sum up: 2011 was actually rather light in terms of new hardware, yet Apple still knocked it out of the park. Therefore — at the risk of being proven wrong later this year — I can seriously see how they can push things even further in 2012.

Now that it’s clear Google wants to turn into Facebook and updated their privacy policy with no opt-out to match, perhaps they should update their mission statement to be more in line with their new, true purpose.

Here’s my attempt:

“Google’s (new) mission is to organize its users’ information and make it universally accessible and useful to advertisers.”

Oh, and maybe replace the increasingly inaccurate credo “don’t be evil” with “don’t complain — it’s free.”

Meanwhile, check out DuckDuckGo. Clean interface. They don’t collect your personal information. A breath of fresh air — like Google once was.

All I can say is, is there anybody who doesn’t price-compare online vs. retail when out retail shopping? I do it all the time, increasingly so since getting an iPhone several years ago. I would say if you are shopping retail and not checking the prices online, you’re being ripped off and wasting money.

Yeah, I know there’s a bit of an argument for supporting your local shopping economy, but in tough financial times Amazon with no sales tax and cheap shipping (even more so if you subscribe to Amazon Prime) wins out almost every time. Then subtract the time savings driving to a store, the gas, the saved frustration looking for parking and waiting in line and it makes less and less sense to shop physical retail.

There’s a handful of retail that requires a physical presence, like groceries, clothing, and furniture, but everything else is increasingly likely to be swallowed up by online. Retailers adjust accordingly — Target’s recent move into groceries makes sense. But fighting against shoppers just being smart — does not.

There was definitely some prior indication that this would be a surprising, blow-out quarter, first a chart showing a huge jump in iOS marketshare from late 2011 sales, putting iOS on an even level with Android. Second, personal anecdotal evidence seemed to confirm this — I see iPads all over the place; folks holding them like giant books and laptop replacements  to the point of impracticality and slight ridiculousness — saw someone walking down the Embarcadero holding an iPad like a giant iPod, headphones plugged in and likely consulting a map. Lastly, the cheaper iPhone 4 and free iPhone 3GS shouldn’t be underestimated, as several acquaintances have picked those up.

But still, I wasn’t expecting this much of an upside surprise.

Now in retrospect we can see that Apple’s decision to delay the iPhone 4S until Fall resulted in some quarters where Android gained traction, but there were also a lot of consumers who waited to the latest Apple kit, so the delay didn’t impact things all that much and they made up the difference and then some this past quarter. And momentum could continue if the iPhone 5 drops this summer.

Second, iPad is pretty clearly owning the tablet space. The Kindle Fire may have had some impact but considering the entire Android tablet space = Kindle Fire, it’s not nearly as damaging as many of the Android fans had hoped for last year. And an updated iPad 3 is due to arrive sooner than a new iPhone.

Anyhow, this Apple shareholder couldn’t have asked for anything better from this announcement. The only can think of is a stock split or a dividend. But for now I’ll totally take an 8% pop…

So… comments are now closed after thirty days of said post’s publish date. Get your responses in accordingly.

Note: if you think Moonraker and Roger Moore are the best and I’m an idiot… you’re just flat-out wrong. Connery FTW.

= 3 stars

Starring Jodie Foster, Cherrie Currie, Scott Baio
Directed by Adrian Lyne

Synopsis

Life’s hardly a bowl of curried cherries for four teenage girls in LA.

The Good

• Foster as precocious Jeanie, the sole girl with brains among a sea of idiots. An argument scene between Jeanie and her distracted mother Mary (Sally Kellerman) displays Foster’s acting chops. Cherrie Currie (lead singer of The Runaways) is passable as the messed up, impulsive girl Annie with an abusive cop father.
• Some amusement in the seventies setting; hung-over parents emerging from the free-for-all sixties and failing at proper parenting. Also fun is the proto-hair-metal band (Angel) sporting glammy poses.

The Bad

• Silly, cliched, and pointless plot drags; the girls sport sassy attitude, are forced to grow up too fast, have a party and trash the house, do drugs, all overlaid with awful dialog and cheesy seventies light rock music.
• In a so-bad-its-good climactic moment, Scott Baio on a skateboard pushes a scary dude through a convenience-store window.
• Not a good sign when a major character dies and you’ve past the point of caring.

Conclusion

Really only one viewing reason — Jodie Foster’s smart acting amid the surrounding awfulness. That was good enough for me; don’t think it’ll suffice for you.

IMDB: Foxes
Wikipedia: Foxes
Rotten Tomatoes: Foxes

Whoever the heck is writing crosswords these days — keep ‘em coming.

Piracy wouldn’t be such a big deal if the content holders would just give consumers decent alternatives.

At one time, Napster was the preferred place to get music and the labels weren’t receiving a dime. Then iTunes and Steve Jobs came along with a grand compromise, and guess what, it actually worked. Getting music through iTunes was easy and not too expensive to where for many people, the inherent inconvenience of piracy wasn’t worth the effort.

Now we’re talking largely about video, and it’s a similar situation. The studios are pissed at sites like Megaupload. But they continue to have trouble with an iTunes-video agreement with Apple (or distribution agreements with Microsoft, Netflix, or Google for that matter) and figure out video delivered over the Internet, iTunes-style. The studios don’t want to “give Apple too much control.” Or they’re just greedy. But the end result is always wrong: too expensive, not convenient, and piracy continues unabated.

And this all comes back to my long-wished for “digital video nirvana.” I am still waiting for any movie TV show available on demand within minutes for a reasonable price. Waiting for years, and it’s still not here. And it’s no surprise to me that many just shrug their shoulders and look elsewhere for said video.

Now this is not to say piracy can be completely eliminated. There will always be folks who want everything to be free out of some anti-DRM principle, or because they’re just cheapskates — but I believe they’re in the minority. I think a lot of folks are in my middle ground where I want to rent something, and if it’s on Netflix, Hulu, or iTunes, I’ll go with that instead of firing up a torrent — which takes longer. Often, a few bucks which I’d drop on a snack or a coffee without thinking about it is worth handing to Apple (and then to the studios) as it saves time.

So piracy could be lessened and the content holders could make some money in the process whereas now they get nothing. And the opposing sides of consumer and content producers are on the verge of a huge conflict that will harm the Internet as a whole because of this unwillingness to compromise.

The short thought: if consumers could just download the stuff they want for a reasonable price, there’d be less piracy and therefore no need for nonsense like SOPA.

• Apple did their best to answer the chicken-and-egg problem of any content / consumer ecosystem: several big-name publishers are on board from day one, with very generous prices. Meanwhile, students will be tempted by the low prices, interactivity, convenience, and possibility they already have an iPad.
• Apple woos the content producers with a complete publishing platform: the allegedly easy-to-use iBooks Author and vacuum-tube-to-the-wallet App Store-esque iBooks 2. And the huge installed user base of iOS users should provide a huge incentive to any textbook publisher — students already accustomed to purchasing iTunes music and iOS apps will have no problem adding a few textbooks.
• The pricing of a $15 textbook vs. the more typical $75 seems like a deal too good to be true, but can be made up by the publishers through volume (check out this All Things D article): textbooks purchased by schools and then lent to students last about five years in the hands of multiple students, while the iBooks version would be purchased by the student with new textbooks purchased each year as a student moves on to the next grade.
• Challenges Amazon’s Kindle platform in a number of areas: interactive textbook content that will look and run better on the iPad, Mac-specific publishing tools, new relationships with textbook publishers and independent authors, rock-bottom pricing, and pushing the ePub format. But the largest implication for any student is to purchase an iPad and read Amazon content via a Kindle app, vs. a Kindle device.

All in all, the most impressive thing is how Apple presents a new platform as a win-win for just about everyone involved (as opposed to Google TV where the platform arrives without content agreements, or WebOS with no apps). Well, unless you’re Amazon, or an employee of a brick-and-mortar school bookstore.

Who will be writing there? Mike Arrington, Paul Carr, MG Siegler, and Lacy herself. Check, check, check, and check — that’s the entire roster of “A list” writers I once read TechCrunch for.

The potential conflict of interests is personally irrelevant — that roster could write about pandas, pandas who recently came back from maternity leave, or drunk pandas who live in hotels paid for and sponsored by Android and I’d still somehow find it amusing.

Added to Google Reader.