John Gruber, over at Daring Fireball, talks about the lack of Flash on iOS devices, noting that the users seem to be losing out right now, but it’s worthwhile in the short term.

Nah, I’m doing alright.

I don’t miss Flash. AT ALL. If there’s some specific Flash site or feature that I see on my iPod Touch, I just sigh slightly and keep moving. The Web is deep and wide with content and to bemoan the lack of a couple of sites that use isn’t really worth it. There are a ton of other things I could, and sometimes should, be doing instead of trying to watch a Flash movie or play a Flash game. I don’t miss Flash and don’t really care, for now, if Apple keeps it off the iOS platform.

Because Flash has a reputation with me and it’s a bad one. I’ve used it over the years with the regular Macintosh desktop and while the actually technology itself is amazing, it’s use has often been anything but. Sites with Flash load slowly on my Mac, they bog it down, causing pages to run slowly. They’ve done that for years, to the point where any site that I know has Flash in it before I got to it, immediately causes a small sigh and a tiny, involuntary twitch of “Oh God, not this again.”

So no, I’m not missing Flash. I’m pretty pleased when faced with the idea that I’ll never ever have to deal with it, it has that much of a bad reputation with me. Again, it’s excellent technology, capable of great things in the hands of capable hardware and designers. Sadly that’s seems to be a rare combination and until it becomes more common, I’ll happily deal with empty white squares X’s.

CNN put up a five year look back at Hurricane Katrina that struck a cord with me. People hold up pictures from scenes of the aftermath, sumperimposing them over the modern scene of today. It’s a good gimmick, I love this sort of thing, where the passage of time in a specific space is somehow captrued. But what really stuck me was picture #20, you can see it by clicking on the link for the spot in the Upper Ward.

It’s the school across from my grandparents house. A helicopter sits in the field, for unknown reasons. The photographer notes that it wasn’t a common landing field during rescue operations, but one day a helicopters were landing there, who knows why.

I use to play in that field where the helicopters landed for a day. I played in it for years, with cousins, as my grandfather sat on the porch and watched the world go by. Who knew one day the neighborhood would be empty except for helicopters, what child could have imagined that as they chased others around the field playing tag.

Funny the things you can be reminded of and how.

Never wake up: The meaning and secret of Inception

Excellent summing up of what the movie is about, but builds its case on weak details. Still, overall conclusions are “right”.

The actor who plays the chemist answers questions about the movie.

Good thoughts, but he gets a detail wrong, the snow level was Eames dream, not Fischer’s. Not surprising though, it gets a bit confusing the further they go do down. Besides, they were telling Fischer they were going into Brownings dream, so no wonder things got complicated.

Salon’s plot synopsis and Q&A

Noted just for the basic walk through the plot of the movie. The Q&A afterwards is ok.

Me responding to Ron’s thoughts on information theory, i.e. matter can be created of destroyed only transformed:

Yeah, but the you that is you is a certain specific mix of energy and matter in X state. Transforming it to something else destroys you. That you that is YOU, the Ron of right now, how was he made? Through a life time of experiences. Are those experiences matter and energy? Did they transform 5 year Ron to 6 year old Ron and so on and so on? Imagine someone that is your same build, same size, weight, shape etc. They’d have roughly the same number of atoms, right, doing the same thing, eating, breathing, walking etc. Yet you’re both different. What’s the difference between that atomic level and human reality that makes us all different, while still being the same carbon based form of life. Yet your memories are different. What is the atomic structure of memories? How does that structure vary from one memory to another? If it can’t be destroyed or transformed, how can one transform matter and energy back into that memory after you are gone? Do we need YOU, the unique Ron and all lifetime of his experiences that created that memory, as some sort of key to unlock the door that allows the building of that memory? Or can it be captured like a fish in a net?

Steve Jobs held a press conference today to talk about the problems with the iPhone 4. To cut to the chase, Apple said there is indeed a problem for a small number of users, but in the interest of keeping everyone happy, they’re offering free cases which prevent the issue from occurring. That’s great, but what’s interesting is everything they said before they announced that, which you can see in the press conference. Jobs spent most of the conference talking about how good the iPhone is, that they’ve sold 3 million of them in less than a month, many publications rate it the best smartphone, and all cell phones have issues with their antennas, particularly when people hold the phone in a certain way..

If you don’t see where this going, you really need glasses.

Steve Jobs and Apple is telling you flat out that the iPhone 4 is great and this isn’t a big issue and they’re not going to apologize for it. They actually showed videos of other phones suffering similar issues. This is Steve Jobs grabbing you by the collar and telling you and the media to chill the hell out about this issue. We may have an issue with our phone, but so does everyone else, so again, chill out about the iPhone 4, there’s nothing new here with this problem.

That’s pride and confidence hanging out over in the arrogant section of town for the afternoon.

Their defense here is that phones aren’t perfect. That’s an excuse one hears from a child. Yet Apple is proudly brandishing as a mature company and, get this, it’s working for them. Watch the press conference and yes, Jobs is a bit petulant as he mitigates blame via pointing all the phones with smartphones in general. Yet he makes a good case, backed up by numbers, so no he and Apple aren’t going to apologize for anything, because they fell they don’t have anything to apologize for. Is that arrogance and confidence? Whatever you think the answer is, you have to admit that the answer is uniquely Apple, for good or bad. I think it’s good, what say you?

Note to self:
The films of Andrei Tarkovsky (who directed that beautifully shot film Nostalghia) have been posted online at http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html

Especially ties.

It tastes sweet.

Just stop what you’re doing, stop it RIGHT NOW, and go check out Amanda Wachob’s abstract tattoos. They’re breathtakingly amazing. Seriously, go now. (Via Metafilter)

I don’t why this looks appealing or even if it really is appealing. Might be the morning hunger pangs at work, making any and everything look good. But how can bacon not be good? Have you ever eaten bacon? Are you eating some right now? If yes, then why aren’t you are sharing?

According to reports from cannibals, human flesh tastes like pork, which is so “Meh”. Not that pork is bad, but it’s not great, you know? When you’re thinking of what to eat or what tastes good, do you think “I could go for some pork right now”? Nah, ‘cause pork isn’t sexy. This might be the name, it’s just four words and sits there like a rock, which describes the feeling of eating it.

Yeah, I’m rambling. Go learn how to make bacon cupcakes, while I forage for real food.