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.

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?

Our Facebook accounts have been reinstated, no real explanation given, just this short email:

Hi Brandon,

We have investigated the matter more thoroughly and have reinstated your accounts. I sincerely apologize for our error and the inconvenience you and your wife have gone through. I hope this will not deter you from fully enjoying the site in the future, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you experience any further problems.

Thank you,

Anjali
User Operations
Facebook

Much thanks to the Metafilter posse for their help, both in public and behind the scenes for getting this correction made. It’s great community of people.

and no, I doubt I’ll be spending much time on Facebook.

To all,
If you’re wondering why I may not be in your Facebook network or friend circle anymore, it’s because I’ve been using a fake account. It’s true, Facebook itself told me. Not only that, but Lisa has been using a fake account too.

Now, I know many of you knew me as Brandon Blatcher, the name I’ve had since birth, though ya’ll have certainly called me other names at times. But Facebook has uncovered the truth and now my shame is revealed.

This all started a few weeks ago, when I tried to log into Facebook, only to get this error:

Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

Naturally the link they provided didn’t contain any information or email addresses so I Googled around to find some sort of contact info. All I got was (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), which I emailed saying they were in error and could they turn my account back on. After a week they replied with the above notice, saying I was using a fake account.

I’m not sure where to go from here, as who I am clearly isn’t who I thought I was and then to find out that Lisa isn’t Lisa, well, I need a moment or at least a phone number to talk to someone over at Facebook and politely ask just who the hell they think they are and what they hell they’re going to do about this problem.

Update:
Facebook, please notice that this is the full, uncropped picture that was used in my Facebook profile.

Good article on visual thinking by Douglas Coupland. I’m definitely a sanserif thinker, but tend to think in variable widths as they give a lot of variety for tone. Oddly enough, it’s usually white text on a black background, or reverse, usually no color, as black and white have the strongest contrast and I’m all about the meshing point of contrasting ideas, shapes, etc.

via the excellently written and beautifully focused daring fireball.

The house was getting electrical work done recently, so the power had to completely disconnected all day and I had to be home with the workmen.

It was odd to sit home all day and do without modern life for the most part. There was no internet, no computer, hell there was even a light a bathroom, though luckily I remembered where everything was. Lunch consisted of ordered pizza, a book was read, even a movie watched on the iPod, but it all felt isolating. The workmen were friendly, but busy as they scurried all over the house, no time to chat, they had deadlines see.

And with no internet, the disconnect from other people felt complete. Remember this was just a standard work day in length, nothing excessively long, but it felt extremely isolating, as if all connections with humanity were cut off, which is a foolish thought on one hand, yet on the other a recognition of the many human contacts I have these days via the net, usually through email.

Is it any wonder that now I’m lusting after a handheld Wifi device after that day? If you’re bound to one spot for most of the day, it helps to have a multitude of human contact.

The not so funny part is that this message first occurred when the download was almost finished.



So much for a bloody thirty evening of design.

Update:
The next day I tried to rent the film again and iTunes correctly realized it had already been rented but not downloaded, so it began the download. Since the movie had mostly downloaded before, it didn’t take long to finish. Thanks Steve!

No, seriously, check out the new Amazon MP3 downloads. It’s a bit cheaper than iTunes, .89 versus .99 and the albums are either 5.99 or 8.99, depending on the artist. A quick browse for some older stuff, like Placebo or 16 horsepower reveals that they got it. Best of all, the MP3s are DRM FREE, meaning there are not restrictions on where and how they’re played. Once you buy, you can put it on your computer, iPod, work computer, your friend’s computer, etc. I’ve only bought one mp3 from iTunes, just to see how it works, but this Amazon thing makes has me reaching for my wallet.

Adam Zaretsky is a bioartist, whatever the hell that means. Still, what he’s doing is so “WTF?! COOL!”. Imagine taking a class where you ” create transgenic phaesant and quail embryos” in order to investigate the ethics of creating or shapping life and then having to chose the way they’re killed, as such embryos are not allowed to remain alive.

Got a new cellphone from the lovely wife, a Z525, very sexy. Camera, Video, flipphone, bluetooth, color display and all that. I love it!

‘cept for the interface. Things have changed since my clunky Nokia model (6500 something? Can’t remember and it’s lost now). Before it was phone with a some other features tacked on, like an address book and alarms and what. Now a cell phone is device to sell you more stuff that happens to also be a phone. Seriously, the menu has an item called Cingular Mall. I can buy ringtones, games, applications, and lord knows what else, easily doubling the phone bill.

Still the organizer is nice and the way it keeps track of your appointments is useful. There’s a ton of features on it that I’ll probably never use, but the camera and video is awesome and I’m already maxing out my media package. Looks like it’s time to get that blue-tooth card so I can download video as opposed to emailing to myself.

Sweet Christmas!