Indie

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Stand up and declare your independence from corporate chains, mass-produced products, and uninspired junk. #ShopIndie this holiday season to experience the satisfaction of owning a unique item, made with love and attention, direct from the artist themselves.

via Big Cartel

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Consumer

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The Kindle Fire

Marco Arment tried out the Kindle Fire and loves it:

I expected the Kindle Fire to be a compelling iPad alternative, but I can’t call it delightful, fun, or pleasant to use. Quite the opposite, actually: using the Fire is frustrating and unpleasant, and it feels like work.

For most people, every other computer in their life feels like work, and they don’t need another one.

It’s not an iPad competitor or alternative. It’s not the same kind of device at all. And, whatever it is, it’s a bad version of it.

That’s probably all you need to know about the Kindle Fire. Below is a detailed account of the issues I ran into, but I won’t take offense if you’re burnt out on long Kindle Fire reviews and stop here.

One of my coworkers happened to bring his new Fire in to the office yesterday and I got to do a little test drive and I came to a similar conclusion as Marco. The device is just meh. It’s ok. It does the job. There’s nothing delightful about the device. Aside from smooth scrolling on the content ‘carousel’ on the main screen, everything else on the device is choppy.
The Kindle Fire is mediocre in every aspect, from Human Experience to motion and transitions.
As with the HP Touchpad, I was hoping for a real contender to the iPad. But like the Touchpad, the execution is poor.

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Human Experience

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Keel’s

keels diary

In a world where products are out as soon as they’re in, where communicating without wires doesn’t come without strings, and even our accessories need accessories, we need simple tools. A book that helps us look inside because we are overloaded outside.

There are three reasons why most people, although they have tried, won’t keep a diary:
1. Not every day is very eventful.
2. It actually takes a lot of discipline to write.
3. In retrospect, many find what they have written embarrassing.

via Taschen

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Personal

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Effective as a piece of Art.

John Gruber on spec-based reviews:

Spec-based reviews of computers and gadgets are inherently flawed, a relic of an era that’s already gone. Movie reviews are about what the movie is like to watch. Is it enjoyable, is it entertaining, does it look and sound good? Imagine a movie review based on specs, where you gave points for how long it was, whether the photography is in focus, deduct points for continuity errors in the story, and then out comes a number like “7.5/10”, with little to no mention about, you know, whether the movie was effective as a piece of art.

Spec-based reviews are only important to are the companies building them and geeks. Once you have the fundamentals, like battery life and memory/disk space you enter a realm where the average consumer doesn’t give a shit.
Dual core, quad core, megahertz, open platform/closed platform. Bah!
Just show me how great the experience is.

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Human Experience

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