via FBU

Last year filmmaker Nirvan Mullick made a film about a 9-year-old boy, Caine, who had made a cardboard arcade in his dad’s auto body shop in LA. The film was called, Caine’s Arcade.

The film’s goal was to raise $25,000 for Caine’s college fund. He ended up getting well over 4 times that amount.

The non-profit Imagination Foundation was spawned from the film:

The Imagination Foundation is launching the first ever Global Cardboard Challenge, inviting the world to play while raising funds to foster creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.

September will be the month to organize and build, then on October 6th (the one-year anniversary of the flashmob that came out to make Caine’s day) friends, family, co-workers and community members can come out to play at local events, celebrating the creativity and imagination of kids around the world.

Pretty awesome.

On a related note, my wife and I moved to LA in April and I’m embarrassed to say I still have not been to Caine’s Arcade.

It’s been 6 years since I’ve updated my portfolio. I decided to do it on Behance.net.

It’s been long overdue.

I decided to go ahead and install iOS 6, despite my decision a few days ago to wait (Who the hell am I kidding? I’m a huge geek and I’ve been using computers since I was 4 years old).
The reason? The more I read about mapping technology and listened to podcasts where people were discussed it, the more I realized I wouldn’t be helping the situation if I just sat out of the game.
As many people reminded me, some technologies, including mapping, can only get better when people are allowed to use it. Break it. Point out flaws in it. Mapping is one of those technologies. Google has been doing maps for 7 years (that’s 2 years before the iPhone launched). They’ve had a big head start in collecting data, improving it, adding amazing features like StreetView I’ve come to rely on. But they didn’t launch with StreetView, or transit directions or the high(er) fidelity satellite images they have today.
Now, for better or for worse, Apple has decided to build their own mapping service (At this point all we know is Apple had a 5 year licensing contract with Google for their Maps data and they didn’t renew the contract). It might not be as bare bones as Google Maps was in 2005, but it needs a lot of work.
I discovered the link in Apple’s Maps app you need to click on to ‘Report a Problem’. It’s too subtle in my opinion:

So far, from the few routes I’ve plotting between places here in Los Angeles, nothing looks wrong, but I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled.

The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.

—William Gibson

Interior of a 1966 Berlinetta Willys Interlagos

via asaucerfullofwheels

If anyone needs an idea on what to get me for Christmas, I’d like a few Mitt Romney “Jobs” posters to put around my house.
Sold exclusively on MittRomney.com. No, seriously.

Cyrus Sanati at CNNMoney wonders if Windows 8 is Microsoft’s ‘New Coke’ moment. I like that analogy and aligns with my view of it being half baked. If people don’t like the taste of ‘New Windows 8’ they can always go back into the ‘Classic’ desktop view.
Unlike Coke, I don’t think Microsoft will have the luxury of scrapping Windows 8 to go back to the ‘old’ Windows.

In light of his new role as Lincoln, I thought this scene from Gangs of New York is interesting:

I just finished watching John Gruber and David Pogue on Charlie Rose.
Quick thoughts: Pogue is a cheeseball, as is expected. Hyperbolic and weird. Gruber was composed, not very camera-friendly but gave solid answers to Charlie’s questions.
In all though, it’s really hard to give a thorough explanation of the iPhone 5 and the state-of-affairs in as little time as they both had with Charlie. I think they both did as good as job as they could. Pogue with his goofiness and Gruber with his straight-shooter responses.

Yes, Apple’s Achilles’ Heel is services. Anyone who remembers what MobileMe was (or wasn’t) knows this.
The MobileMe debacle is where you can find one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes:

“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

It looked like MobileMe was behind them with the revamped, North-Carlina-server-farm-driven iCloud service, but now we’re seeing Apple struggle with maps.
This is why I’m not an early adopter with new hardware and gadgets (online services is different, there’s no risk). Looking at the situation, I’ll be keeping my iPhone 4 on iOS 5 at least until the new year. Maybe things won’t be such a mess by then.