via my Instagram

Speaking of poetry and code, below is my favorite poem by e.e. cummings.

From Kristin at 37Signals:

one is part of a Ruby program and one is a contemporary poem.

Michael Loop on why hacking is important.
Read the whole thing, but this is great:

Reasonable people are often scared by the new. This is because reasonable people are not Barbarians and they are not hackers. They appreciate the predictable, profitable, and knowable world that comes with a well-defined process, and I would like to thank each and everyone of them because these people keep the trains running and on time. No one likes Barbarians because the Barbarian strategy is one at odds with civilization. By definition, a Barbarian, a hacker, is building on a strategy that is at odds with the majority.

It’s awesome.

Seems airlines might suck a little less soon.
Nick Bilton, writing for the NYTimes, says the F.A.A. is going to review their policies on gadgets:

When I called the F.A.A. last week to pester them about this regulation — citing experts and research that says these devices could not harm a plane — the F.A.A. responded differently than it usually does. Laura J. Brown, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs for the F.A.A., said that the agency has decided to take a “fresh look” at the use of personal electronics on planes.

About fucking time.
And for the record, I rarely put my iPhone into Airplane Mode when flying. So far I haven’t caused any flight disruptions.
If gadgets were truly interfering with flight equipment, airplanes would be outfitted with preventative measures to ensure objectors like me didn’t cause problems. Otherwise, how could they confidently take off without knowing the status of every single passenger’s gadgets?
I imagine if cellphones and other gadgets were truly interfering with airline equipment they would have developed something comparable to how speaker docks for iPhones are magnetically shielded to prevent mobile radio wave interference from being heard through the speakers.

via The Daily Beast

Artist Berndnaut Smilde makes indoor clouds with a thermostat, a humidifier, and a fog machine. Incredible.

via Technabob

I saw Sleep No More last summer on the recommendation from a coworker and my wife and I loved it.
Looks like something new is brewing, they just sent me a invite:

From the Batman TV show from the 1960’s.
via vintagegal

In light of my last post, this news about This American Life retracting their episode on Apple’s suppliers is interesting.

I had a friend once upon a time who was a comic book artist and writer. He told me around 20 years ago that there were only about ten truly great artists in the business. One of them was Moebius.

From Ars Technica:

As part of iFixit’s ritualistic dismemberment of the third-generation iPad, the team discovered that, like its predecessor, the device is not only made up almost entirely of its battery: it’s also difficult to repair and to recycle. Though Apple’s engineering and design teams have created a thin and seamless device, their reliance on glue and difficult-to-separate components belies Apple’s goal of creating “green” products.

Apple is the big dog now. This can be hard for people to understand who have used Apple products for more than 5 years. I know it is for me. They walk the straight line of a paradox as both David and Goliath in my brain.
But now that they are #1, they’re going to be under the microscope. Every move they make will continue to be scrutinized, be it greenness of their products, or the conditions of the factories where their products are built.
It’s easy to point fingers at all their competitors and how much less they might doing to to be green or observe workers’ rights, but it’s more important to focus on holding Apple accountable for their decisions.
If they’ve shown us anything in the last 10+ years, it’s that they can achieve anything they set out to do. especially in the face of naysayers.

Sound, yet often ignored advice from Patrick Rhone:

I’m a writer. I have everything I need, right now, to write. Take away my computer? I’ll still write. I’ll use pen and paper. Take away my pen and paper, and I’ll use my fingernail to scrawl it into the soft bark of the nearest tree.

Extreme? Perhaps. But I can tell you for certain that, when it is time to write, nothing will stop me from doing so.

PayPal just announced Here, it’s answer to Square‘s device that let’s you accept credit card payments from your iPhone.
The little triangle piece dangling down in front is driving me fucking nuts.
I’m never above being proven wrong, and I would love to know what Yves Behar’s thinking was on that. Yves designed it with his team at fuseproject.
Update: OK, I think the limp triangle is explained over at Co.Design:

Additionally, the device had to tell you that you could swipe a credit-card through it, which Behar’s team accomplished by layering light and dark plastics atop each other, so you can tell that there’s a surface for sliding.

I still think there was a better way to convey the swipeability.