iPad Links: Thursday, April 22, 2010

A bit shorter than usual as I didn’t travel the Net much today.

1: Malcolm McLaren’s funeral
2: LADYPALOOZA PRESENTS: I Went To Your Concert and There Was Nothing Going On, or, A Meditation on Dude Music
3: LADYPALOOZA PRESENTS! The World At Large: How Privilege works in Rock Music

How Facebook Plans to Dominate the Web
Death Spiral Continues: Nokia shares hit as profit outlook cut
Archos 5 Internet Tablet Firmware Update Changelog
Chippy’s SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Blog
Tickle Me Elmo Creator Invents a Sometimes-Lethal Weapon
Turning on your Reality Distortion Field
Ted Dziuba’s Blog
1: Can’t Stand to Sit Too Long? There’s a Desk for That
2: DIY Stand-up desk

iPad:
Interesting iPad UI Anomaly
99 year old lady becomes an iPad user – writes poetry
iPad – A Perfect Fit for Magazines
How to Print from the iPad

iPhone:
Teenagers make $170k on Apple iPhone OS platform
Android running on iPhone!
Why I’m Angry About the iPhone Leak

UI/Web Design:
Mobile Design: Simplifying Complexity
Mobile Library Catalogs
Get 2D Working Right First: Is it too early to consider 3D html?
Justify My Love
The CSS 3 Flexible Box Model

Publishing:
The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta Needs a Calculator, not an E-Book Reader
Hip Hop Goes Transmedia (Part One)
“South Park” airs censored episode after threat

Writing/Writers:
FREE Pulp Fiction: Add Flesh to the Fire
Writer Alan Glynn Interview: The Dark Art of Paranoia
Alan Glynn’s New Book: Winterland
Larger Article Link: Want To Build An Audience? Start Making Apps
Lulu and the London Book Fair Affaire: a Timeline

20th March
Eyjafjalla Glacier: PhfrlOOOOOOORb fssth BluuUUUUUrkkkk Boom Fsst (etc)

Apple Has A “Lifetime Limit” On iPad Buying?

This is a very strange story.

And the site is being hammered right now, so use this text-only Google cached version.

Basically, he went in and bought a bunch of iPads on separate days, adhering to the “two to a customer” limit, never realizing that limit was … um, some sort of real limit.

He’s still staring at his monitor and a few seconds pass before Guy #2 carefully says, “There is a limit to the number of iPads that customers can buy.”

Me (playing dumb) — “Oh, is that right? What’s the limit?”

Guy #2 — “Only 2 per customer.”

Apple ipad tablet slate shopping genius bar store

Ok, so the gig is up. I stand around waiting for a bit and was preparing to leave when Guy #1 returns.

Guy #1 — “I’m sorry sir, but you have reached your lifetime limit of iPad purchases and will not be allowed to buy any more.”

Me (anticipating that statement) — “Is the iPad limit per person? Per credit card? Per household?”

Guy #1 — “All I can say is that you have reached your lifetime limit.”

Me — “What does that mean? Can I use a different credit card to buy it? I’m buying this for a friend.”

Guy #1 — “You are not allowed to buy this iPad.”

Me — “Uhh… is it ok if I have a family member or friend come to buy it for me? My reservation doesn’t expire until 6:00 PM.”

Guy #1 — “All I can say is that you have reached your lifetime limit.”

Me (suddenly realizing what he’s saying)– “Wait, what? Lifetime? What does that mean?”

Guy #1 — “All I can say is that you have reached your lifetime limit of iPads and will not be allowed to buy any more.”

Me — “I’m banned from buying iPads? I know there’s a shortage right now, but I can’t buy any more once there’s plenty of stock?”

Guy #1 — “All I can say is that you have reached your lifetime limit.”

What I think made the problem “serious” in Apple’s eyes was that this guy was shipping them out of the country, in effect being a gray marketeer. I suspect what Guy #2 was looking at was some sort of notice from Apple that showed his iPads being activated or registered outside of the United States. And that got the banhammer dropped on him.

It’s a very strange story. From one point of view, I think, what does it matter to Apple if these iPads are in stock? And then I wonder if there is some sort of certification issue involved where the countries these have been shipped to could put Apple in trouble (recall how Israel has been banning and confiscating iPads!).

Anyway, keep this story in mind if you ever want to be some sort of “samaritan” via the Apple Store!

Doctor Who, The BBC, And Apple

Doctor Who: The return of the Weeping Angels by Steven Moffat

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Hey, BBC, isn’t that restriction just plain stupid now? Doctor Who runs on BBC America too. So why can’t I see that clip?

And the podcast I mentioned earlier — Doctor Who Lands At Apple Store SoHo — is now available at iTunes [iTunes link]. Unfortunately, even though it was video recorded, the podcast is only audio.

iPhone App: Walking Cinema

Walking Cinema: Parkman, Murder on Beacon Hill

This looks good. And I can see why it’s best suited for the iPhone too: that portability is needed (plus, someone is less likely to rip an iPhone out of your hand than an iPad … right now).

Hit the link above to see some interesting videos and text.

It’s $4.99 at the App Store [iTunes link]. If you’re going to Boston, this is something you should get. After seeing the website, now I want to go to Boston, just to use this!

Press release (from months ago!) and two screensnaps after the break:

No Facebook

I have a page only to prevent impersonation by the sick stalkers who are out there.

Facebook is a brain-damaging mess that makes MySpace look crystal clear. I won’t use it.

Today I De-Friended everyone and set 99% of my Privacy Settings to “Only Me” can view.

Do not send me a Friend Request there. I will hit Ignore on you. Block, if you do it twice.

All of you giving away your privacy like a drunken slut in a bar, consider this:

“South Park” airs censored episode after threat

The little-known group RevolutionMuslim.com posted a message on its website earlier this week … to a news article with details of a mansion in Colorado that Parker and Stone apparently own.

Don’t feed the crazies. There are many.

Just A Note To Myself

Otherwise I will forget.

Eagles At Hollywood Bowl

And making it used to be so different. The best and the brightest went into music. A world where victory meant you were beholden to no one, where you got all the pussy you could handle and had more than enough money to pay for drugs and the whims of your imagination.

And:

Welcome to the twenty first century. Where kids think stardom is fame and graybeards remember when dinosaurs walked the earth, when James Brown was called in to quell riots. That was the power of music. And it was about the music. The rest was just trappings. But now, all we’ve got are the trappings.

And:

Today there’s truly too much going on, but so much of it is noise. It’s like we’re living in a Brillo pad, being scratched by shit we don’t care about, looking for clear light. That’s what music was, clear light.

Malcolm McLaren, RIP: A Story for Marketers

When the Sex Pistols were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, they behaved exactly how we expected them to. They didn’t just snub the ceremony by not showing up, but took a metaphorical crap on the establishment in a grammatically challenged letter read at the ceremony by Rolling Stone founder, and ruiner, Jann Wenner. The band’s statement was simple: “Next to the Sex Pistols, rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. We’re not coming. We’re not your monkeys. If you voted for us, hope you noted your reasons. Your [sic] anonymous as judges but your [sic] still music industry people. We’re not coming.”

It finished with this little gem: “Your [sic] not paying attention. Outside the shit-stem is a real SEX PISTOL.”

Wow. After all this time the band that brought an underground music movement to the forefront of pop culture hasn’t changed an iota, and we love them for it. Part of being punk for real is never wavering in your conviction and/or vision.

Blog Notes: Template Contains Mysteries

I came across this, here, today:

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Closer-up:

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That is contained in the template I’m using. Those are not my words.

1) There are too many words
2) I’d never use the term “tiger.” Who the hell wrote that, Stan Lee?

There might be other things like that socked away here. Just know that I didn’t scribble that crap.