"This guy trashes the HIG the way Johnny Depp trashes a hotel room."

alternateorg on September 13, 2005

You’d probably have seen this anyway because you all should read Daring Fireball, but I just had to point this out, and right now. Daring Fireball: The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

Brushed Metal: Who did they go with for iTunes? Not that Unified Title and Toolbar cocksucker…

Mike: No, they got someone new.

Brushed Metal: New?

Mike: Yeah, and he’s hot. Very hot. He looks like Unified with a tan.

Brushed Metal: Beige?!

Mike: No, not tan colored. Like suntanned. He’s like Unified but darker. His color is a lot like yours, but smooth and shaded like Unified. And thinner. No borders. It’s a very chic look. Reminds me of you, back in the day.

Hurricane "Corina" and other stupid quotes

alternateorg on September 12, 2005

Just more proof of my stark belief that this administration is, in fact, the actual coming of the anti-christ:

I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” –President Bush, on “Good Morning America,” Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina
…
What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them.” –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005
…
We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do … The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” (Laughter) —President Bush, touring hurricane damage, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

Read more here, if you think your stomach can take it. Via TheMorningNews

Flick Off!

alternateorg on August 30, 2005

Since Tai currently works in the digital identity field and since I worked in it just over a year ago, digital identity articles are always interesting to me, especially when they include such staples for me as Yahoo! and Flickr.

“If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline,” wrote Thomas Müller, a Hamburg, Germany-based artist who shows more than 1,400 photos at the site. On Wednesday, Müller created a protest group, Flick Off, that has attracted almost 400 members.

I seriously don’t get that. Sign up for a stupid fucking Yahoo! account and shut the hell up already. It’s Flickr’s product, not yours, maybe if you’d been asked if you cared one way or the other, you might have some griping to do, but christ. Do I find it a little sad that Flickr thought it a good move to delete your pictures in 2006 if you don’t sign up for a Yahoo! account? Yeah, I do. You should have the choice to federate your two identities, or keep your Flickr identity stand-alone, but you shouldn’t be forced to do something with an account that you aren’t comfortable.

If this was maybe an online banking account issue, or something a little more secure and important than personal photo sharing, I might see a desire and a strong reason to stir things up and talk on Wired.com about how much of a baby you are. But Flickr? Yahoo? Not a big deal. Suck it up and choose a Yahoo! ID.

Now if this was MSN doing this.. I’d probably have canceled my Flickr account within minutes. But that’s just me.

Jobs calls father of teen killed over iPod

alternateorg on July 7, 2005

Holy shit.
Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs personally called the family of a 15-year-old New Yorker to offer his condolences after the teenager was killed last week during a fight over an iPod, according to a report published Wednesday.
…
“Some people talk to you like they’re something remote. He was so familiar. After every word, he paused, as if each word he said came from his heart,” Rose told the Times.