I have seen a collection of posts about MagicJack lately. It looks like a cool idea.

I guess the Apple rumors have struck a nerve considering the number of new articles and commentaries written about the possibility. I liked Mr. Fulton’s take on this as he generally seems to have a level opinion on things, not too hot or too cold. Mr. Wilcox, not to be left out, has responded to his responders. After reading this second article, I can believe that he wanted to start a good discussion. However, his attempt to show “I’m one of you guys” by pointing out other articles he has written about technology in general and Apple in particular, seem to me to be about covering his bases. If the “iSlab”, (his nominal label) fails, he was right in predicting it. If it does well, he wrote this second article explaining why it did well and how he’s always been an Apple backer; so again, he was right. This probably sounds more negative than I mean it to be, because I am happy he wrote the original item and the follow-up piece as well. I think this is because I’m a news junkie and wanted something to carry me over until the (I hope) eventual announcement of such a device.

Others, including Mr. Scoble, Mr. Carr, and Mr. Flores also weighed in on the original article. Although I liked this last article the most out of the three, I had two issues with it. 1) The price still has to be low enough. Even adding magazine/newspaper/textbook subscriptions, media center remote control, and more pleasant web surfing doesn’t make me want to splash out more than $400 for such a device. Even that seems high. However, if Mr. Scoble is right, then all I have to do is wait to hit the price point I want. 2) I love the idea of textbooks, but textbook publishers as a group are generally stupid. I don’t think they will be much more enlightened than the RIAA, MPAA, Author’s Guild, or game publishers. They will love the idea of charging the same amount for an electronic textbook that expires after one semester as they do for the physical copy. They will even have all kinds of justifications of how this is better for the consumer and why they still need to charge the same amount. The especially dull in the group will even argue that they should charge more. In the end, they will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new business model invented by someone else, like iTunes, Netflix, Steam just like the other groups before them. Hopefully, the business cycles have shortened and someone “disrupts” them faster. Although they aren’t perfect, I like the way that Manning Publications Co. has enabled electronic copies. Maybe they would consider branching out into the general textbook publishing world if something like the “iSlab” gave them an opening. I guess one can hope.

John Gruber and http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/The-world-doesnt-need-an-Apple-tablet-or-any-other/1262456214 had some things to say about a possibly imminent tablet-like device from Apple. Then MG Siegler disagreed with Joe Wilcox. Somewhere in one of these posts or comments to them, I ran across Mag+ by Bonnier. The thing I found interesting about this was the thought that went into how digital magazines would work. It wasn’t web pages that looked like a magazine. It wasn’t 100% true to printed format. It looks like they really tried to make an effort to determine what a sensible balance would be. Although, their radial menu idea and “warming up the page” didn’t click with me right away, their idea for both allowing some of the layout elements of a magazine to remain while getting rid of the tiresome electronic page turning meme really resonated with me. The final products may not end up working or looking like this, but they have at least shown part of a compelling path forward.

Although I don’t have a Kindle reader, I do have the software loaded on my iPhone and PC. I’m not sure I care for the horizontal page flipping as opposed to vertical scrolling, but maybe it will grow on me. The one advantage I see right now to flipping is that it is easier to figure out where you left off after setting the device down. However, the visual bookmarking on the iPhone works well enough for this that I’m not sure flipping is really a benefit over scrolling. Nevertheless, I definitely enjoy reading books on my iPhone and expect to continue to do so. The fact that Amazon sold more digital than physical books this last Christmas makes me think I am in the rapidly approaching majority, at least for serious readers.

What does this have to do with the tablet? I think Gruber is right that Apple may have planned uses for the tablet that we on the outside haven’t fully grasped yet. It won’t just be a bathroom e-reader and browser. Apple will have some other compelling use case, or combination of use cases. However, I cannot imagine that any use case will preclude the tablet’s use as a reader and browser. In addition, you have to think that a 7 to 10 inch screen would in fact be large enough for decent home automation software. I personally would stick to the lower dollar amounts ($300-500) expected of a e-reader or fancy webpad. I think the home control enthusiasts would be getting a steal at the higher end ($800-1000) considering the quality that is likely to go into a gadget released by Apple and the cost of existing products if the tablet could replace them. In the end, I wouldn’t pay more than the low end unless, Gruber is right and the released product has a good chance of replacing my old PowerPC based Macbook (which is still running strong). The truth is, I currently don’t see a tablet as a compelling laptop replacement. However, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to surprise me like that. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

VIM can be incredibly efficient as a text editor. Even if this wasn’t the case, movement keystrokes are so ingrained in my muscle memory that I end getting j’s and k’s in my notepad and MSWord documents. So the editing is taken care of, but the compiling, deploying, keyword/function lookup, etc. could be better. I realize there are many “tricks” and vim plugins to give a lot of this functionality, but it seems like I have to search again whenever I set up a vim environment to find the best fit for my style. I have linked a few posts below because I found them useful, and this is a handy way for me to get back to them the next time the question comes up. I’m sure I’ve missed some. Post your favorite links on turning VIM into an IDE in the comments.

1) Unix is an IDE
2) Python and vim: Make your own IDE
3) VIM as Python IDE

This is somewhat humorous. I tell people who don’t know any better that this is how Perl is actually written. Then they think they understand why I curse it.
Writing Perl using Vista voice recognition and Notepad

I have started a new project (a relatively simple program to upload files to a server). I thought it would be fun to develop this in the open and talk about design decisions I made.

One thing I want to try is to compare and contrast some different ways to develop the same program. I originally wrote some pieces in Python using wxPython. I separated most of the control definition for the one window (essentially a glorified dialog box) in the program. This information now resides in a separate xrc resource file.

There is a hefty amount of runtime files needed with this method. Python and wxPython each require their own software install. I decided it might be fun to write the interface using Runtime Revolution as well. This isn’t free like the Python route, but I already own a copy and any source code I write for this can certainly be free. I think that the compiled end product will be significantly smaller than a binary distribution using Python. It will also be mostly self-contained. I say mostly, because there are still dependencies, but I think they will already be loaded on the OS.

I plan on writing this program for Windows. Both of the preceding two methods should be cross-platform with little if any changes needed to change between Linux, Mac OSX, or Windows. However, I’m thinking of trying a third method, writing the program using AutoHotkey. This would be limited to Windows as far as I know. From my experience though, these types of programs can be compiled into a relatively tiny binary, that I think only depends on the MSVC runtime.

I need this, or at least I think I will in about 20 years. I never liked the concept of scraping cartilage out of my knees. Doesn’t that leave me with less cartilage? Scientists are working on a procedure which goes far beyond just scraping the piece out. In fact, this even goes beyond microfacture surgery. This still isn’t true cartilage replacement from what I can tell, but considering that bone marrow can actually contain stem cells, and what microfracture surgery does, it kind of makes sense. Hopefully, they can continue along this line until the gel can contain extra stem cells when injected.

Not only have scientists found new evidence of the Panspermia hypothesis, but they are now discovering that life may have the possibility to exist on a really small scale. In addition, scientists are learning how to harness this small life to do amazing stuff, like turning waste into hydrocarbon chains that look like petroleum.

Jeff Hawkins can do more than revolutionary PDA’s. He has published a paper on a model of memory built up from very small pieces. I read a blog article on how this can relate to current systems such as a Bayesian network. The talk from TED is very interesting, and after hearing it I happened across a couple different articles that talk about the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon. They situations make a lot of sense when considered in light of this memory model. I read Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind many years ago, and I think Hawkins has gone more in depth on one specific piece of this. The two works are self-reinforcing, in my opinion.

I found a tutorial on mapping keys in Vim. The same techniques work for Vimperator if you create your own configuration file. If you don’t like Vimperator though, you can search Firefox from within Vim.