Google Earth and the z-axis
The Google Earth iPhone app was released a few days ago, and I knew it would be cool because the desktop version was such a huge achievement. But I didn’t know why it would be cool in the context of the iPhone. And now I do. And now I’ll tell you.
Do you remember in 2006 when a guy named Jeff Han demonstrated his multi-touch display and it got linked all over because it was the closest thing we’d seen to ‘Minority Report’? And then eventually that display was appropriated by CNN and then poked fun at on SNL? And the DNA of that display can be found in the iPhone?
I’ve wondered why my iPhone has been so eager to let me use two fingers to scale an image in the Photos app, for instance, but never to let me rotate an image. Is the processing that much more intensive or is Apple most concerned about simplicity as users learn to adapt to multi-touch? I’d begun to forget that a third axis even existed.
Now, I’m sure that there have been games that allow for z-axis rotation, but I don’t really play games on the iPhone, so when I launched Google Earth and noticed, accidentally, that I could spin the globe beneath me, I had an “Aha!” moment. It was like I was feeling in a whole new dimension. I encourage you to try it.
“We were noticing something as we did this: The people, whether they supported McCain or Obama, seemed to be in a little better mood– in an observably more pleasant frame of mind– after they were urged to say something nice about the other guy. During a campaign year that has consisted of so many raised voices and ugly charges, they seemed to like this.
A quick and uplifting read via waxy
iStockphoto Guide to Success in Business
Step 1: Business, arrows, lady
Step 2: ???
Step 3: SUCCESS
Laurel and Hardy “The Music Box” (1932)
Today is ‘Music Box Steps Day’ in Silver Lake, where people young and old gather at the park near the foot of the famous steps to enjoy the movie, interact with real life-like Stan and Ollie impersonators, and eat pizza. The steps happen to be around the corner from my house, so I went to check it out.
Obsessive readers may notice that the location indicated on my Twitter page is “Edendale, California”, which is how the iPhone app Twitteriffic interprets my GPS location, despite the name ‘Edendale’ having been out of use for many decades.
From the wiki:
In the opening decades of the 20th century, in the era of silent film, Edendale was widely known as the home of most major film studios on the West Coast. Among its many claims, it was home to the Keystone Cops, and the site of many film firsts, including Charlie Chaplin’s first film, the first feature-length comedy, and the first pie-in-the-face.The district’s heyday as the center of the film industry was in the 1910s. By the 1920s, the studios had moved elsewhere, mostly to Hollywood, which would come to supplant it as the “film capital”.
Pippi, Tommy, Annika
Something weird and wonderful for your Friday. Set to a song by Slagsmålsklubben called Vi och Olle.
NYTimes: The Making (and Remaking) of McCain
It was 11:45, and the Palins had entered the bar. Dozens of staff members and delegates flocked to the governor, cellphone cameras outstretched. Todd and Sarah Palin posed, shook hands and extended their gracious appreciation for 15 minutes. Then, no doubt realizing that they would never be able to enjoy a drink in peace, they withdrew for the evening, again to raucous applause.While all of this was going on, an elegant middle-aged woman sat alone at the far end of the bar. She wore beige slacks and a red sweater, and she picked at a salad while talking incessantly on her cellphone. But for the McCain/Palin button affixed to her collar and the brief moment that Tucker Eskew, Palin’s new counselor, spoke into her ear, she seemed acutely disconnected from the jubilation swelling around her.
In fact, the woman was here for a reason. Her name was Priscilla Shanks, a New York-based stage and screen actress of middling success who had found a lucrative second career as a voice coach. Shanks’s work with Sarah Palin was as evident as it was unseen. Gone, by the evening of her convention speech, was the squeaky register of Palin’s exclamations. Gone (at least for the moment) was the Bushian pronunciation of “nuclear” as “nook-you-ler.” Present for the first time was a leisurely, even playful cadence that signaled Sarah Palin’s inevitability on this grand stage.
I have no agenda in linking to this article. I do so only because it weaves a great narrative and reminds me of my fascination with the crossover between politics and show business.
Later, some revealing origin story:
A year after Barack Obama was sworn into the Senate, Salter recalls McCain saying, “He’s got a future, I’ll reach out to him” — as McCain had to Russ Feingold and John Edwards, and as the liberal Arizona congressman Mo Udall had reached out to McCain as a freshman. McCain invited Obama to attend a bipartisan meeting on ethics reform. Obama gratefully accepted —but then wrote McCain a letter urging him to instead follow a legislative path recommended by Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate. Feeling double-crossed, McCain ordered Salter to “send him a letter, brush him back a little.” Since that experience, says a Republican who has known McCain for a long time, “there was certainly disdain and dislike of Obama.”
Not at all relevant, but if you’re interested in seeing Priscilla Banks on “Chappelle’s Show” episode 2x09, she plays the prosecutor at the R. Kelly trial. Skip to 2:25 to see her get pissed on by Dave Chappelle.
