the tweney review

• lots and lots of "Something is technically wrong" errors on Twitter today! Maybe 60% of the time I try to hit the site I get the error #
• @mat first Stephen Hawking, now Grandmaster Flash … what *are* you working on? #
• Just did an intvw re iPhone unlocking for NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday #
• the song currently stuck in my head: "MacBook Air Commercial" by Feist #

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These are my links for January 30th through January 31st:

• Author Delivers Sobering Vision of a Hotter Planet - What will the world look like when it gets 1 degree warmer? Not good — and 6 degrees is much, much worse
• Robots! Roomba! GPS! - robot roundup from CES
• Ask Coach Jenny - Getting rid of side stitches quickly -

• @lanehartwell "as it happens" may be my favorite radio news show ever #
• Hot button topics on Epicenter this week: HD DVD and eBay. Both doomed, based on a very selective sampling of Wired commenters #

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I got to speak for about five minutes on WBUR’s “Here and Now” radio program earlier this week about the future of television — an ironic topic for those who know me, since I’m definitely not much of a TV watcher. The irony gets even thicker because halfway through the interview I found myself saying that the outlook for TV networks and cable channels is not completely hopeless, because even though they are losing control of distribution, they still have quality content. After years of complaining about how crappy network TV sitcoms are, we can finally see what truly bad video looks like, and suddenly the sitcoms don’t look so crummy anymore. To some people, anyway — I admitted to the interviewer that as for me, my primary way of watching TV shows is on DVDs from Netflix.

Most of the interview, though, was about the trend that I think is now inescapable: Content producers no longer have control over the means, place, or timing of video distribution. With the advent of devices like Apple TV, Vudu, and YouTube-enabled TV sets — not to mention Tivo and Slingbox — we’re fast approaching a time when people will be able to watch whatever shows they want, whenever they want, without much regard for the distribution mechanism, be it broadcase, cable, satellite, DVD, or internet connection. As someone who is dependent on Netflix to watch HBO shows a year after they’re originally broadcast, I can’t wait.

WBUR’s Here and Now - January 29, 2008 (scroll down to “Future Television,” and you’ll need Real Player)

These are my links for January 26th through January 29th:

• Make Your Own Tripod Substitute With String and Washer | Gadget Lab from Wired.com - $1 pocket tripod! Well, a monopod actually
• Yale Lecturer Advises: Flush the Prozac and Hack Your Own Happiness - Maybe the best way to deal with your problems is to talk about them, after all
• Old-School Economics - New York Times - “… the transition is over. The new economy we have been promised is in place. “
• MacBook Air review - Engadget - A solid, well-balanced review, with great photos
• Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Fractal Spikes and Global Competition - Geography matters more than ever, Hagel argues, in this post about the Bay Area’s entrepreneurial microclimates
• 29 things to be happy about / Yes, it’s all doom and gloom and war and global warming and Bush. Except when it’s not - A note of mad optimisim

• Inbox zero! First time since before CES. #

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• rained so hard last night that it woke me up 3 or 4 times #
• doing a radio interview with WBUR’s "Here and Now" show #

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• Appreciating my new bag: Overland Equipment, waxed canvas, recycled rubber & aluminum. #
• Martini time! #

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• @cameronreilly I thought the correct pronunciation of Moleskine was "boondoggle" - speaking as a user, of course #
• Moleskine & Starbucks: better product + great marketing = people will pay 3x or 4x #
• Watching "Neptune’s Daughter", 1949 Esther Williams movie, with the family #
• editing a gloomy story about the tech industry’s vulnerability to recession #

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These are my links for January 25th:

• Life inside one big text file | 43 Folders -
• Danny O’Brien’s Life Hacks for Geeks - Survey of how geeks get things done: shell interfaces, text files, and index cards. via Merlin Mann: http://www.43folders.com/2005/08/17/life-inside-one-big-text-file
• Toward Understanding E-Prime, by Robert Anton Wilson - English, minus all forms of the verb “to be,” can be a useful tool for writing and thinking more clearly. See also http://www.nickpagan.com/blog/59/e-prime/