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This morning my attention was directed to the following article at Salon Magazine:

If I could kick a website in the ding ding my foot would already be behind my back and swinging forward with all the might I could muster, toe pointed forward, poised for a sure shot.

Salon (and they're not the only ones) ought to be ashamed for stating such a smug opinion on yesterday's meeting between the Whitehouse and the House of Representatives. Yesterday we witnessed a rare event that should be celebrated with a fervent demand for an encore and another and another. It should not be treated like a simple media event wherein tallies are made and a victor is announced. The entire point of the session was to but an end to the daily soundbyte sniper hunt and talk candidly without the interruption of pundits who are paid to pour gasoline on a tire fire.

It's easy for all of us to cynical (including the media) about what was said yesterday but we can't expect politicians to change overnight. We have had such a vicious decade of division that is not going to simply go away. Like all wounds, this will take time to heal and it is on us to stop running back to our ideological bunkers to dissect what was said into triumphant taking points.

Every voter in this union should take some time this weekend to thank their representatives for participating in yesterdays Q&A and encourage them to conduct more open sessions until it becomes a routine of our political culture, a structural thread in our evolving democracy. Write to the President and write to your members of the House. Meanwhile, we should harass and snub media outlets who seek to continue opening the divide between neighbors because civil discourse would likely mean lower ratings with declining advertising revenue.

Yesterday's open door talk wasn't perfect but it was a start. Lets go team go.

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Counterpoint. I don't think that the iPad and its descendants are the end of general purpose computing. I do think that having less ways to hack will lead to less hackers and makers.
It's kind of like playing with a box full of random legos vs. a fancy star wars super duper actin set. Yes, both are toys but one is entirely powered by imagination and the other by a marketing tie-in.

Most people drive automatic cars whereas I prefer a stick. This person is arguing the same damn thing: I think that it’s a real possibility that in 10 years, general purpose computers will be seen as being strictly for developers and hobbyists. The descendants of the iPhone and iPad and their co... Found via...

Mark Pilgrim's excellent exposition on the "tinkerer's sunset" (an idea Alex Payne put forth in his iPad piece I linked earlier) got me thinking about the nature of tinkerers, and whether the iPad really represents a sunset for them. The optimist in me thinks it couldn't even if it tried.

First, know that I fundamentally agree with Alex and Mark: the closed nature of the iPad turns me off, and I wouldn't give one to my kid if I were encouraging her to learn about how computers work. But, Apple's rightly betting that most people don't want to know about the inner workings of a computer,* and regardless of the fact that Apple runs the App Store with an iron fist, dedicated hackers have still figured out ways to run whatever software they want on the iPhone/iPod touch. They'll do the same with the iPad, and this led me to muse that the open versus closed debate, which has geeks like me in a tizzy, may be 99% a philosophical discussion. Because while we're all ranting about how closed the iPad will be, the jailbreak community is planning competitions to see who can crack it first. The sun isn't setting on tinkerers; their desire to crack things open intensifies when faced with something that's closed by design. The challenge is part of the appeal.

I wrote Mark an email about all this earlier and realized I should have just posted it publicly. Here's a quick copy and paste job, with a few edits for readability.

Doesn't tinkering, by definition, connote cracking something open, voiding the warranty, and twiddling regardless of consequences? Taking the risk that you brick it with no recourse? When you jailbreak your iPhone, is there a *practical* difference between that experience and rooting Android, or flashing your Linksys with open source firmware, or installing XBMC on your Xbox? Is the legality the difference? Which of those activities is legal and which is illegal? (I'm not even sure, which is pretty ignorant on my part, since I've done all of those. I just didn't care.) Is there really a tinkerer's sunset if unlocking the iWhatever in some manner remains an option? If it's not an option, won't the act of tinkering involve MAKING it one? I'm of the mind that if someone wants to tinker, they will tinker, period. Because it's in their DNA, not because it's easy, and because by nature, tinkerers don't play by the rules.

I think that's where I'm least comfortable with the doom-and-gloom tinkerer's sunset vision of the future. I have a LOT of faith that our future tinkerers won't give a crap about the law and crack stuff they find interesting open, regardless, and they'll figure out how to do it, even if it takes more than typing Ctrl+Reset. Most of the stuff we all hack on is closed in some way, isn't it? Not that this is an excuse for Apple's stupidity... more of an observation.

So, I asked about the open v. closed thing being mostly philosophical because the jailbreak community is alive and well. Even though on one hand I'm chagrined they're spending time and energy developing for a platform that shuns them, on the other, the fact that they exist supports my optimistic outlook about the unflagging dedication of the tinkerer, especially to doing things they're told not to do. (For better or for worse, optimism is my default setting.)

Even though I am critical of the iPad's closed nature and agree with Mark and Alex, I won't go as far as Alex did and say that it represents a dystopian future. I have more faith in our future tinkerers than that.

That all said, I personally will spend my time developing for open systems.

* Regarding Apple's goal of abstracting away the inner workings of a computer into a device that "just works" by "magic," Gruber's automatic versus manual transmission metaphor is a particularly good one. I don't know how to drive a stick, but it's literally been on my "things I want to learn" list since I got my license. I'm not a car enthusiast. I just love driving, and a stick shift seems like it would be something I'd really enjoy. Take from that what you will.

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Short and sweet. The other day, I wondered if it was a good thing about computers becoming more like cars: Interchangeable in that they get you from point a to point b but inflexible in that after they are built, they are fairly static.

We custom ordered our car and it is a reflection of us. Another car would accomplish the task of getting us to work and back but it would not be "us". It could be anyone.

Computers thus far have become incredibly personalized and at the desktop level, look to get more personalized as the outsides of our computers start to match the insides.
Meanwhile, the iPad ignores this desire. This desire which amusingly to me, helped found Apple in the first place.
I think there's a place for locked-down devices in places like libraries, hotels and some people's homes. But i am not one of those people and apparently neither is Alex Payne.

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I love the concept. I would help buy Africa magic powerplant soccer balls!

A group of Harvard students are hoping that a soccer ball that generates and stores electricity during normal play will help offset the use of kerosene in the developing world. Found via...

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How appropriate!

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Anil Dash, tech blogger extraordinaire, put up a rather exceptional post on his blog this morning, lamenting the fact that a large segment of the geek will be riveted by Apple's product announcement today, when the company is expected to unveil some sort of new tablet that will change the world. B... Found via...

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Annoying part of this is the hubris of "we could have built this two years ago".
Bull.

HP last night posted a (rather boring) five-minute video (even the interviewer seems to forget where she is at some points) giving further details about the HP Slate that Steve Ballmer showed off during his keynote at CES 2010. It was first posted on the hpcomputers YouTube channel with the headin... Found via...

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I want to see the Fake Steve Jobs on this one! Its going to be awesome!

Arnold Kim / MacRumors: McGraw-Hill CEO Confirms Apple Tablet, iPhone OS Based, Going to Be “Terrific” — In an interview with CNBC, McGraw-Hill's CEO confirms that their textbooks will be on the Apple Tablet and it will be an iPhone OS based machine. When asked about their textbooks bei... Found via...

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I have a few problems with this sort of blog post, which i'll share with you now Internet.

Windows may be a "key disappointing detail" to the author, since he's apparently from The Future, but none of us have used it yet, so who knows what the software will bring to the party.
WinXP had Tablet edition and while MS doesn't appear to be headed towards repeating that sort of segmentation, you can better believe that there will be driver packs and associated utilities that improve the tablet experience.

I think that if you are looking at this from the consumer perspective, then MS's track record isn't all that great. The 360 and Zune are great devices but each have their own problems. Surface is awesome but they haven't been able, or maybe wanted, to shrink it down and make it plausible for the home.

If you're Microsoft and you're focused on Corporate, then this sounds like a great device. The previous generation's tablets are in wide use in healthcare and data entry is one of the areas that the stylus helps a ton. Off the top of my head, I can think of other applications like photo editing/retouching or drawing where people will want the precision of a stylus. I'm sure there are others.
Would i want to use one all the time? No. Definitely not, been there done that.
Do i want the option? You betcha.

I look forward to whatever innovations Apple will bring to the table because the rising tide helps all. That said, assuming that their solution will be better than all others that have and will be announced, is pretty foolish. Apple's record isn't perfect because as it turns out, they're human too.

Apple isn't the only company with tablets. HP and Dell showed off its slate concepts at CES '10, but their demo's left us with so many questions. HP's CTO Phil McKinney at least reveals a bit more about his company's offering. But hopefully he's out of the loop a bit and HP actually has more planned... Found via...