Yearly Archives: 2015

Hodinkee:

This video, Talking Watches with Jean-Claude Biver, not only tells us how he, and other top tier consumers collect (case quality and dial originality are a must!), but also about his early days in the watch industry, which date back to the 1970s. In sum, this 20 minute video is an amazing primer on not only serious watch collecting, but also how the watch industry came to be what it is today

I’ll never be able to afford any of the watches mentioned in this video but I’ve always been fascinated by these timepieces, their construction and what makes them so valuable.

CBC News:

A kayaker had the thrill of a lifetime when a pod of about 30 orcas surrounded her boat near San Juan Island, in Washington State, east of Victoria, B.C.

“We are in whale soup. There’s one coming right under our boat, oh my God!” said Michelle Feis to her guide as a killer whale swam less than a metre from their double kayak.

I’m lucky enough to live in a part of the world where this is a farily common occurrence. They are magnificent animals, even if a little terrifying up close.

TidBITS:

We’re heading into Apple’s annual upgrade season again, with the upcoming releases of OS X 10.11 El Capitan, iOS 9, and watchOS 2, along with innumerable associated apps. Every upgrade is touted as the next best thing, teasing us with hot new features and promising improved performance, reliability, and security.

Unfortunately, these constant upgrades fill many people with dread, or if that’s overstating the case, with weary resignation. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but most changes foisted on us by technology companies are no longer aimed at fixing bugs or making everyday usage easier. Bugs are fixed, certainly, and security vulnerabilities blocked, but those under-the-hood improvements are part and parcel with checklist features from the perky twenty-somethings in Marketing and whatever visual tweaks were deemed trendy by the hipsters in Design.

I know many of you are tempted to scream, “Stop this bus! I want to get off!”

Adam makes some great points. I’ve long since stopped upgrading immediately, simply for the sake of upgrading. I wait to make sure the release, Apple’s or anyone else’s, is stable enough and provides enough value for my liking. Certainly, there are some updates and upgrades you must do right away but, for the most part, I wait until I need to update and know what I’m updating to and for.

Smoky Mountains:

The 2015 Fall Foliage Map is the ultimate visual planning guide to the annual progressive changing of the leaves. While no tool can be 100% accurate, this tool is meant to help travelers better time their trips to have the best opportunity of catching peak color each year.

For those of us lucky enough to live in a region where there are actual colors of fall, this is a great tool (for our US readers) to plan and anticipate when the autumn leaves will be at their peak in your area.

Wired:

When I was kid, I had Star Wars toys—but they weren’t “smart” and most of them weren’t even battery powered. But kids these days have access to awesome toys like this remote controlled BB-8 (by Sphero) from the Star Wars VII movie. It looks pretty cool.But how does it work?

If you prefer to think it works by magic, don’t read this article. But even after reading, the mechanism is still pretty cool.

Benedict Evans:

For as long as the idea of the ‘mobile internet’ has been around, we’ve thought of it a cut-down subset of the ‘real’ Internet. I’d suggest it’s time to invert that – to think about mobile as the real internet and the desktop as the limited, cut-down version.

He’s right. Even looking at The Loop’s stats, many more people access the site on mobile browsers than ever before—more than 50 percent. For many people, the mobile Internet is the real Internet.

This is the Apple Watch Charging Dock Apple should have released, check xylum out here.

Jim and Dan talk about the upcoming Apple event next week in San Francisco, the Apple Watch, the Apple TV, Apple Maps, DVDs vs. buying movies online vs. renting movies, bylines on The Loop, and more.

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A Fresno State student is lucky to be uninjured after an armed robbery near the campus in which a gunshot fired by the thief was blocked by the victim’s iPhone, police said.

Damn.

Back in the day, this was everyone’s RSS reader. Good to see it back and updated.

A group of artists recorded this song to benefit climate change. It’s available exclusively on iTunes and Apple Music with all proceeds go to Friends of the Earth U.S. and the UN Foundation.

Artists involved in the song are Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Colbie Caillat, Natasha Bedingfield, Leona Lewis, Sean Paul, Johnny Rzeznik, Krewella, Angelique Kidjo, Kelsea Ballerini, Nicole Scherzinger, Christina Grimmie, Victoria Justice, and Q’Orianka Kilcher.

Good video if you were wondering about the differences between the two devices.

Polygon:

This $150 toy is what you’re going to want for Christmas.

The $150 BB-8 is a toy. A very advanced toy that does many things, but it’s a toy. The only utility it has is the joy that it’s going to bring you when you play with it.

That’s not to say we’re trying to talk you out of buying one. A review unit arrived this morning, and we’ve been playing with the little droid non-stop ever since. This is a premium product, and even the packaging lets you know that you’re about to experience something special.

The folks at Sphero just made Christmas shopping for your favorite Star Wars fan a hell of a lot easier.

The new version is available to download.

It’s a survey. And it’s being pulled together by XKCD. Go do it!