Yearly Archives: 2015

Rolling Stone:

In 1992, Mike Myers used “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the rambunctious centerpiece of the indelible opening scene of the film, Wayne’s World, which had been adapted from a Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, and gave the song and the band behind it an unprecedented second life.

The gleeful scene has become iconic itself, a cultural touchstone that’s been parodied, copied and celebrated almost since the moment of its release back in 1992. Here, the creative forces behind the scene and the beneficiaries of its influence tell the story of how all that happened and how it almost didn’t.

There are few movie scenes more full of childlike joy. I defy you to watch the attached video and not smile and sing along with Wayne and Garth.

Anandtech:

Over the Thanksgiving break the intrepid crew over at Chipworks sent over their initial teardown information for Apple’s A9X SoC. The heart of the recently launched iPad Pro, the A9X is the latest iteration in Apple’s line of tablet-focused SoCs. We took an initial look at A9X last month, but at the time we only had limited information based on what our software tools could tell us. The other half of the picture (and in a literal sense, the entire picture) is looking at the physical layout of the chip, and now thanks to Chipworks we have that in hand and can confirm and reject some of our earlier theories.

I only understood about every fourth word in this article but it sounds like Apple has done some pretty incredible engineering.

Re/code:

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will collect a humanitarian award from an organization founded in honor of one of his personal heroes, Robert F. Kennedy.

The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights will present Cook with its Ripple of Hope Award on Dec. 8 in acknowledgment of his work on behalf of social change. He will be recognized in New York City, alongside U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s; Evercore co-founder and former assistant treasury secretary Roger Altman; and UNESCO Ambassador Marianna Vardinoyannis.

The Apple executive has become an outspoken advocate for workplace equality, arguing that businesses benefit when their workers feel fully recognized.

Congratulations to Mr Cook. Even though he gets a great deal of flack for it, I admire him for taking a stand on these issues.

Great, another way for Apple Music to fuck with my music.

Universal Pictures has released the script for the Aaron Sorkin Steve Jobs movie as a PDF. I love reading movie scripts of films I’ve seen but I’m unlikely to read this one because I’m not very interested in seeing the movie. Thanks to John Watson for pointing me to the web page.

Fraser Speirs:

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about the MacBook Pro and, in particular, whether it can replace an iPad Pro for getting real work done.

Only those with very specific workflows could realistically switch from iPad Pro to a MacBook Pro.

Speirs does a masterful job of flipping the question on its head.

What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job.

Igloo makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. And it’s not just for locating your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also helps you find experts, talk about problems and share content with your team. So stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Try it yourself or send your IT guy to investigate Igloo, an intranet you’ll actually like.

Expercom:

Because Apple makes the hardware, the operating system, and many applications, the Mac is a truly integrated system. And only the AppleCare Protection Plan gives you one-stop service and support from Apple experts, so most issues can be resolved in a single call. Extend the complimentary service and support on your Mac to three years from the original Mac purchase date with the AppleCare Protection Plan. You get direct telephone access to Apple experts for technical questions, and you get global repair coverage—including both parts and labor—for your Mac and select Apple peripherals.

Thanks to Dan Frakes on Twitter for this link. When I first saw it, I asked Dan if it was legit (knowing it was. Dan is the Senior Editor at Wirecutter and was formerly the same at Macworld magazine) and I trust him. There are some really good deals here – up to $100 off some AppleCare plans. I asked Dan for further info and he said, “I’ve purchased two AppleCare policies from them. You get a box with a code; you redeem the code on the AppleCare site.”

Some good stuff here, though I thought the idea of paying $60 for a piece of cardboard a bit excessive.

/Film:

While Pixar Animation is nearly 30 years old, it’s only been 20 years since the company ventured into feature length, computer animated filmmaking with Toy Story. The film was an instant classic in 1996 and it spawned two successful, acclaimed sequels with a fourth installment on the way in 2017, and it was just the beginning of what the animation house had to offer.

In celebration of Pixar’s milestone anniversary this year, editor Kees van Dijkhuizen has paid tribute to Pixar with a supercut of the films they’ve made over the years, from their early shorts to this year’s feature films. You might find yourself getting some tears in your eyes since it’s accompanied by Michael Giacchino‘s score from Up.

I don’t know if I could name a single studio that has moved me to the range of emotions Pixar has over the past 20 years.

Thanks to Carbon Copy Cloner for sponsoring The Loop this week. What’s your plan when your Mac’s hard drive dies? Plan ahead and get back to work in minutes with a Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup. CCC—the app that saves your bacon.

Jim’s Note: I’ve used this app for many years. I trust and love it.

Flexibits just put calendaring app Fantastical on sale. The iPhone version is now $2.99 (normally $4.99) and the iPad version is now $4.99 (normally $9.99). Fantastical is my jam.

The Verge:

Adele’s 25 is the biggest album in the world right now, and it’s made it there all without a single stream on Spotify. In fact, it might have made it there because there hasn’t been a single stream on Spotify: Adele and her label made the decision not to stream 25 anywhere online, encouraging people to actually buy the album or its songs outright. But despite the ban, some services have songs from 25 up streaming.

25 isn’t on Pandora because Adele specifically wanted it there. It’s on Pandora because Adele and her label don’t have a say.

This is a great example of the giant hairball that is streaming services and the confusion that consumers have with regards to which service does what and how they play you music.

Alphr:

With the teetering stack of virtual reality headsets coming to market over the next year, eyes in the tech sector are being consistently turned towards facial recognition software. While Facebook has made moves to develop facial mapping technology for the Oculus Rift, news has now emerged of an intriguing buy up by Apple.

The company has announced that it has acquired Faceshift, a Zurich-based startup responsible for developing technology capable of real-time facial-capture and avatar creation. The tech boasts plenty of high-profile use, having even been used in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens to give alien characters an extra semblance of reality.

Could Apple really be interested in any aspect of Virtual Reality? I think this buy is fascinating but I don’t think it’s use inside the company will be as obvious as many are assuming.

Softorino:

We — as indie developers of these 4 apps, have gathered together to deliver the most essential event for movie lovers in 2015. Each one of our apps is a blockbuster itself. Each of us has its own story, but we all share the same goal — enhance your movie viewing experience as much as possible, on any device.This Black Friday, for the first time ever — we unite together to bring you the best of experiences in a single Blockbuster Kit.

I use Waltr and Beamer all the time and love the apps. I don’t usually recommend this kind of deal because you often end up with filler apps but all four of these apps are really useful and, at a pre-order price of $25, it’s a really great deal in my opinion.

CBC:

Wormholes, warp speed, space-time anomalies — science fiction wouldn’t be the same without Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. And in the real world, we would probably also notice a few things missing from our lives.

The German-born physicist finished presenting his groundbreaking theory to the scientific world at the Prussian Academy of Sciences exactly 100 years ago today.

It was a simple, elegant set of equations that described space-time as a stretchy, flexible fabric, and gravity as deformations in space-time rather than a “force.”

I remember first learning about the general theory of relativity in school and being completely blown away by it. I have never fully understood it but the ideas, concepts and things it made possible opened my young mind to the power of the universe and the utter brilliance of Einstein.

California Sunday Magazine:

Over the years football coaches have found on the island a ready inventory of large, big-boned, and nimble Samoans, with the kind of solid base that football coaches love: massive from the waist down but still able to move their feet. Samoans’ facility with footwork is often attributed to tribal dances and the common practice of going barefoot. Their love of combat is derived from a fierce warrior culture that goes back hundreds of years.

With an upbringing that stresses hard work, discipline, and devotion to authority, both heavenly and earthbound, Polynesians have come to be considered the ultimate clay from which to mold a football player. It is as if a childhood of gentle obedience translates into a passion for ferocious violent contact, the kind of collisions that resonate through a stadium and electrify the crowd.

If you are a football fan, the men of Samoa are familiar to you. Even if you’re not a fan, it’s an interesting story and one common among Blacks in America regarding basketball and Dominicans regarding baseball. There’s often nothing else to do and it’s seen as the only way to a better life.

Daily Dot:

When a movie’s license expires or the work ceases to be owned by a corporation or a private individual, it’s essentially a public good and is freely distributable. Thus, while you can always briefly find studio classics like All About Eve, The Palm Beach Story, or Rebecca on the site, posters are often breaking copyright laws to do so, and the films are likely to be removed as quickly as they went up.

Luckily though, you don’t have to commit a crime to watch good movies for free—and maybe get a bit of a film history lesson in the process. All you need to know is what to watch and where to watch it.

There are some great movies on this list and they run the gamut from screwball comedy to film noir to scifi to horror.

Apple:

The Godfather stands alongside classics like Citizen Kane in the ranks of the greatest American movies of all time. Director Francis Ford Coppola and author Mario Puzo adapted Puzo’s 1969 novel with an incredible degree of skill, patience, and emotional depth. It’s an old-fashioned gangster film that offers a probing look at the American dream. Marlon Brando invests the centerpiece role with the essence of his knowledge of what’s right. The movie contains so many great scenes and so much memorable dialogue–from its opening line, the heavily accented, “I believe in America,” to the final shot of a shutting door–that it’s impossible to name its finest moment. it was the high-grossing film of all time until Jaws, and it won three Oscars, including Best Picture.

You lucky US-based readers can grab the trilogy for only $10 on the iTunes Store. Don’t wait – no telling how long this deal will be available. If you’ve never seen these movies, I can’t recommend them highly enough, although the third is the weakest link in the chain.

Forbes:

Once upon a time in a land called Hollywood, casting a big star was an investment that paid for itself in box office returns. That financial fairy tale is now pure fiction: The biggest box office flops of 2015 include vehicles fronted by Bradley Cooper, George Clooney and Johnny Depp, among others.

Topping the turkey pile is Bill Murray’s Rock The Kasbah, an offbeat and off-color comedy in which a washed-up tour manager (Murray) finds himself in Kabul trying to turn a young Afghani woman into a TV singing competition winner. The fish out of water story was universally panned by critics and flailed like an asphyxiating goldfish, grossing just $2.9 million on an estimated $15 million production budget. With a dismal 19% return on production costs–and just an 8% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes–Rock The Kasbah leads our list of 2015′s biggest flops.

How many of these flops did you contribute to by not going to see them?