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This is a great post, especially when he brings in the conversation from “Good Will Hunting”.

The New York Times:

For those who own Japanese toilets, there is a cultish devotion. They boast heated seats, a bidet function for a rear cleanse and an air-purifying system that deodorizes during use. The need for toilet paper is virtually eliminated (there is an air dryer) and “you left the lid up” squabbles need never take place (the seat lifts and closes automatically in many models).

When I was in Tokyo and had to use one of these, I was completely embarrassed by my inability to figure out how to use it. I literally had to ask my host how to operate the toilet.

I laughed and nearly spit out my coffee when I read Gruber’s comment about Jimmy Iovine.

Thanks to Pad & Quill for sponsoring The Loop this week. Pad & Quill is offering beautiful wood and leather accessories for iPhone, Apple Watch and more. I have one of their Backpacks and absolutely love it! They are offering Loop readers a 10% discount on any order including the new Minneapolis made Lowry Leather Cuff and Lowry Leather Band for Apple Watch. Code: LOOP15.

Lowry Leather Band Features

• USA made leather strap for Apple Watch
• Each craftsman personally signs your strap’s interior
• Full-grain vegetable-tanned leather from Horween Tannery
• Rugged Stitching that is hand tied off
• Velvet soft suede interior finish
• 3 beautiful color options
• 25 Year Leather Warranty
• 30 Day Money Back Promise

I’ve mentioned how much I love their products before—now you can get quality cases for the iPad Pro.

There’s been a lot of talk about whether or not the iPad Pro can replace your Mac as a primary device. I think the simply answer to that question is, yes, it can. However, for me, the bigger question is do I want the iPad to replace my Mac? The answer to that question is, no.

I own a lot of Toontrack products and they are all fantastic. This company gets music creation for all genres, but especially Metal.

Brilliant.

Some of these are really great. Definitely worth making your way through the post.

Amazon:

Amazon’s Two-Step Verification adds an additional layer of security to your account. Instead of simply entering your password, Two-Step Verification requires you to enter a unique security code in addition to your password during sign in.

You’ll enter your sign in information like you normally would, but then you’ll be prompted to enter a security code. You can receive this security code in a variety of ways depending on the option you select during sign up, including text message, voice call, or authenticator app.

Some folks will think this kind of security is inconvenient. But any time I give a company my credit card info and I want that info stored on their site, I feel more comfortable if the site offers this additional level of security.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. and Google Inc. face renewed calls to create a workaround for smartphone encryption in the wake of the Paris attacks as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. proposed a compromise that seeks to mollify privacy advocates.

Vance and FBI Director James Comey echoed recent comments by CIA and Justice Department officials who cite the need for access to stay a step ahead of terrorists who may use encryption to hide planned attacks. Underlining their point, French authorities said predawn raids in a Paris suburb were triggered by information gleaned from a discarded mobile phone.

“The line to protect the public should not be drawn by two companies who make smartphones,” Vance said Wednesday at a cybersecurity conference in New York where he unveiled a 42-page white paper on the issue. His plan would require companies to download data for investigators with a warrant, rather than providing the government with a “backdoor.”

Let’s hope these companies continue to push back against the government’s desire to use our devices against us.

You know how when you turn your face up into the bright sunlight, even on the coldest winter day, it can totally lift your mood? Well, that’s what our latest limited-edition, seasonal release is all about.

I love Field Notes. I’ve had them with me for years for jotting notes and doing interviews.

Dan and Jim talk about the Australian Apple Store incident, a converged iPad/Mac, the iPad Pro, setting up an iMac for guitar jams, and more.

Brought to you by:

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Longreads:

The job of pilots like Royal is to fly directly at monstrous thunderstorms—something most pilots diligently avoid, given that the turbulent airflow in these storms occasionally brings down commercial jetliners—and discharge chemicals into a particular part of the cloud, a technique called “cloud seeding” intended to suppress the storm’s ability to produce hail.

But on this late June day, the storm racing across the prairie is outmaneuvering the 22-year-old Texan pilot. “I started approaching from the east, which is the front of the storm and should have been kind of calm,” says Royal, “but it was so turbulent that my seatbelt wouldn’t even stay fastened.”

I’m not a good flyer at the best of times. There’s not enough money in the world to get me to get into one of those little planes on a good day, let alone to fly deliberately into a thunderstorm.

CBC:

A recent report by the non-profit group MediaSmarts says nearly a quarter of Canadian children in Grade 4 — some as young as eight years old — own their own cellphone.

That number jumps to more than 50 per cent for students in Grade 7.

Interestingly (or frighteningly for some parents), of those Grade 4s with phones, the report says about one-fifth are on social networks, even though Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat (and others) all have policies that require users to be at least 13 years old.

Not having kids of my own, I’m always interested in how parents with young ones deal with this. At what age did/will you give your kid a cell phone? Do iOS and Android have “enough” parental controls to make you comfortable that your child can use the phone the way you want them to?

The Verge:

On the surface (and even under the hood), these top living room contenders share a lot of the same features, with the exception of 4K video support. Which means the best experience really comes down to the interface, the app ecosystem, and available content.

It was a tough call this year, but one new streaming-video device nudged its way past the others.

The answer will likely not surprise you but, what was interesting to me was how close the three runner-ups came in the scoring.

Outside:

Ian McIntosh was maybe five turns into a first descent of a jagged Alaskan peak when things went wrong. The 34-year-old Canadian pro skier was filming a segment for Teton Gravity Research and carving down a face the film crew dubbed “Daybreak Spines.” The light was playing tricks on him, and early-morning shadows made a long spine look easy to cross over. It wasn’t. McIntosh hit it hard and dropped five feet into a trough he didn’t know existed. Then he started rolling.

McIntosh says he was immediately certain of one thing: “I knew I was going to the bottom,” he says. “I knew I was going for a ride.” Then all he could think was, Am I going to get traumatically injured by tomahawking down this mountain? and Please be over.

The video of this is almost painful to watch. The audio makes it even more so.

Vox:

Jessica Jones is a terrible superhero by superhero industry standards. Her name is forgettable; she sounds like a girl from your third-grade class. She’s just another brick — a term assigned to the plethora of superhumans with super strength as their primary power. It’s easy to see why she isn’t popular or why many people, even some comic book fans, were puzzled by Marvel and Netflix’s decision to give the character her own TV show.

But even though Jessica Jones is a terrible superhero — something she would be the first to admit — that doesn’t mean she’s unworthy of her own show or that her story stinks.

Jones’s origin story is actually one of the more daring arcs Marvel has published in the past decade.

I know nothing about this Marvel character so I don’t know if Vox’s description is accurate but I assume it is. Regardless, the trailers I’ve seen make me really interesting in this series. All episodes are set to premiere November 20, 2015, on Netflix

IFLScience:

Perception is a fickle thing. As good as our senses are at keeping us alive, they can often mislead and deceive us. Here’s a great example of that which you can try at home, featured in the new BBC Four series, Colour: The Spectrum of Science.

Check out the video below, follow the instructions and see a black and white image turn into a full-color image of a landscape.

This is really cool. It illustrates an idea I teach in my photography classes about perception and being able to “force” the viewer into seeing what you want them to see.

MIC:

The Oxford Dictionary’s 2015 word of the year was awarded to something that isn’t necessarily a word, though it definitely paints a picture worth, perhaps, a thousand or so of them. The “tears of joy” emoji face — featured, among other places, in a keyboard on Apple’s iOS platform — is just one of the many cartoon facial reactions used since the late 1990’s being honored with this year’s distinction.

The emoji beat out several words and phrases, including “refugee,” “lumbersexual,” “on fleek,” “Dark Web” and “sharing economy.”

But it’s not a word.

A sleepy Jim talks to Merlin talk all about the iPad Pro: Jim’s review and Merlin’s impulse purchase of it.

Subscribe to this podcast

Links:

• Review: iPad Pro
• iPad Pro Review: A New Canvas
• Daring Fireball: The iPad Pro
• Logitech’s iPad Pro keyboard case is relatively affordable
• The Martian Audiobook | Andy Weir | Audible.com
• The Outfield – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Black Label Society – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• The Move – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• #HeyTDR – Twitter Search

Austin Mann:

We’ve gotten a ton of questions about gear and the trip behind this project so we cut together this BTS piece for you — it’s 17 minutes so grab a coffee/snack and enjoy!

In early October, Mann posted his review of the iPhone 6s. Now he’s giving us a behind the scenes look. These BTS videos always fascinate me.

Macworld:

The streaming music industry is about to lose a player and gain a platform. On Monday, Pandora announced plans to acquire “key assets” from on-demand streaming service Rdio, which is seeking bankruptcy protection and will wind down its current business.

The deal, for $75 million in cash, covers Rdio’s technology and intellecutal property, and Pandora says it will be offering jobs to many members of Rdio’s team. Pandora isn’t buying Rdio’s entire business for a couple of reasons.

First, to launch an on-demand streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, Pandora will have to make its own licensing deals with the record labels, because Rdio’s deals aren’t transferable. Second, Pandora executives explained in a Monday conference call that Rdio is financially “challenged,” and would have been a drain on Pandora.

I wouldn’t take bets on Rdio relaunching. It’s also likely the first of a few more consolidations in the next 12 months.

Dangerous Business:

Alexander Graham Bell once said, “I have travelled around the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and the Highlands of Scotland, but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all.”

I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical of this quote upon first reading it. I mean, the Rockies, the Alps, the Scottish Highlands… those are all pretty impressive and beautiful things. Could a sparsely-populated island in the Canadian Maritimes really compare?

Well, the truth is that it kind of can.

If you’re looking for a vacation full of utterly lovely scenery, wonderful people and great seafood, you can’t go wrong visiting my home province of Nova Scotia. I promise it will surprise and delight you.

Pad & Quill is offering beautiful wood and leather accessories for iPhone, Apple Watch and more. I have one of their Backpacks and absolutely love it! They are offering Loop readers a 10% discount on any order including the new Minneapolis made Lowry Leather Cuff and Lowry Leather Band for Apple Watch. Code: LOOP15.

Lowry Leather Band Features

• USA made leather strap for Apple Watch
• Each craftsman personally signs your strap’s interior
• Full-grain vegetable-tanned leather from Horween Tannery
• Rugged Stitching that is hand tied off
• Velvet soft suede interior finish
• 3 beautiful color options
• 25 Year Leather Warranty
• 30 Day Money Back Promise

Stuff:

Perhaps I’m now just an old social media git yelling at a heart-shaped cloud. Maybe Twitter isn’t misunderstanding the user experience at all, and it’s just a few long-term users who are grumbling. For all I know, Twitter newcomers worldwide are now sighing with relief because that difficult favorites button (three whole syllables!) has gone, replaced by clickable hearts. But a quick glance at replies to Twitter’s own tweets about the change suggests otherwise, and it really does feel like a mis-step that reduces the flexibility of a previously versatile feature.

As a maniacal Twitter user, I completely agree. While “Faves” may not have been great, “Hearts” seems infinitely worse. What if I wanted to bookmark someone’s outrageous or offensive tweet to refer to it later? Twitter seems to think it’s OK for me to use the universal symbol of love to do that. Worse, Twitter’s reasoning, as laid out in this piece, is either mindless marketing speak or quite literally idiotic.

Techcrunch:

Never has the cry of ‘it’s just a bigger Apple thing’ been more applicable than it has with iPad Pro – this is literally a bigger iPad. But that approach to thinking about it is also reductive. The Microsoft Surface has blazed a sort of hybrid path – for people that don’t want to compromise having a laptop experience. The iPad pro, on the other hand, is unapologetically tablety. The keyboard feels solid but it’s no substitute for a MacBook. The muti-app experience, on the other hand, is far and away better than on any competing system — and the way that it enables creatives to alternate between the various ‘modes’ is unique to this platform.

There are a lot of ways to slice iPad Pro. But one of the biggest and hardest to quantify is the way that it will end the debate about whether the tablet is a tool for creation once and for all.

Sprinkled throughout this review, Panzarino asks some interesting questions and makes some very good points. Bottom line is, who cares if the iPad Pro is an “enterprise play” or “just for designers” or “a laptop replacement”? It’s not going to be all things to all people but the tech media often seems to want to make it that.

Independent:

For American companies, doing business in Europe is getting to be a tricky thing these days. American tech companies, in particular, are finding themselves in regulatory crosshairs more and more.

But there are some things that Europe doest best, according to Cook. One of them is privacy.

He says that he feels more comfortable in Europe when it comes to privacy issues than in other parts of the world, including the US.

I love these long interviews with the press outside of the typical North American outlets. The (sometimes) different viewpoint is interesting.

Daring Fireball:

Arguing that Apple is in trouble because the iPhone is so popular is like arguing that the ’90s-era Chicago Bulls were in trouble because Michael Jordan was so good. It’s true Jordan couldn’t play forever — and the iPhone won’t be the most profitable product in the world forever. But in the meantime, the Bulls were well-nigh unbeatable, and Apple, for now at least, is unfathomably profitable.

Just like how it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, it’s better to have tremendous success for some period of time than never to have had tremendous success in the first place. Right?

This is a typically well written and thought out piece by Gruber, taking down the ridiculousness of the Apple doomsayers. They have zero basis for their prognostications and yet, rather than being spiked by their editors as posts that have no basis in fact or shouted down by the media in general, they are lauded for their “prescience”.

The Wirecutter:

After 76 hours of research and side-by-side testing with four different models, we found the $800 Epson SureColor P600 is the best photo inkjet printer for most people.

It delivers professional-quality color prints, as well as black-and-white photographs that are as close to traditional darkroom prints as you’ll see from any digital printer around. Its prints also last longer than anything you’d get from a typical online photo service. The P600 can print on a wider variety of media than the competition, and its LCD touchscreen control panel makes setup and maintenance easy.

I’m a big proponent of printing some of your photos. There’s nothing like holding a physical representation of a memory. I have an Epson R2000 and I love taking some of my better photos and printing them out and putting them on my own walls or giving them to friends.