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CNET:

After 17 years on Apple’s board, Bill Campbell is saying goodbye.

Apple on Thursday said the executive, who also serves as chairman of business software developer Intuit, is retiring from his role on the board. Campbell was one of the board members appointed by Steve Jobs in 1997 after he returned to run the company.

Susan Wagner, founding partner and director of asset-management company BlackRock, will join Apple’s board in Campbell’s place.

Great to see Apple taking this opportunity to put another woman on the board of directors.

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Factually:

Amazingly, there are still some people who don’t think we landed on the moon. These people are complete idiots, to put it kindly. Back in 2002, Buzz Aldrin punched one of those idiots after being followed and harassed at a hotel in Beverly Hills.

I post this in honour of yesterday’s 45th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. And because Buzz Aldrin is a bad ass.

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Esquire:

Reviled, pit bulls have become representative. There is no other dog that figures as often in the national narrative—no other dog as vilified on the evening news, no other dog as defended on television programs, no other dog as mythologized by both its enemies and its advocates, no other dog as discriminated against, no other dog as wantonly bred, no other dog as frequently abused, no other dog as promiscuously abandoned, no other dog as likely to end up in an animal shelter, no other dog as likely to be rescued, no other dog as likely to be killed.

In a way, the pit bull has become the only American dog, because it is the only American dog that has become an American metaphor—and the only American dog that people bother to name.

I love all dogs (except poodles) and hate seeing them treated poorly. And no dog has been treated as poorly, both in real life and in the media as the pit bull. I’ve met some wonderful pit bulls in my life with wonderful owners. Sadly, I’ve also met some really bad owners which predictably reflects in their dogs.

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Texas blues legend Johnny Winter, known for his lightning-fast blues guitar riffs, his striking long white hair and his collaborations with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and childhood hero Muddy Waters, has died. He was 70.

Huge loss for music.

Samsung on Wednesday announced the imminent release of its “Level” headphone and portable speaker lineup, which features four premium devices seemingly aimed directly at Apple’s Beats hardware.

I’m shocked that just weeks after Apple buys Beats, Samsung has plans for high-end headphones. Shocked!

What to get for the beer drinker who has everything. You might want to throw in a shirt with French cuffs, while you’re at it.

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Apple:

Now you can add money directly to your iTunes or App Store account with iTunes Pass. To get iTunes Pass, go to the iTunes Store on your iOS device, scroll down, and tap the Redeem button. Then go in to any Apple Retail Store and let a Specialist know you want to add credit to your account. Open iTunes Pass in Passbook, and have the Specialist scan it and accept your payment. Your balance will be updated and can be used immediately.

This might be slightly more convenient than buying physical gift cards for yourself but is it a service you’ll actually use?

Much respect hacker people.

This story was originally posted on Forbes, but when I went there, popups were all over the place, so I’ll link to PandoDaily instead.

I used this mic on Amplified this morning and it sounded great. I love this mic.

I agree with Tim Bajarin.

A new iOS podcast app from Marco Arment.

Really great read.

I still remember this scene in the theatre as a little kid and thinking it was the greatest thing I had ever seen.

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Wired:

We have the phrase “scenic route” for a reason, and as Google’s driving directions increasingly become the only directions any of us ever think about checking, we risk losing sight of these alternate paths. That’s a shame.

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been dreaming and talking about this kind of functionality for years. As a motorcycle rider, we often don’t want to take the direct route. Show us the fun, twisty, windy, pretty roads instead.

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The Verge:

Weird Al has a new album of parodies coming out, but you’ll probably want to look for them on the web rather than over the radio: eight songs off of the album are getting music videos, and they’ll be premiering over eight days. The first video came out and has Al singing “Tacky,” a parody of Pharrell’s unbearably catchy hit “Happy.”

Nirvana for all you Weird Al fans.

From Apple’s press release: Apple and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an exclusive partnership that teams the market-leading strengths of each company to transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps—bringing IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to … Continued

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Salon:

Among the countless points discussed about this year’s World Cup…perhaps the most important looming question is whether this particular quadrennial tournament finally converted America into a nation of soccer fans.

Every four years, the World Cup masterfully demonstrates the fundamental differences between how America and the world respectively treat their athletes.

I don’t like to say “never” but there’s a fundamental difference between the way the American fan sees sports in general and “football” in particular and the way the rest of the world does. We go through this discussion every four years and nothing really changes.

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New York Magazine:

Swisher’s power derives from her reporting — driven, in turn, by her deep sourcing — and from the sense, unnerving to executives, that she has a red phone with a direct connection to the perma-class of venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road who fund their companies and fill their boards and decide their fates.

People like talking to Swisher.

Interesting profile. I’ve talked to Swisher on several occasions and she is, in the simplest terms, “intense”. In a good way.

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NPR:

If you’re going to pick up a pathogen on an intercontinental flight, it will probably be one hanging out on your seat or another surface, says Dr. Mark Gendreau, who specializes in aviation medicine at Lahey Medical Center in Peabody, Mass.

“When you look at most infectious diseases, the overwhelming majority are transmitted when you touch a contaminated surface,” he says. “You grab the door knob of the airplane bathroom, and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth.”

“But we’re not all doomed to get sick after a plane flight,” Gendreau says. “You can change behaviors when you’re traveling and substantially reduce the risk of catching anything.”

Ugh. One more thing to make air travel suck.

I love reading stories like this.

From Business Insider:

Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Could Be Apple’s Next PR Boss

Nope.

Tim Cook has never even met Jay Carney.

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Wired:

Instead of having a human poke around in your bag, the machine scans it for a variety of threats in just a few seconds.

You hold your ticket up to the machine, and it assigns you a pod. Close the door and walk around to the other side. In the time it takes you to get over there, the machine scans the bag for a range of threats.

There are some obvious issues with the embedded company video but those are easily remedied. It would be great to see these kinds of systems in place rather than the awful TSA procedures many of us have to go through now.

Remember last week when I chastised Reuters for being morons in writing the article about accessibility? My problem was that Reuters hacked up one of Tim Cook’s quotes to make it fit the story they had already written. Well, it turns out the National Federation for the Blind hated the story too.

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Washington Post:

Airbus has filed a seat patent that appears to pack people in without all the clunky cushions and awkward folding tables…Its cushions are shaped liked bicycle saddles, and when the seats aren’t being used, they fold vertically to save space.

“Reduced comfort remains tolerable for the passengers in as much as the flight lasts only one or a few hours,” Airbus sagely calculates.

How cheap would the flight have to be for you to pay to sit in those torture devices for two hours?

Some great new plug-ins from my favorite audio company, Universal Audio.

Apple’s iPhone 5s remains the world’s top selling smartphone as of May 2014, according to new data released on Monday by Counterpoint Technology Market Research. […]

No matter who you cheer for, The Captain deserves a hat tip in this, his last season as a New York Yankee.

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iMore:

Everything you need to know about setting up and using Siri on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad!

I’ll be sending this guide out to everyone I know who asks me how they can use Siri.

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New York Magazine:

I’m part of the latest tech trend, a bona fide phenomenon in Silicon Valley that is inspiring the kind of pants-wetting excitement usually reserved for new iPhones and Grand Theft Auto games. I’m talking about smartwatches—the tech world’s quixotic attempt to mount minicomputers on your wrist.

I’ve been wearing two smartwatches for several days apiece, and so far, it’s been an enlightening experience. Though not necessarily a hopeful one.

Obviously it depends on what the particular smartwatch does but in my talks with “average” people, the headline answer so far has been “No.” That being said, it brings to mind the classic (and probably apocryphal) Henry Ford line of, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”