The Week:
if you wanted to improve your Canadian accent, you would do better to just use your Californian accent. In some important ways it is closer to the real Canadian accent and vice versa than other American accents are.
Canada actually has many regional differences in accents. The most extraordinary ones are of the people native to Newfoundland but mine and Jim Dalrymple’s home province of Nova Scotia has some very distinctive accents too.
I like David Pogue. And I like what he’s done with Yahoo Tech. The new look is very clean and easy to navigate. As you’d expect from Pogue, it’s also very friendly.
I love this.
I’m not one of those crazy Batman people, but this cool.
I don’t have these new versions, but I swear by the older models of these products. Apogee makes quality.
Some of this stuff is just great.
Pro Tools updates have been coming fast and furious. I like it.
Gretsch makes some fine instruments.
The scruffy twenty-something, wandered by our Pax East booth, looking up at the banner for our game. Ten feet tall, rising above the Pax floor, three tall, skinny women look jauntily at the camera. Two wear form-fitting combat suits. Another wears a ’60s Checkerboard dress. […]
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has big balls. They should have let him stay.
It’s nice to see someone starting out put so much time into thinking about the right ways to monetize a Web site.
I’m thinking not enough rehearsal time.
Apple on Tuesday said that sales from its App Store topped $10 billion in 2013. Think about that for a second—$10 billion in apps over 12 months. That’s an incredible amount of apps and money. […]
Despite running Android, the devices come with a Windows 8-style tile interface called “Magazine UX,” which Samsung says is better optimized for large screens.
There is just no stopping these guys.
Access your iPhone’s data on your computer with iExplorer. Easy to use, fully loaded and well polished—this app is a great tool for anyone upgrading to a new computer or iPhone.
Text messages, playlists, songs, voicemail, voice memos, photos, notes, files and more—iExplorer makes it easy to transfer or backup an iPhone to a Mac or Windows computer. Download the app, connect an iPhone and click transfer. Your files are now on your computer.
Use coupon code LOOPSWAG and receive a free Macroplant branded USB thumb drive with any purchase of iExplorer placed before January 13th. Get the free trial version today.
Speaking of Randy Rhoads, this show is coming up on January 25.
Randy Rhoads is one of the greatest guitar players to ever pick up the instrument. Alex Vollmer shows you how to play the solo from “Crazy Train.”
Happy Birthday Strat. Fender posted a great timeline of the guitar too.
There are a lot of great elements to webOS. I’m really looking forward to seeing what LG can do with it.
Jalopnik:
People on two continents mourn the death of 92-year-old William Overstreet Jr. He was a resident of Roanoke, Virginia, a retired accountant, and like many men from his generation, a veteran of World War II. And in the spring of 1944, Overstreet did something people in France and the U.S. still talk about.Overstreet, who died Sunday at a Roanoke hospital, is remembered for being the U.S. Army Air Corps pilot who flew underneath the Eiffel Tower’s arches in his P-51 Mustang during an aerial battle while in hot pursuit of a German fighter plane, which he ultimately shot down.
Stones. Great, big stones.
Vulture:
Vulture corralled legendary rap-rock producer Rick Rubin, Sir Mix-a-Lot (real name: Anthony Ray), the video’s director Adam Bernstein (also of Breaking Bad fame), and others to bring you the story behind the behind-centric classic.
Somewhere on the internet is a hilarious video of myself, John Welch, Sam Crutsinger and (I think) Andy Ihnatko lip-syncing this song.
Re/code:
Apple confirmed to Re/code that it has bought SnappyLabs, but declined to comment further on the deal.SnappyLabs had sold the SnappyCam app — which allows the internal iPhone camera to take high-resolution images rapidly — in the Apple Store. It was founded by John Papandriopoulos.
Best part of this story was the snotty last line.
The Washington Post:
Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos suffered a kidney stone attack while vacationing in the Galapagos Islands over the New Year’s Day holiday and was flown back to the United States for treatment.“Galapagos: five stars. Kidney stones: zero stars,” Bezos said through a spokesman.
Ow ow ow ow.
Gotta love the Onion! INDIANAPOLIS—Following a controversial call Saturday, the home crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium told reporters that they disagree with the referee but respect his decision. “‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit’ is something you might mindlessly chant at a time … Continued
My thanks to Focus for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Focus is a beautiful and easy to use pomodoro timer. Built exclusively for iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, Focus is the best way to focus on a single task for a period of time.
What is the Pomodoro Technique?
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management philosophy that aims to provide the user with maximum focus and creative freshness, thereby allowing them to complete projects faster with less mental fatigue.
The process is simple. For every project throughout the day, you budget your time into short increments and take breaks periodically. You work for 25 minutes, then take break for five minutes.
Each 25-minute work period is called a “pomodoro”, named after the Italian word for tomato. Francesco Cirillo used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato as his personal timer, and thus the method’s name.
After four “pomodoros” have passed, (100 minutes of work time with 15 minutes of break time) you then take a 15-20 minute break.
Focus lets you enter and manage your task, work with customizable session length, see you completed tasks and incorporates the latest technologies. It helps you to focus on your tasks and stay productive all the time.
Focus is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with iOS 7 and also for OS X Mavericks.
Last November, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 64, which approved limited growth, distribution and regulated sale of pot in the state.
On the first day the new amendment went into effect, January 2nd, the Daily Currant, a spoof newspaper, ran this story, claiming that 37 people died as a direct result of this law.
They say it’s coming January 23, which would be at NAMM.
A new amp in Fender’s Pawn Shop Series. I bet this sounds great.
Mashable: We gathered up some of our favorite flicks from the year George Orwell warned us all about. Sorry in advance for making you feel old. Sigh. So very, very old.
Ben Bajarin:
Folks claim that because Apple’s competition is doing something that Apple should also or they will lose. Yet what I love about Apple’s strategy is that it is never around what the competition is doing. Apple marches to beat of their own drum. This is fundamentally mis-understood by so many.
I agree with Ben. Companies will release products that may be in a category Apple is interested in, but Apple is not going to change its strategy to release something before it’s ready. The so-called experts fail to realize that many of the products introduced are guesses by companies to try to beat Apple to a market. Often times, these products are not thought out very well and eventually fail. Apple enters a market because it feels it can dominate that market. It makes products for its customers, with the expectation that the money will follow—exactly the opposite of how most other companies operate.