Ben Thompson does a good job tearing the WSJ up. It’s almost like the WSJ doesn’t have a goddamn clue what they’re talking about.

Bruce Lawson writes about where we are with responsive images and why we need to solve this problem.

The Atlantic:

Each year, the McRib makes a brief visit to Earth. Its arrival elicits reactions ranging from horror to awe. And for good reason: this would-be rib sandwich is really a restructured pork patty pressed into the rough shape of a slab of ribs, its slathering of barbecue sauce acting as camouflage as much as coating. “Pork” is a generous term.

I haven’t had a McRib in twenty years and after reading this, I’ve got a good reason to keep that streak alive.

BIAS starts with stunning replications of 36 of the most sought-after vintage and modern amps in rock ‘n’ roll history and then lets you customize them to respond perfectly to your unique touch and feel. Swap out the tubes, preamp, transformer, tone stacks, cab and mic—even change the tube’s bias—to create your dream amp and distinctive signature sound. Tap once to open your BIAS amp in JamUp and add awesome multi-effects.

A number of people have mentioned this to me in the last couple of days. It looks really nice, so I downloaded it. I’ll get back with my thoughts in a few days.

Jerry Garcia’s Travis Bean TB500 electric guitar, serial number 12. The guitar, designed and built by Travis Bean Inc., was played by Garcia on stage and in recording sessions. Featuring an aluminum neck – a design pioneered by Travis Bean, three single coil pick up configuration and Garcia’s Onboard Effects Loop. This guitar was the first to employ the Onboard Effects Loop, which was then incorporated into all of Garcia’s electric guitars.

The opening bid is $75,000—the guitar is expected to fetch between 100k-200k.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes:

But now, other than for test systems and virtual machines, I carry out my day-to-day work on a variety of OS X, iOS and Android systems. I barely giving my Windows PC systems a second glance. My primary work system is a MacBook Pro, and in the ten months I’ve had it it’s flawlessly done everything I’ve asked of it, from run Microsoft Word to render 4K video. I’ve lost count of the number of notebooks I’ve owned over the years, but this MacBook Pro is, by far, the most reliable system I’ve owned, and I put part of that down to the fact that it doesn’t run Windows.

I don’t think Adrian is alone. Apple is continuously making its products easier to use, while Microsoft is going the other way. People have choices and they are exercising that freedom.

Patriot-News Editorial:

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

It’s never too late to get it right.

I love to see Gruber go after Bloomberg’s stupid reporting like he did here and here, and another here, and finally here.

JPMorgan last week asked users of the popular microblogging site to send questions marked with the hashtag #AskJPM in advance of the session set for Thursday at 1 p.m. in New York.

I could have told you this was not going to end well.

Enrico Susatyo asked me if he could use my laugh in his new timer app for the iPhone—I said sure, scare the hell out of your customers. The app is free and was released yesterday.

The PPG WaveGenerator comes with a multitude of wavetables. The sound material contains the typical sounds from the original PPG wave models, as well as many new sounds generated by versatile analysis tools and also hand edited waves. This plugin enables the user, to create his own wavetables in a playful way, and to hear the result immediately. Also you can construct the waves by adding harmonics very precise.

Interesting that this started out as an iOS app.

I think the world of Jony Ive. When I heard that Leander Kahney was working on a book about Sir Jonathan, I got excited. But this marketing approach is over the top. Watch the video trailer below. It ends with this line:

Did we give credit to the wrong guy?

Yeesh. Big splash of cold water. The book deserves better than this.

The Er Wang Dong cave system was discovered in China’s Chongquing province. It’s huge, covering more than 50,000 square meters. More importantly, some of the caverns are tall enough to have their own weather systems. Follow the headline link. The pictures are phenomenal.

Last fall, Samsung was found guilty of infringing on five Apple patents. We’re now at the start of the patent damages retrial.

This is what Apple is asking for:

Apple is seeking $113 million in lost profits for 360,000 iPhones the company believes it could have sold without competing against its own work, another $231 million in improper profits collected by Samsung on its own sales, and $34 million in patent royalties for the intellectual property Samsung infringed, a total of $379 million.

And this is what Samsung proposes:

Samsung argued that it earned “nowhere close” to $3.5 billion on the infringing devices, instead stating that it earned only $52 million. “And that, he says, is what Apple should get in damages,” Mintz reported. Additionally, Samsung proposed paying Apple nothing for lost profits and just $28,000 for patent royalties.

Obviously, this is a negotiation. You wouldn’t expect Samsung to play this any differently. Time will tell.

It’s rare for someone to fly under the radar from startup to a billion dollar valuation. Even rarer for a founder who is only 23 years old. Snapchat was started by Stanford students Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy in September 2011, in Spiegel’s father’s living room. Spiegel has emerged as the face of Snapchat.

A lot has been written about Snapchat’s supposedly turning $3 billion from Facebook. The headline link takes you to an example. To me, more interesting is the video below, a September 2013 interview with Spiegel at Disrupt SF:2013. Amazing how much Spiegel has matured in just 6 months. He clearly has been getting some excellent advice from his handlers. The big question for Snapchat is, can they turn the corner and generate revenue?

Donovan Hutchinson did an amazing job with this.

Jim and Dan discuss Apple’s new spaceship headquarters, Amazon and USPS offering Sunday delivery, keyboard covers for iPads, the iPad mini with retina, the iPad Air, publishing on the go with iOS, composer names no longer included in an iTunes store downloads, and more.

Sponsored by Mailchimp, Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME1113 for 25% off), and Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off).

Mobile messaging startup Snapchat rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook Inc that would have valued the company at $3 billion or more, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday.

Facebook representatives reached out to Snapchat in recent weeks to discuss the all-cash deal, which would have been Facebook’s largest acquisition ever, the report said, citing anonymous sources.

I can’t imagine the conditions under which I’d refuse $3 billion.

With it, users can view their personal files in one tab, and their work files in another tab, without having to use multiple windows. If people already have separate business and personal accounts, they can pair them with the new tool. In a blog post, co-founders Houston and CTO Arash Ferdowsi explained, “It’ll be like having your house keys and your work keycard on the same keychain.”

Good idea.

Sam Radford:

Then there’s the size though. For some reason—and I’m really not sure why—the larger screen makes reading the magazines a much more enjoyable experience for me. Perhaps it’s because the apps were originally designed for the larger size and then scaled down for the Mini. But, whatever the cause, having my magazines on my retina screen Air is a whole lot more desirable. I’m choosing to read there rather than picking up the physical copies lying around my house.

Interesting thoughts from Sam. Personally, I still like the reading experience on the iPad mini more than the physical copy.

I don’t know how accurate this is, but clearly they make a lot of money.

Kirk McElhearn:

I had noticed that, in an album I bought, Hilary Hahn’s In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, there were no Composer tags. This is a bit irksome, because there are 28 different composers on the album, and manually tagging takes some time.

I thought for sure Kirk must have been wrong, so I downloaded Beethoven’s 5th conducted by Herbert von Karajan (my personal favorite) and sure enough, there was no composer information. It doesn’t make any sense that Apple would do this on purpose, but they need to fix it.

Apple setup a donation page on iTunes dedicated to helping the Red Cross support victims of the Philippine Typhoon. Apple said that 100% of the donations will go to the Red Cross. This isn’t the first time Apple has used iTunes to help people around the world—an iTunes page was also setup to help victims of Superstorm Sandy, the tsunami in Japan and the earthquakes in Haiti when those disasters happened.

Not sure if it’s the imagery, the music, or just the rhythm of the whole piece, but this is ten minutes well spent. I love the faces of the glass-blowers as they puff out their cheeks, sometimes smoking a pipe at the same time. Lovely.

Glas won master film maker Bert Haanstra a well-deserved Academy Award® for Best Short Documentary in 1959. The film contrasts the production of hand made crystal from the Royal Leerdam Glass Factory with automated bottle making machines in the Netherlands. An industrial film with a bebop heart, its lyrical use of light and sound still looks and sounds fabulous, nearly 60 years after it was made.

If you’ve got a MacRumors forum account, change your password and change the password for any other accounts that use the same password.