Fascinating how one of the most recognized landmarks came to be.

But what makes Amazon not just amazing but downright dangerous is that as a financial matter it has something even better than profits—the boundless faith of the investment community.

It’s truly amazing how the investment community treats Amazon differently than many other companies.

Ringer for iOS and Mac. Effortless iPhone ringtones, text tones, and alert tones. Easily select just the right part of your song to turn into your ringtone. See the waveform for your media so you can quickly find the spot you are looking for. Control fade in and fade out. Choose the gap between rings. Auto volume balance keeps ringtones from being too loud or too quiet. Ringer on the Mac lets you use just about any media including video and automatically imports tones into iTunes, ready to sync to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

I can’t wait to see Microsoft’s quarterly earnings when they reveal how many Surface tablets were sold. They will tell us, right?

We’ve come a long way in a relatively short time.

On March 5th, a collection of 12 previously unreleased recordings by Jimi Hendrix will see the light. People, Hell and Angels follows Hendrix in 1968 and 1969 as he works on material apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and suggests new, experimental directions.

I’ll definitely be buying this album.

The big kahuna in the mobile shopping landscape: the iPad. Apple’s tablet “generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping,” according to IBM’s report. The next device in line was the iPhone, with 8.7% of shopping traffic, then all Android devices combined with 5.5% of traffic. The iPad’s 10% slice of mobile retail translates to a whopping 88.3% of tablet shopping traffic, with the Nook, Kindle and Samsung Galaxy tablets all eking out shares of 3% or less.

What is it people do with these other tablets and smartphones?

DataGenetics:

According to a recent article in Wired magazine, a body could be worth up to $45 million — Calculated by selling the bone marrow, DNA, lungs, kidneys, heart … as components.

What about the value of a body based around just the chemical elements that make up a corpse?

Turns out if you break down a human body to its raw components, it’s worth about $160.

In this context it becomes a really meaningless number. This exact same thought exercise is exactly what comes to my mind every time a tech blog quotes iSuppli about how much the latest Apple product cost to build.

Thanks to Timeline 3D for sponsoring this weeks RSS feed on The Loop. Timeline 3D for iOS. The most simple way to make beautiful multimedia timelines.

Ars Technica:

While we’re waiting for Apple’s new ship date of “late November” to arrive, let’s take a look back at how iTunes has evolved in the last 12 years.

It’s interesting to see how much (and, in some ways, how little) iTunes has changed over the past 11+ years.

Alan Gratz on TOR.com:

I saw Skyfall last night, and after breaking it down, I can come to only one conclusion: this is the Bond film in which it is revealed that James Bond is a Time Lord.

On Twitter this afternoon I mused that at some point, the James Bond films should tackle the question of why Bond is a different person every five or ten years. Some of the folks I converse with on Twitter offered a good suggestion – that James Bond is a Time Lord (like Doctor Who).

Turns out that children’s book author Alan Gratz hypothesized this following the release of Skyfall, the latest Daniel Craig Bond adventure. It makes for an entertaining read.

Extra credit for the blog post’s use of a screencap of former Bond Timothy Dalton as Rassilon in the Doctor Who two-parter “The End of Time.”

Benj Edwards for Macworld:

If you’ve been a Mac fan for more than a few years, chances are you’ve seen or even used Apple’s most famous computer models. What you don’t often see are the machines that Apple kept to itself—the prototypes that never reached the market.

Some weird ones in here I’ve never seen, like the Mac with a 5.25-inch disk drive.

This collection of video tutorials by the one and only Kenny Gioia takes you inside Kenny’s personal recording lair and shows you step by step how kenny sets up and records the foundation of any rock / pop tune, the drums. From set up to performance to editing, it’s all here, meticulously demonstrated by multi-platinum engineer and producer Kenny Gioia.

Kenny Gioia is far and away my favorite trainer when it comes to Pro Tools and music in general. He has a great way of teaching that I throughly enjoy.

Brian Hall takes on Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider.

The beard could take them all.

Dogster:

Many people might call in sick from work to care for a sick and dying dog. But what if your job was going around to cities and singing heartfelt, cathartic songs in front of thousands of heartfelt, cathartic fans? Would you just stop all that to go home and care for your sick and dying dog?

That’s exactly what Fiona Apple did.

She writes, “I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship. I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.”

Anyone who has loved and known the love of a great pet, especially a dog, completely understands Apple’s decision. You can always go back out on tour.

io9:

Every era in science fiction’s history has shown us a new vision of the strange and futuristic, and one image can spawn a million reflections in your mind’s eye.Here are 21 unforgettable pictures that showcase the whole history of science fiction.

They really do a very good job of capturing each SciFi era in a single image.

The Korea Times:

The chief executive of Samsung Electronics has expressed confidence about the ongoing patent battle with Apple, saying that no smartpohone can exist without patents from Korea’s technology giants.

“The truth never lies. Without Samsung-owned wireless patents, it’s impossible for the Cupertino-based Apple to produce its handsets,” said Samsung’s mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun.

This is going to be a long battle.

Peter Cohen takes a look at Sid Meier’s Railroads! game at Macworld.

The Times of Israel:

The application, which is not an official warning system, is the brainchild of 13-year-old Beersheba resident Liron Bar. Bar provides constant reports on missile attack warnings, known as Color Red alerts, and rocket strikes in the south on his Facebook page as well.

Kudos to this kid, but I do wish we lived in a world where it wasn’t necessary.

Here’s a summary of Jakob Nielsen’s study on Windows 8:

Hidden features, reduced discoverability, cognitive overhead from dual environments, and reduced power from a single-window UI and low information density. Too bad.

To say that the study is not favorable would be a huge understatement. It’s also worthwhile to read Gruber’s comments on the study, especially the last sentence.

Microsoft is building an Xbox set-top box. Multiple sources familiar with Redmond’s plans have confirmed to The Verge that the company plans to introduce a low-cost alternative to its Xbox console, designed to provide access to core entertainment services. The move will allow Microsoft to further increase its presence in the living room, providing consumers with a choice between a set-top box or a full next-generation Xbox console.

Xbox is a strong brand for Microsoft. This is an interesting plan.

Tokens makes it remarkably easy to generate, share, and track promo codes for your iOS and Mac apps.

I don’t believe there is a single Apple developer that wouldn’t find this useful.