You have to read this. Absolutely hilarious.

Electronista:

HP, not Samsung, was the ruler of non-iPad tablets in the US for the first ten months of the year, the NPD Group said in a new study. With just 1.2 million tablets sold at retail across every company outside of Apple, HP was the leader in the country at 17 percent, or 204,000, sold between its launch and October. The low count suggests that the fire sale $99 TouchPad, not HP’s Windows range, was the sales leader by going on clearance.

I guess if there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Galaxy Tab outsold the Playbook.

Horace Dediu (Asymco):

The consensus is that the value of future, unknown products is zero. Not only that but the probability that there will be any products at all is equally zero. Not only that but whatever Apple does to create new products is not perceptibly valuable. The company is simply the sum-of-the-product-parts and nothing more. Cash flows from current products can easily be shown to be more than the current valuation so even these products are deeply discounted. If and when a new product shows up, it will be considered and maybe if it shows promise, the stock will reflect that, briefly.

Dediu hits the nail on the head – as far as Wall Street is concerned, you’re only as good as your latest hit. And this is one of the many reasons why those of us who have watched Apple for a long time go absolutely crazy when we read what passes for Apple analysis from financial experts.

(Hat tip: Fortune Tech)

Farhad Manjoo, for Slate.com:

Is Android trying to be elegant, like the iPhone OS? Does it want to be starkly minimalist, like the beautiful Windows Phone? Does it have its own, completely different take on the mobile interface? I can’t tell. Like previous versions of Android, ice cream sandwich doesn’t settle on an aesthetic: As you go from app to app, everything about the design changes.

Farhad’s talking about Android 4.0 (a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich), which Google has apparently redesigned using “ethnographic research” to make it a better user experience. Sounds like they’ve missed the mark, if Manjoo’s experience is any example.

FOSS Patents:

The US International Trade Commission has dismissed S3 Graphics’ first complaint against Apple in its entirety. … It’s a setback for HTC, which is in the process of acquiring S3 Graphics and was hoping to gain leverage against Apple.

Continue to the link for Florian Mueller’s typically insightful and interesting analysis of what this means for patent law.

Poynter:

The results of a new poll by “show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all,” says Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson.

It’s still an open question as to cause or effect: Does watching Fox News make you stupid, or do you have to be stupid to watch Fox News to begin with?

Former Apple vice president Ron Johnson writing for the Harvard Business Review:

People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they’re willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff, it’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better. That may sound hokey, but it’s true. The staff is exceptionally well trained, and they’re not on commission, so it makes no difference to them if they sell you an expensive new computer or help you make your old one run better so you’re happy with it. Their job is to figure out what you need and help you get it, even if it’s a product Apple doesn’t carry. Compare that with other retailers where the emphasis is on cross-selling and upselling and, basically, encouraging customers to buy more, even if they don’t want or need it. That doesn’t enrich their lives, and it doesn’t deepen the retailer’s relationship with them. It just makes their wallets lighter.

John Murrell:

Parr then confirmed his departure to AllThingsD, indicating that he’d have more to say on Monday. Mashable limited its official response to a single sentence, “confirming the terms of departure were termination.”

This should be interesting.

Here’s a link to The Loop. Infinity symbol should show up after the headline, but not before.

TechCrunch:

“The amount of malware targeted at Android devices jumped nearly 37 percent since last quarter, and puts 2011 on track to be the busiest in mobile and general malware history. Nearly all new mobile malware in Q3 was targeted at Android. This follows a 76 percent rise in Android malware in Q2 of 2011.”

What with Android being so popular and all, must be security through obscurity that’s keeping iPhone safe. Right. Right?

Time to bring your desktop to life. Since 2005 My Living Desktop has been bringing a unique cross between a Video Desktop (moving wallpaper) and a traditional screensaver to your Macintosh. My Living Desktop adds a whole new dimension to your computing experience by turning your Mac’s desktop into a beautiful, moving environment… complete with soothing sounds.

My Living Desktop provides a wide array of stunning, relaxing high definition video scenes shot from all over the world that you can use on your desktop and as a screensaver. You can even import your own movie segments to create a truly personal and unique desktop environment.

Starting at 1936.

[Via Jim Coudal]

Those that have read my music posts, seen pictures or looked at my reviews, know that I use Gibson and Jackson guitars a lot. However, if I was going to get a Dean guitar, this would be it. Rust In Peace.

My favorite:

It’s very easy to overuse stuff; try to use things like Eq, Compression and Reverb sparingly. Plug-ins are like make-up, a beautiful woman needs little and if you use too much she looks like crap. Great songs are the same.

As president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) I represent more than 70,000 Photoshop users around the world. However as I’m writing this open letter to you today, I would say that most of our 70,000 members have no idea about the upgrade policy changes you just announced, or about how these changes will affect them.

When someone with Scott’s stature in the creative industry can’t get answers, you know Adobe has some problems.

Matt Alexander:

Reading on an iPad is fine, but for long-form writing, the e-ink experience is the best option available. While I would like to support the underdog, the Nook, I am simply too involved in Amazon’s ecosystem to look back now. Prime is a truly great service, and with its continually growing benefits, I can’t see myself diluting my shopping habits purely for e-books. I wish B&N the best, and I admire their leg work, but for now, I’m definitely on board with Amazon’s offering.

I still don’t get the Kindle.

Line25:

Over the past few years the number of fonts available for use in web design has dramatically increased. It wasn’t long ago that we all knew not to stray further than the basic Arial, Helvetica, Times, Georgia mix, but now there’s a range of services that allow the use of almost any font imaginable in your website design. This post rounds up the various custom web font solutions and looks at the pros and cons of each.

I don’t think of car manufacturing facilities being this good, but this is just spectacular.

Chris Martucci:

We tell college freshman, “You have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do,” and they major in psychology, religion, or philosophy. Now, it’d be ironic for me to downplay these fields, but the sad truth is that there aren’t many jobs out there for the average B-student with a liberal arts education.

Chris is right in that we don’t respect technical schooling enough. Ultimately, you have to do what you love — that’s what I told my kids.