YouTube – Keith Olbermann Reads James Thurber’s “A Box to Hide In”

Keith Olberman begins his so-called “grand experiment reading James Thurber short stories to close out the week on Countdown. He kicks it off with perhaps Thurber’s best. It’s a tribute to the author, and to real class, that Olberman would tell stories — real stories — on the show. It’s different, and remarkably calming, absolutely worth seven minutes.

This is absolutely mesmerizing.

“4. What? Ricky Martin’s gay?”

Denial of expertise

At a certain point, you have to admit you aren’t good enough to do something better than an expert could do it even if the technical option exists for you to give it a shot anyway.

There’s been a lot of hubbub about the iPad and hackery. I think there are plenty of talented experts in the open source field. I think the pundits that complain the loudest are usually not those experts.

iPad Not Charging? Not Really.

Yeah, I didn’t get bit by this myself, but it’s a big deal. It amounts to a smack on the wrists for Apple UX people who didn’t button this issue up tight pre-launch, but it’s something that we should all remember. From RWW:

Generally speaking, RTFM is not enough. Thinking through user experience, including testing by people outside the team, is mandatory.

Headfirst Insanity: 6 Gnarly Helmetcam Videos

Numbers 2 and 4 are particularly stunning. Check out the racing — falling — through the Rio slums on a mountain bike. Videos like these are why I blog.

iPad Teardown – iFixit

I don’t have my iPad yet so I’m doing my very best to reserve judgement on just how it’s going to change things. But based on iFixit’s teardown, I think I can safely say that there is an equal amount of engineering inside this thing as there is pure art.

Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) » iPad and Multitasking

Couldn’t agree more.

So it disappoints me to see commentators on TV today dinging the iPad for a lack of multitasking. A tech expert whose mission is to communicate tricky technology to civilian audiences can’t let that pitch go by with a flat “no.” You also shouldn’t offer a flat “yes” but at least the statement “the iPad OS multitasks” is technically correct. You’re there to educate. Which means that you don’t want people to come away thinking that (for example) iPod playback stops when you try to get your mail or fire off a Tweet.

End User: Get more latitude out of iPhone 3Gs photos

Ryan Brenizer shares his thoughts on HDR apps for the iPhone (3Gs). Results are pretty damned good. Check out his post for examples and links to Pro HDR and TruHDR in the iTunes store.

HDR is just a tool to fix the inherent problem most digital cameras have of being able to capture a much smaller range of lights and darks than the human eye, and few cameras need fixing as badly as a tiny cell phone camera. With all of those pixels crammed in to a space so small, each pixel isn't receiving very much light, and that tends to mean noisy images with blown out highlights. The noise problem is hard to fix, but tonal range is relatively simple: Just take a picture exposed for the shadows, another for the highlights, and slap them together. And that, simply and easily, is what both of these applications do.

MediaPost Publications How Topeka Capitalized On Google’s April Fools’ Joke

The tourism board did have one major challenge: it didn't have a way to determine the return on investment for its paid search campaign. Sheley hopes to change that by initiating a call to action to account for conversions. The plan is to drive people to the tourism Web page and prompt them to download a visitor's guide or book a vacation on or through the site.

KFC’s Bacon Sandwich On Fried Chicken “Bread” Starts Killing People Nationwide April 12

Here’s a horrific bit of something:

For those coming late to the story, it’s bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken. And now, many months later, I’ll finally be able to get my hands on one.

KFC announced the decision to go live with the Double Down yesterday, but we weren’t sure they weren’t playing a April Fools gag. But no, they truly are going nationwide with the delicacy on April 12.

I’m still holding out for the April Fools gag. There’s someone at KFC who has to have forgotten to make a call to someone important. This is the sort of thing that’s just wickedly funny after a bottle or two of cabernet, but just not so clever the next morning.

Google Mail Envelopes by Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik » Yanko Design

Just cause, in the last five minutes, I haven’t yet lost interest in this Google Maps Envelopes thing. Lots of pictures this time. First-world humor here.  

Google Envelopes turns Gmail into snail mail

Here’s a concept that couldn’t have come together until all the right technological planets aligned, and is still about 25 years late.

The envelope itself would be a Google Maps representation of the quickest route to transfer said message from you to the recipient if roadways and kayaks were used in place of fiber and coax, giving the receiver a crucially awesome keepsake each time you dropped him or her a line.

Gizmodo’s Essential iPad Apps

Particularly interesting how all three major newspapers went with a more traditional newspaper design. Smells a bit like they’re trying to remind me of just how great it was when I paid for something that looked a lot like paper, too.