It’s like killing a unicorn with a bomb
lovely5555’s review of the Marvel Comics iPad app.
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The lions are coming
Lion dance [wikipedia.org] performed at my sister-in-laws house on the third day of Chinese New Year this year.
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Kyoto, Japan, January 2010
Another [confusion.cc] trip [confusion.cc] to Japan in the middle of winter. More specifically a trip to Kyoto.
This trip was precipitated by a visit by my mother and sister to Singapore to see my daughter. Since their flight was via Tokyo, they decided to take a stopover and visit the land of the rising sun, a new destination for them to check off. Candice, Tori and I decided to join them.
Even though the flight was to Tokyo we spent the whole trip, sans train rides to and from Narita airport, in and around Kyoto. This was my planning—Kyoto has the highest density of places to see. And while I’d like to see stuff I’ve never had the chance to see it made sense for my mother and sister to see the ‘must see’ sites in Kyoto on their first trip. It also made sense to go to some place I was familiar with to make it easier to get around with Tori. So Kyoto it was.
We only had 5 days, so we focused on the big must see sites: Nijo-jo [wikipedia.org] the Shogun home, Ginkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Silver Pavilion and Kinkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Golden Pavilion. Fushimi Inari-taisha [wikipedia.org] and Kiyomizu-dera [wikipedia.org].
In addition to temple and shrine hopping, we spent our evenings wondering the streets of Gion [wikipedia.org] where we spotted not one, but two Geisha. We spotted both Geisha on the same night walking along one of the tea house lined streets. In fact as Tori was playing in a small water fixture next to a door we almost got run over by one of the Geisha when she came out of the door on her way somewhere. No pictures of Geisha though, it was dark and flashing people in the face is not something I am good at.
It was a good trip with the family, Tori had a lot of fun and I have a lot of photos of her. But overall I did not take a lot of good photos. The winter weather and focus on Tori were not conducive to taking photos. I took a lot of snapshots but few turned into good photos. There is defiantly a bent towards good photos in the morning, less time and attention to the shots as the day went on. Still, I did take a lot of shots and some turned out good.
You can see the whole Kyoto, Japan, January 2010 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
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An ode to long flights
An ode to long flights March 2010
Boarding in Singapore Hurt locker... Check Cold Souls... Check Law Abiding Citizen... Check Sleep... Is for the weak Deplane Starbucks in Dubai... Will you pay in local, euros, dollars or pounds? The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3... Check Sleep... I am weak Welcome to Athens Three day turn around... What to watch?
Yea, I just got back.
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iPhone OS 4.0 UI Enhancement Request
I would like to make a request to Apple for a new UI enhancement to be released in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 update.
See, here’s the thing. I use WiFi and Bluetooth all the time. But turning WiFi on and off and switching networks (I do this often as Singapore has municipal WiFi and shitty though it is, I use it until I’m somewhere with a better network, like home or the office, then I need to switch), or changing Bluetooth devices is not convenient. For example to change the WiFi network I am attached to I have to 1. Go to the home screen, 2. Open “Settings”, 3. Select WiFi 4. Choose a new network. This is too many steps for something that I use multiple times a day.
Now, one way to fix this would be to add two more hardware switches like there is for audio on. You could switch WiFi and Bluetooth on and off and flipping it on would bring up the selection box. OK. But Apple has a thing about buttons. So maybe not.
On the other hand… The iPad has a “tap and hold” gesture, that has shown up in the latest OS SDK for the iPhone/iPad. I’d like to use this as an easy way to get to the pertinent WiFi and or Bluetooth settings. First we need to make a small change in the title bar; today if WiFi or Bluetooth are turned off you don’t see their icons:
I propose to change this. I’d like to see the WiFi and Bluetooth icons always on the title bar:
This necessitates a new icon: WiFi off. I based this one on the Mac title bar’s WiFi off icon. I’m sure the UI guys at Apple can make it beautiful.
Now that we have icons let’s use them! Let’s look at WiFi. Using the “tap and hold” gesture I just tap and hold on the WiFi icon would bring up a dialog allowing us to turn on WiFi:
Then I can turn on WiFi and see a list of available networks:
That seems much faster and easier to me.
I’d do something similar with Bluetooth, but I’m too lazy to mock it up.