From NYT:
A federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions at least a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.
And not long after the ruling, a PDF of the court’s decision went viral.
Here’s a PDF.
Prop 8 Ruling FINAL http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=35374462&access_key=key-svga9mgedaz1bibr18j&page=1&viewMode=list
The Delfin II arrived at the Freeport pier this afternoon, its hold containing about 4,000 pounds of Snapper.
The crew had been at sea for five days, fishing the waters 80 miles off the Texas coast.
I’m with Roberto San Miguel, who for years has made the three hour run between the Gulf and Austin to supply some of the city’s most popular chefs with Snapper, shrimp and Grouper. His skills have been documented by the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Rachel Ray. I’ve seen otherwise well adjusted young parents at the Austin Farmers’ Market fight for the bags of shrimp he hauls to town several times a week from this dock.
With us is Captain Mark Friudenberg, who watches his crew unload the largest, most beautiful fish I have ever seen. The crew works like an efficient machine, carting large containers of ice on an aging, wooden dock that buckles underneath our feet. Captain Mark owns a seafood market one block away that smells of fresh ice and crawfish seasoning. It is clean, bordering on immaculate.
I try to pretend that the August sun here isn’t oppressive, that it doesn’t feel like hot tar sticking to my skin.
Roberto and Captain Mark are concerned that there isn’t a distinction being made by big media between Texas seafood, which I see clean and robust with my own eyes, and the drama surrounding the oil spill hundreds of miles to the East.
That perception is having an affect on their business, which is frustrating considering the quality of the seafood they pull out of the Gulf. The images of the spill are at the forefront of the minds of tourists, and its hard to communicate through that message. It’s hard for someone who doesn’t work on these boats to understand how far the contamination if from Texas.
For a day, these men are my heros, and I look forward to telling their story more in-depth, and with some inspiration, the story of hundreds of people just like them, making a living on our coasts, nurturing the waters and its economies.
The LA Times has a great anecdote about Andre Dawson, who tomorrow will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“In 1987, we worshipped at the altar of Andre Dawson,” WXRT’s Lin Brehmer said. “Dawson was a stoic crippled figure who had that glorious MVP season. All season long, everyone in the bleachers would stand up and bow down to him. In his last at-bat of the season, he hit a home run. We were standing on the slabs in the bleachers. After he took the field, Andre Dawson for the first time all year bowed down to the bleachers to thank us, and I wept like a teeny tiny little baby.”
There isn’t much left to say by now about the iPhone 4.
Whether you like it or not, its place among the competition is firmly rooted. And even though consumers haven’t even received their free cases yet, it’s clear that Steve Jobs has ravaged his competition when it comes to innovation and overall user experience.
Yes, the device has a serious flaw. But how the phone performs in other areas drastically overshadows the bad:
AT&T service is mediocre at best, and its data pricing is insulting, but once the phone opens up to other carriers within the next year, these issues will likely be resolved.
By now most of us are well entrenched in iTunes. No other service has yet to offer the usability, selection of songs, books, and audiobooks. Songs purchased in the iTunes Store are DRM-free.
Apple has once again set the pace for mobile innovation, and the next two years will be the most exciting yet for the standards they’ve set.
I’m writing this post from a new, 16gb wifi-enabled iPad. I was late to the iPad party. First, it took me awhile to decide whether I wanted an iPad. Once I made that decision, it became very difficult to actually purchase one. Both Apple Stores here in Austin have been sold out for weeks and have implemented a waiting list to distribute what little stock they do receive each week.
I received an email from Apple today telling me that the iPad i reserved two weeks ago was in stock. I had 24 hours to pick it up before it would be released. I imagine this is the typical purchasing experience of most people who aren’t able to get one off the shelf.
The iPad is beautiful to use. It’s very fast, and the display looks terrific. I wish the resolution matched that of the iPhone 4, but I’m certain that it will in future iterations. What’s also lacking is a front facing and rear-side camera for FaceTime.
Typing on the iPad is somewhat effortless. I’m writing this within the WordPress for iPad app. I wouldn’t want to write more than two pages or so of text, but for quick posts there’s a lot of value.
Many of my iPhone apps needed to be upgraded in order to work on the iPad in full resolution. Some popular apps, including Facebook, don’t have an iPad version yet, which means users will have to use a small version, or zoom in to a more pixelated experience.
I’m looking forward to using Netflix for iPad, which let’s me stream movies from my instant queue. I haven’t installed Pages, as Evernote and Simplenote seem to meet my writing needs.
By now we all know the story about the iPhone 4’s reception issues, specifically those involving a dramatically reduced signal if you hold the phone in your left hand, with the lower portion of your palm covering the bottom left quadrant of the iPhone’s bezel-based antennae.
In fact, the problem can be replicated by simply holding the phone on either side, just where the bezel gaps are.
The reception problem is frustrating enough. But what’s more annoying is that Apple is treating the problem not as a hardware issue –– one that needs to be fixed –– but rather as a communications problem, one that requires gently prodding disappointed customers into the false realization that this is a non-issue.
Recently, when one customer emailed Steve Jobs to complain, Jobs famously replied, “Just avoid holding it that way.”
Apple has since added slightly more finesse to the company line, but the bottom line remains the same: customers should shutup and be happy with what they have:
Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
But note that even Apple’s own commercials depict users holding the phone in the exact opposite way Jobs and Apple say you should. Absent from the iPhone 4 commercial are cases or bumbers, with nary a glitch or a slowdown in reception.
See my screenshots below from the latest Apple iPhone 4 FaceTime video.
Apple’s own marketing depicts the phone being used incorrectly, and in a way that compromises voice and data performance:
Yuan Yandong is a worker at Foxconn, a major manufacturer of consumer electronics for companies like Apple. The New York Times profiles Yuan and explores conditions inside the Chinese manufacturer:
Mr. Yuan (pronounced yu-wen) wakes at 6:10 p.m. at his small apartment, a 20-minute walk from Foxconn’s campus. He arrives at the factory at 6:50 for a quick free meal at the canteen, then starts work at 7:30.
His task is to help complete 1,600 hard drives — his workshop’s daily quota — and to make sure every one is perfect. Seated in the middle of the assembly line in his black Foxconn sports shirt, cotton slacks and company-mandated white plastic slippers, he waits for the conveyor belt to deliver a partly assembled rectangular hard drive to his station. He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.
Working at a company known for its precision manufacturing and military-style regimentation is not easy. Mr. Yuan can take his cellphone to work, as long as it doesn’t have a camera, but no MP3 players are allowed. He can chat with other line workers, but on the line there are no wasted movements; they have been analyzed and tested with a stopwatch, he said.
“If you do the same thing all day long you can become numb,” he said. “But I’ve gotten used to doing this type of work.”
I’m a fanatic for check-in services like Gowalla and Foursquare. I get really excited when I see businesses like Austin’s One Taco, who use check-in services to both serve customers and make money. It’s the ultimate win-win, and it reaffirms that free, competitive markets are great. I love spending money on businesses that innovate and reach out to me in whatever digital space I’m in without spamming my friends and me.
Every geek I know feels the same way.
It’s hard to ignore the fact that there’s no real “community” for geosocial users and business owners who want help tapping these new markets. There’s no single “go-to” source for help.
I hate that when I search Google for geosocial news and tutorials, I see little more than spammy blogs and fragmented articles.
There’s no help for you if you want to get your business on the Foursquare bandwagon. There’s no help for you if you want to become a Yelp power user, or if you want to teach your parents how to check-in for free stuff at their favorite restaurant by using the power of Gowalla.
That’s no longer the case
Today I’m very excited to announce the launch of GeoAppLab, which strives to do all of these things and so much more. I want GeoAppLab to become a hub for geosocial users.
I want to help businesses that want to better serve their customers through check-in services and geosocial networks. I want to help businesses connect through geosocial tools.
I want to watch as the guy who got a free taco by checking in at the taco truck using Gowalla comes back again and again for paid tacos, and watch as he uses Twitter and Facebook to tell his friends how awesome this taco truck is.
Social networking, and especially geosocial networking, is about customer service. The sooner businesses get onboard with this exciting technology the better they can start tapping new customers and grow in ways that they never before imagined.
The goal
GeoAppLab is a lot more than just a Web site. It’s a place where users share insight and opinions, where guest-analysts offer tutorials and advice on getting your business to leverage services like Gowalla and Foursquare to double your profit. It’s a place where you can learn how to get the most out of geosocial communities and customer networks.
Starting right now, you can visit GeoAppLab for news and tutorials on how to get started in the geosocial space. Subscribe on Twitter. Subscribe to GeoAppLab’s RSS.
Get it through email.
Just get it, and follow along for the ride.
I hope to see you there.
Michael Castellon 