Sometimes the best composition frames question “WTF?” That quality takes the Day—for symmetry, focus on the dog, depth of field, beautiful bokeh, and busyness of people and debris. I mean, frak, is this place always […]
Category: Living
Apple Music backs off ‘play for no-pay’ plan that would withhold artist royalties
Now that Apple plans to compensate artists for the first three months of music streaming, it’s time to ask: Were the whiners grandstanding or sincere? The question mainly is meant for Taylor Swift, whose Father’s Day Tumblr post seems to have brought, eh, swift response to the—what I call—”play for no-pay” plan.
The company unveiled Apple Music during the World Wide Developer Conference on June 8. The streaming service will be free to subscribers for the first three months, with Apple initially choosing not to make royalty payments to artists. I condemned the ridiculous strategy last week. The company sits on a nearly $200 billion cash horde, and content creators are among its most loyal customers. Stiffing them makes no sense from several different perspectives, with good public relations being one and expressing thanks to artist customers being another.
Small Town Living
I couldn’t reach my dad to wish him Happy Father’s Day. Calls kept coming up “User Busy” on my smartphone screen. One of my sisters shared similar problem, and we mutually expressed hope that perhaps […]
Apple Music Takes from Artists to Give to Subscribers
For a company that generates more profits than any other ($18 billion during fiscal first quarter 2015), sits on a cash horde of nearly $200 billion, and has the gall to charge $150 for a watchband, stinginess is an unbecoming trait. Scratch that. Greediness. Putting profits before people, particularly devoted customers, when corporate advertising is all about how they matter more, is simply stupid public relations. In business, perception is everything.
So Apple’s reported decision to give away music for three months, without compensating artists, is cheapskates behavior that demands criticism, particularly about a company claiming that music means so much. Speaking to developers last week, CEO Tim Cook: “We love music, and music is such an important part of our lives and our culture”. Oh yeah? If it’s so important, why diminish its value? To zero. “We’ve had a long relationship with music at Apple”. For how much longer without artists’ cooperation? You don’t own the content, Mr. Cook.
Strange Starbucks Sightings
Sitting with my aged father-in-law, I see an Acer Chromebook and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 in an otherwise typically Apple hangout—all while a reggae version of John Denver-penned classic “Country Roads” plays over the store […]
My Summer Sojourn: OS X 10.11, OS 9
Due to a rather startling accident, my wife’s laptop is no longer among the electrically living. She will use my beloved Chromebook Pixel LS for a few months, while I step back into the Apple lifestyle to test El Capitan and iOS 9. Eight days after Apple released developer previews, I finally am getting around to installing them, on 13-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Air 2. Whoa, I dunno about the new font!
The Mac is a new purchase. Our cameras and computers are all insured, and late last week I filed the second claim in more than a dozen years (the first replaced a hard drive, for $250, after my daughter dropped her aluminum MacBook during finals week two years ago). I grudgingly picked the 2.7GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD.
Flickr a Day 167: ‘Changing of the Guard Pipe Band’
The photostream of Rennett Stowe is delightful—filled with, as he says, “stock photographs, art photos, and a few family photos”. The stock stuff is fine example of what this type of work should be. Composition, […]
Flickr a Day 166: ‘Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan’
Photos of needy children in some developing countries are so often cliché. Sad face, wide eyes, and even emaciation. Self-titled “Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan” takes the Day for being something more. You […]
WWDC 2015: My Story in Tweets
As the week closes, I reflect on Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, which commenced on June 8, 2015. I watched the keynote on Apple TV and live-tweeted from my comfy couch. Fittingly from Chromebook Pixel LS.
I find iOS 9 interesting enough to test. Today, I signed up for an Apple Developer account; my old one expired years ago. The process took a phone call, because Apple claimed my bank declined to pay. How strange. So I tried another card. Then a third. Hey, my accounts are good! I called the bitten-fruit for assistance, and someone senior in developer support manually processed the $99 fee, because of the glitch. How fraked is that?
Flickr a Day 158: ‘Rugby in Olimpico Stadium, Rome’
Picturesque best describes the photographic style of Antonio Cinotti. Perhaps this explains why: “I am very lucky to live in a natural paradise”, he says—”40 Years from Siena, Tuscany, Italy”. He loves “Crete Senesi, Valdorcia, […]
Caturday Siesta
Neko and Cali snooze on my daughter’s bed. What better place to be for Saturday slumber? I shot the photo using Fujifilm X100T and editing using Google Photos. Conceded, I worked from a JPEG rather than […]
Coachella 2016 Presales Success
My daughter can attend Coachella for the third time, but Weekend Two. I snagged Weekend One tickets for this year and last but not next. Pass presales for the 2016 music festival commenced at 11 AM PDT today. The advantage of buying now is making monthly payments rather than one sum up front.
Timing and luck make the difference securing any pass, particularly the earlier (April 15-17). Last round, I got in three minutes before official start time. Ironically, or not, at 10:57 the Coachella app on my Nexus 6 popped up a notification that sales had started. But every time I clicked the purchase button for Weekend One, Coachella redirected to the sales start at 11 page.