Ishcabittle Kicks Ass
Ishcabittle is Ed Morris, a Technology Consultant working in Atlanta.
Ishcabittle is Ed Morris, a Technology Consultant working in Atlanta.
Greenland’s Ice is Growing Darker
In the past, the bright surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet reflected well over half of the sunlight that fell on it. This reflectiveness helped keep the ice sheet stable, as less absorbed sunlight meant less heating and melting. In the past decade, however, satellites have observed a decrease in Greenland’s reflectiveness. This darker surface now absorbs more sunlight, which accelerates melting.
Greenland sinking into the ocean is the kind of world changing cataclysmic event that may change the attitude of climate change naysayers.
sketch fiftynine
sketch fiftynine: a long time since i wrote something worth recording, between the move and working on a set of old songs with a new drummer things slowed down considerably. i like this etherial bag, though, it feels sleepy manic dreamy.
bugs by ishcabittle (by ishcabittle)
this is a video of me playing a song i wrote. please provide feedback regarding the plaid shirt, i am currently considering a whole-wardrobe re-imagining.
Our fly settles on the exposed bricked wall of a decadent Waterloo penthouse apartment. Soft, indirect lighting illuminates a table, chairs, and couch, occupied by three men who are drinking out of expensive crystal glasses. The brown liquid inside the crystal is old and sweet, a luxury that few can afford, much less consume in such quantity. The men, dressed in custom tailored suits even more expensive than the scotch, crystal, or furniture, are clearly drunk.
“Mike, my boy, fill me up again… I am just starting to feel tipsy.”
“Jim, sure. Jim. I say Jim. JIM!”
“What?! I’m right here, you don’t have to yell.”
“What kind of liquor do you want?” Mike ambles over to the bar and begins running his fingers over the stoppers in the crystal decanters.
“Whatever goes with licorice, I’m about to have some.” Jim reaches over to the candy bowl on the table and grabs a handful of licorice with a clumsy vigor.
The third man, who has been swirling the ice in his drink with his finger, remains silent.
Mike selects a decanter at random and pours three fingers of whatever it is that is in it into the glass, slams a block of ice into the glass, and then ambles over to Jim. ”Here you are, drink up!”
“Thankss.”
“Let me ask you something, Jim, Jimbo. Jimblee. Do you feel… um… what’s the word, oh yeah, uh…”
“Shpit it out, Michael.”
“Do you feel a little, um, guilty… you know. About the company.”
“No! Of course not. We weren’t at fault, certainly not, and besides we’ve got Thor over there, he’s the god of thunder!”
The two of them devolve into a giggling fit, sloshing their drinks over their expensive suits, the expensive carpet, and the expensive couch they sit on. They simultaneously stop laughing to take a drink, snort into their glasses, and begin giggling all over again.
The lone man outside of the hysterical fit leans forward in his chair and speaks up. ”It’s Thorsten, you assholes.” Thorsten polishes off his drink and walks over to the bar, speaking angrily as he does. ”I am the one who has to clean up this mess, not you.”
“Oh c’mon, Thor, it’s funny,” they say in unison.
“It’s not fucking funny. You two drove the company into the ground, you two pissed away a five year lead on a technology stack that could have remained competitive, and you pissed away a fortune on that god damned tablet that couldn’t even do email!”
Jim and Mike were clearly unprepared for this outburst. After a moment, Mike says softly, “It does do webmail…”
“We’re an messaging company!” Thorsten roars. ”How can you release a product that doesn’t do email? You have created the biggest shitstorm in technology history, nay, the perfect shitstorm, and not only do you not realize it, you’re leaving me in charge of it.” Thorsten’s eyes become glassy as he wanders to the window. ”I’m in charge now. I’m the one in power, as it always should have been. And now they will see. Now they will see.”
Jim and Mike look at each other, wait a beat, and begin to giggle again. Presently, Jim stands shakily and turns to face Thorsten, saying, “Look Thor baby, we are not to blame here! We invented the smartphone! We invented email on the phone, we are giants in this industry, if anyone is to blame, it’s the users!!”
“Yah!” shouts, Mike, wanting to be included. Jim continues.
“There are really great things about to come from our company, really great. All you have to do is ratchet up the practices that made our company great, like extra long work weeks for the engineers…”
“Backstabbing and politics in the middle management…” Mike’s chimes in.
“…and cutting corners in quality control and testing!”
Quiet settles over the apartment. Thorsten breathes a heavy sigh, turns around to the other two men, and sighs again.
These are the days. The days when an OS X administrator no longer needs to kick a user off their machine to install an application. The days when adding a printer doesn’t need to effect the user’s workflow. These are the days.
It’s not as well made or well-designed as the iPhone 4S, and certainly doesn’t use the same quality of materials, but it’s still a solid, handsome phone. There are phonemakers like Nokia that are able to pull off world-class industrial design like Apple — I hope Samsung figures out how to do the same at some point.
For all the hubbub between Topolsky and Gruber regarding fanboyism and/or a bias towards Apple, Josh certainly holds Apple in high regard.
It’s just interesting to read the above paragraph after reading things like “reeks of class warfare”.
You know what would have been awesome? To take you time and get it all in the first edition. This reeks of money-grubbing.
If you’re on a mac, head to Terminal and type:
man sysdiagnose
Or, press the key combination Command-Option-Control-Shift-Period and wait 30 seconds for the resulting tar ball to pop up in the terminal.
New Grand Central Apple Store walkthrough. Takeaway: It’s large, employs many people, and has marble everything.
Second star on the right, straight on for 36 years or so.
Kepler confirms its first planet in habitable zone
The top diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first habitable zone planet discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission. The habitable zone is the sweet spot around a star where temperatures are right for water to exist in its liquid form. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth.
Kepler-22’s star is a bit smaller than our sun, so its habitable zone is slightly closer in. The top diagram shows an artist’s rendering of the planet comfortably orbiting within the habitable zone, similar to where Earth circles the sun. Kepler-22b has a yearly orbit of 289 days. The planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest known to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It’s about 2.4 times the size of Earth.
Scientists do not yet know if the planet has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. It’s possible that the world would have clouds in its atmosphere, as depicted here in the artist’s interpretation.
Class M planets for the win.
(via itsfullofstars)
