Traditional frenzied speculation in the absence of any facts

OK, BBC, is this some new meaning of the word "traditionally" when you write, "a tablet or slate-like computer which traditionally bridges the gap between smartphones and laptops," or do you think you're using an Americanized version of the word that means "for longer than the last fifteen minutes?"

Ah, the traditions of the line of mobile computing devices!

I muttered something to Christine about being uncomfortable with the App Store model, but we both agreed it's still early in this "traditional" model of ensuring quality of experience and selling razor blades†:
* http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/21/40-staffers-2-reviews-8500-iphone-apps-per-week/
* http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10127333-37.html [This last one reminds me of issues of censorship of LJ due to teens & sex and makes me wonder if the book's ban was due to more than a word match.]

I indulged in reading the frenzied Mac speculation yesterday late afternoon. I rather hope that whatever is introduced today is far from a tablet, because if the device is tablet-like it will bring geek disappointment on some dimension. I did find the news that Apple is sitting on $40 BILLION in cash provocative.

It makes me wonder if the announcement will be something that won't be ready for two or three quarters, something where the design is complete, but where they didn't want anything leaked, so they'll announce today then dump that cash on parts manufacturers to build out production lines. OLED displays come to mind, or some of the other innovative display tech that would be the magic solution producing long battery life and vibrant display: the analysts say that those technologies can't be used on an Apple device because the manufacturing capacity is absent.

(I had broken something and even though i say "i" did it, it wasn't about me at all, and i couldn't fix it, and distracting myself away was the best i could do at the moment. I still don't know how to frame the real experience, and i still suspect i was acting from a place of poorly shaped assumption and of privilege.)


† Expensive device is priced with very little profit because the profit can be made in selling many of the "disposable" units that the expensive device makes possible. Key is to design the expensive thing so that the manufacturer is the only source of the "disposable" units. Also think inkjet printers.

(no subject)

Yesterday marked a month of respiratory malaise. I woke to the certainty that i could no longer simply pop analgesics and that i had crossed the symptom line into, "Here have antibiotics."

I put in half a day and was otherwise only lightly engaged with other household issues. I was mildly irked at the doctor because of how she's handling my asthma, but that's less about her and more about the practice of medicine. This asthma diagnosis she gave me frustrates me: i simultaneously believe it is a valid explanation for certain physical behaviors in my body and also suspect is some magic term that creates some far sweeping premise that is ungrounded in my actual state of being. "You are asthmatic, therefore you blah-di-blah-blah-blah." (Or i could say i'm frustrated by both the predictive power of statistics coupled with their lack of utility when trying to predict the behavior of an individual.)

Um.

Wow, i was sure i had things to write about other than frivolous Apple speculation (yawn) and being sick (yawn^10).