iPad

The iPad goes on pre-order in less than twelve hours. Before it does, let me go on the record to say I think the device is going to be revolutionary and will more than likely run in scarce supply for the first few months. I fully expect this to be the first mass market success for a tablet computer.

I also believe that the iPad's best uses haven't been dreamt up yet and will come out of innovative app developers finding new ways to make use of its huge multitouch display and its non-legacy foundations. The more innovation we see on the app front, the more indispensable this device will become as a third major hardware front for Apple.

With that in mind, and with full disclosure that I am an AAPL shareholder, let me suggest that I think $250/share is not an unrealistic price target within the next three to six months.

See, I'm Not the Only One Complaining About Ad Blocking

Ars Technica's Ken Fisher has a thoughtful piece on how ad blocking is killing high quality web sites.

If you read a site and care about its well being, then you should not block ads (or you subscribe to sites like Ars that offer ads-free versions of the site). If a site has advertising you don't agree with, don't go there. I think it is far better to vote with page views than to show up and consume resources without giving anything in return.

Fisher offers concise and truthful responses to some of the common defenses for blocking ads. For example,

Invariably someone always pops into a discussion like this and brings up some analogy with television advertising, radio, or somesuch. It is not in any way the same; advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results. […] On the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such. Comparing a website to TiVo is comparing apples to asparagus. And anyway, my point still stands: if you like this site you shouldn't block ads. (Emphasis is mine.)

It will be interesting to see how readers respond. More food for thought for those who were dubious about my own musings on the subject here or on OFB.

[HT: John Gruber]

The Church

I have been reading Edmund Clowney's the Church for one of my classes. While at first I was not sure I was going to like the book, as I have gotten further into it, it has amazed me with how precisely Clowney hits on the major issues within the church and even ones I thought might be considered generally minor but are of great interest to me.

Juxtaposed with the reading of Clowney, we were assigned to read our denominational book of order for three hours. I found reading the Book of Church Order (BCO) for that time with no goal other than gaining a greater understanding of the “territory” caused me to discover quite a few interesting things I was not even looking for and find several others I now know I need to dig into more thoroughly.

I am really enjoying the study of ecclesiology this semester.

Apropos

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

—Hamlet (Shakespeare Hamlet 1.5)

Somehow this seems particularly fitting tonight.

Fishy

This commercial is just brilliant in its absurdity. It is a sequel to one from last year.

Much Ado About Nothing

For my Shakespeare course at Covenant, I read Much Ado About Nothing today. One of the things that makes the Bard so great is that he can write a play about “nothing” and make it terribly interesting. Of course, nothing includes no less than two weddings with plenty of tricks and deceptions thrown in for good measure, but the comedic plot movement is never particularly sweeping. Something comes from nothing.

Compare this to Beckett's Waiting for Godot and one can see the difference between a great poet and a person who merely aspired. Godot says very close to nothing; Much Ado About Nothing says a great deal. Shakespeare drives language to engage the mind; Beckett seemed so obsessed with breaking down communication that precious little is communicated in his plays.

***

Yesterday marked this blog's eighth year of publication. I meant to observe it then, but now will have to suffice. Thank you for reading!

Le Morte de Flash: Gone in a Flash

I am tired of Adobe Flash. Since I have been trying to transition a substantial portion of my work to a laptop, I have become more painfully aware of how inefficient this bloated plugin is (and I was already quite aware!). Never mind the slow performance, when battery life drops in half because of a window open in the background that has Flash in it, something is really wrong.

So, I am seeing how I like the web with Click for Flash installed in Safari. Eduardo got me thinking about using a flash blocker when he mentioned the Firefox-oriented FlashBlock in his blog post on web ads.

When the big brouhaha over the iPad's lack of flash started, that made me think even more seriously about Flash and ask a question: would I miss Flash if it were gone? Since I bought my first iPhone two and a half years ago, I have done a lot of web surfing on it and I have never really missed Flash when doing so. In preparing OFB Labs reviews I have also spent a lot of time with other smartphones such as the Motorola Droid and have found I can do everything I normally want to do on the web and never really even think about the lack of Flash.

Really, the only thing I use Flash for is viewing the occasional YouTube video. Now that YouTube is implementing HTML5-based video (which is doubly great since H.264 is hardware accelerated on modern Macs), there is virtually no Flash content out there that I use on an even semi-regular basis. So, why bother with it loading all the time?

I can hear folks saying, “Tim, aren't you being inconsistent with your stance on ad blocking?” The answer is “no.” Click to Flash blocks all Flash on the pages I view — it is not set up to distinguish between ads and normal content. To the extent this is true, using Click to Flash is similar to choices such as not to install Flash at all or choosing to use a text-based web browser.

Similarly, I have always argued blocking popups is appropriate because it is not my duty to provide the ability for sites to jump out of their box (doubly so to hide something beneath my browser as they do with pop-unders). I have blocked popups for years. Likewise, while I choose to use a graphical browser, I have no qualms with those who think using a text-only browser to avoid all graphics is a good idea.

Key principle: I do not believe I have to provide software to allow people to sell me stuff; I can choose to disable any part of my browser I feel like. But, when I disable it, it should not be in a way that intelligently disables it only for ads, but for all uses of the content method the ads use. If I don't want animated GIF ads, I should disable all animated GIFs. If I don't want popup ads, I should disable all unrequested popups. If I don't want Flash ads, I should disable Flash wholesale.

If I continued to have the system download non-advertising related Flash, that would be a different story. After all, I would be using up the web site's bandwidth without at least viewing the stuff they use to subsidize that bandwidth. Bandwidth is very expensive. In agreeing to quid pro quo concerning web viewing, it is no different than how if I want a subsidized price on a phone, I do not try to get out of having a two year contract.

I digress. I am Flash free now. I like it so far — my browsing experience is running faster and I am hopefully doing my part to send a clear message to other web developers: drop the proprietary plugins and use HTML5. The momentum is already there with the HTML5-friendly Mobile Safari/WebKit has engine becoming the lingua franca of mobile web browsing.

Who knows? Maybe by Mac OS X 10.7, Flash will not even come pre-installed on desktop systems. If that happens, I can't say I would be the least bit sad.

Ash Wednesday

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

T.S. Eliot seems appropriate for the day.

Alas, Poor Flash

Engadget reports,

Now Adobe has issued a statement apparently confirming what we've already heard: Windows Mobile 7 will not support Flash.

I am hoping this is Microsoft jumping on the same bandwagon as Apple and pushing forward with HTML5 as an alternative to Flash. Rumors have already suggested that Windows Phone 7 will have a more iPhone-like web browsing experience; if Redmond can get its web standards support closer to Safari/WebKit, the idea of leaving Flash out to dry would make a lot of sense. HTML5 over Flash results in better performance for the end user and more direct control over development for Microsoft. Everybody wins.

Gruber has already speculated (accurately, I believe) that control of development direction is a major component of Apple's refusal to support Flash on its mobile platform.

Peacemaker and Abuse: Another Perspective

My mother has been blogging about my family's experiences at the old church as well. She writes,

While I said certain words in the beginning of this ordeal, I now hear those same words coming to us by others who had “the experience” at that church. Abuse, violation, darkness, evil, shadows — words that I realize are not unique to my family or me now that I have heard others say them. Words about things that should not have a place on this earth that God has blessed us with.

Things that I told those councils are coming true.

Her pieces present a helpful walk through the events at the old church and the dangers of Peacemaker Ministries' programs. She has written quite extensively on the subject and the pieces are worth your perusal.