Birdfeed
I knew Buzz Anderson was making a Twitter app for the iPhone. When the months rolled on and Tweetie came out and Twitterrific got better I really wondered how the hell Birdfeed was going to compete in the crowded marketplace. I figured that out within a few seconds of launching the app. Birdfeed competes by being excellent. The word that keeps popping into my head is “fluid.” The experience is so fluid and so smooth. Everything works exactly as you’d expect. The interface is so clear and unambiguous, there is no wondering how something works or what an icon means. New tweets automatically load when you get to the bottom, fulfilling my next request a priori. I never realized how clunky other Twitter clients were until I tried Birdfeed.
I also wish more developers lived in New York City like Buzz. I can only guess that the tweet caching feature was at least partially inspired by the fact that most of us New Yorkers find themselves with a lot of idle time on a train underground and therefore off the network. It’s amazing how many apps become utterly useless without a network connection.
Add to all this the fact that Birdfeed is lightning fast, especially on launch, and it’ll take a lot now to make me switch back to anything else.
(Oh and the icon is just wonderful too.)
Terminator Salvation lost me way before this, but the moment John Connor plugged a USB key into a Terminator’s USB port, there was just no turning back.
— Me, To Myself Just Now, Thinking About Terminator Salvation
T minus 15 minutes until my long weekend starts. May there be a margarita or 10.
L. Gaga Revealed, 4th edition
I won’t tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you
Cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin
I’m not lying I’m just stunnin’
With my love-glue-gunning
— L. Gaga, Poker Face
In this expository missive, Gaga lays bare her coy plan and dispenses with allegory and metaphor. For the listeners addled by her previous references to the “Texes Hold ‘em” style of poker, Gaga comes clean with a brash and playful yet brutally honest rap. She explains that she will not offer the typical actions of a true lover (kissing, hugging, affectionate petting, etc) because her vulva has, literally in this case, been less than honest. She is correct that she has not technically been lying according to the strict dictionary definition of the term as coitus lubricants are plentiful. Yet herein lies the essence of her thesis: she cannot reciprocate her partner’s love due to the fact that she is fantasizing that the phallus in play is actually a rubbery doppelganger, operated by the careful hand of her lesbian lover. The vast yet subtle conspiracy is finally exposed.
G.B. Lawrence from his 1842 masterwork, L. Gaga Revealed, 4th edition