This was an excellent segment last night about Europe’s debt crisis and why many German’s resent bailing out Greece, among other countries.

Youths Are Watching, but Less Often on TV

Just ask Jay Rishel, a system administrator in York, Pa., whose son Cory, 4, has become accustomed to watching television via Roku, a small box that streams shows through the Internet. On Tuesday night, Cory asked his dad if he had watched television via Roku growing up. When his dad said no, Cory then asked, “So you could only watch DVDs?”

“Since it was bedtime, I didn’t try to explain we had four channels available when I was growing up,” Mr. Rishel, 31, said. “I don’t think he knows what a channel even is.”

Reminds me of the fact that fewer people use wristwatches (let alone analog wristwatches) as they use their smartphones as portable clocks.

We’re in the demographic which is supposed to be increasing its “traditional” TV viewing and I can say we’re not. The only time I switch channels is to switch from CPTV (Connecticut Public Television) to Thirteen (New York Public Television) because CPTV is showing Connecticut women’s basketball instead of the PBS NewsHour. Once the NewsHour is over its either another PBS show or a movie via Netflix DVD or AppleTV.

However, I use the PBS NewsHour web site to time shift segments or shows I’ve missed and it works well for me. I wish they had an iPad app for that but they do have a YouTube Channel that works fine on the iPad.

When, on occasion we channel surf we are so disgusted with both the content and the commercials on much of cable TV that if it weren’t for our package deal for cable internet service and TV we’d dump the entire TV thing and just use the internet. That day may be coming and it will be interesting to see how it jives with whatever Apple is cooking up in this space.

Race Brook Falls Trail, Massachusetts. This was taken at a place where the brook drops about six inches on the right of this frame. The turbulence and vortexes caused by the drop on the right affected the water both on the drop and to the left of it thus affecting the reflection of the trees on the far bank.

This is the larger context the previous image came from. I took the previous image first (kneeling next to the water) and then stood up and took this one to show context lost in the closeup.

The Derelicts a short film by eGarage from eGarage on Vimeo.

Bitchin’! I’m totally stoked.

[via Devour]

I can’t get enough of these industrial processes.

[via The Kid Should See This]

iWitness

Jerry Manock is the industrial designer who designed the Apple II, Apple III and first Macintosh. This is a wonderful piece that’s no doubt come out because of Walter Isaacson’s book: Steve Jobs.

Manock is a great guy, very humble yet he was in the middle of the push to ship the first Macintosh and had a lot of interaction with Jobs.

I have a box of print material saved from those days showing the original Macintosh team and Manock is in there along with Jobs, Atkinson, Herzfeld, Smith, and many others.

The third to last paragraph describing his trip to an Apple board meeting many years later made me cry.

Great stuff, a must read for anyone interested in Apple history.

[via Kottke.org]

Salisbury, Connecticut. We always look forward to this beautiful stand of beech trees on the Appalachian Trail between Salisbury and Lion’s Head on the way to Bear Mountain.

Amazing stills and video of snowy owls by Gerrit Vyn.

[via The Kid Should See This]

El Wingador

Errol Morris documents the life of Bill Simmons (El Wingador) who is a competitive eater. This is an amazing film, highly recommended. Watch it full screen.

Linsey Pollak is brilliant. Some of the best beatboxing coupled with creative musical instrument overlays I’ve ever seen. Turn it up, enjoy Pollak’s musical creativity.

[via wimp.com]

Schaghticoke Ridge, Appalachian Trail, Kent, Connecticut. This foam whirlpool was on a stream crossing the Appalachian trail on the Schaghticoke Ridge section between Bull’s Bridge and Rt. 341. This is the largest stream on the hike which can be difficult to cross in high water.

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is a series of short films produced and directed by Ben Wu and David Usui that explore the idea of home.

The three films they have up now are excellent, each in its own way.

Kaaterskill High Peak from Dibble’s Quarry
Along the Pecoy Notch Trail on the way to Pecoy Notch just east of Sugarloaf Mountain in the Catskills. Kaaterskill High Peak is on the skyline.

Dibble’s Quarry was mined for sidewalk slate used in New York City but over the years that it’s been part of a state park people have built a menagerie of cairns, chairs, tables, and fortresses out of the slate.

Beaver dam and pond below Pecoy Notch
This beaver pond and dam sits next to the Pecoy Notch Trail. Behind the dam and pond you can see Pecoy Notch and Sugarloaf Mountain, one of the Catskills. The Devil’s Path runs along the skyline here, it’s a spectacular hike that Dave and I have done. Today we just went up to the notch using micro spikes.

This beaver pond is active and there are fresh tree stumps where the beavers have taken wood for the dam and for food.

Stream coming out of Pecoy Notch
This stream is part of the drainage from Twin and Sugarloaf Mountains and Pecoy Notch.

Now that I’m sensitized to ice crystals I’m looking for them everywhere. This day there was quite a bit of melt and the ice had more rounded edges.

Marco Arment on Planet Money

This is a great interview. The Planet Money guys are brilliant and Marco gets right in sync with their style.

Marco made and sells one of my all time favorite utilities: Instapaper. In a nutshell, if I start reading an article on my computer and want to finish it or read it on my iPad, I hit a button on my browser “read later” and the article is sent up to Instapaper, a cloud-based service that acts as my breadcrumbs in the clouds. Later, when I’m using my iPad (still connected to wifi) I click the Instapaper app and update its cache of saved stuff. The article appears and I can read it there.

What many don’t realize is that Instapaper caches the articles on the iPad and/or iPhone and so, I can read them there when I’m not connected, like when I’m on a plane. So, before my regular trips to LA I routinely load up my Instapaper account with things I want to read on the plane, then update the iPad’s Instapaper cache memory and I’m set.

Instapaper has many iBook-like reading tools including typographic control and more.

I’m hoping to use Instapaper to help my mother read The New Yorker as its app is totally worthless for anyone who can’t read small type.

Michael Garnier talks about his treehouse collection and B&B resort. It’s in Takilma, Oregon.

I love this guy, he’s the John Muir (How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive) of the treehouse world.

This documentary takes a while but its well worth it. Garnier and his little Jack Russell terrier are treasures.

[via Boing Boing]

Mt. Race, Massachusetts. All of these shots were taken in a single puddle to the side of the Race Brook Falls trail near the intersection with the Appalachian trail.

This was taken in a small pool in Race Brook on the blue Race Brook Falls trail.

Mt. Race, Massachusetts. All of these shots were taken in a single puddle on the Appalachian Trail on the north ridge of Mt. Race. I don’t know enough about ice crystals to understand why some puddles produce crystals and others don’t but when I find a patch of great crystals like this it’s like finding gold. The only downside is that the gloves come off and one’s hands can get cold in a long session. The day I took these was relatively mild so hands didn’t suffer and as a result, more ice shots.

iPad magic

A very nice routine using the iPad for close up sleight of hand (in German).

[via Hank Murrow]

Postcards from the dawn of photography

For the creative pioneers who embraced early photographic technology, producing “art” was very much a matter of trial and error. As Anne Havinga, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh senior curator of photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, tells me, chemical treatments and exposure times were experimental and inexact; given the circumstances, “it was a miracle if they got anything at all.”

Great interview with the curators of a new photo show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Silver, Salt, and Sunlight including a slide show of some of the images.

Guess I’m going to Boston soon to see this show, sounds spectacular.

[via Gary Sharp]