[MyAppleMenu] Apr 12, 2011

applesurf at myapplemenu.com applesurf at myapplemenu.com
Tue Apr 12 18:59:00 EDT 2011

MyAppleMenu
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**** Bloomberg Businessweek Is The Latest iPad Subscription Magazine <http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/11/bloomberg-businessweek-latest-ipad-subscription-publication/>
Steven Sande, TUAW

**** iPad 2 Gets Glasses-free 3D Display Using Front-facing Camera For Head Tracking <http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/11/ipad-2-gets-glasses-free-3d-display-using-front-facing-camera-fo/>
Samuel Gibbs, TUAW

The clever folks over at the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research group have managed to combine a feed from the front-facing camera, with a bit of software wizardry, to track the position of a person's head in 3D in real-time.

**** Downloading Free Books To Your iPad <http://www.macworld.com/article/159145/2011/04/free_ipad_books.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Christopher Breen, Macworld

It’s quite easy to download books directly from Project Gutenberg to your iPad.

**** ZoomReader App Gives Your Eyes A Hand <http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/04/11/zoomreader_app_gives_your_eyes_a_hand/>
Mark Baard, Boston Globe

I was delighted to read (with help from my bifocals) about an app that turns the iPhone into a stealthy assistive device, enlarging the type on packages and pill bottles that we tell ourselves is getting smaller over the years.

**** Using Two Macs <http://macgroup.org/blog/2011/04/11/using-two-macs/>
MacNews

The other problem and probably the thing that has kept me from doing this sooner was not wanting to have to manage files between TWO "main" computers. I didn't want to be frustrated by not having the file I needed because it was on the computer I didn't have with me. This is when I started looking at today's solutions to this problem and I realized that this is very doable now with what's out there today! Here's how I solved this problem and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

**** Inside Mac OS X 10.7: Apple To Strip Most Aqua Gloss <http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/11/inside_mac_os_x_10_7_apple_to_strip_most_aqua_gloss.html>
AppleInsider

Apple's next desktop operating system release will tone down much of the Aqua user interface and change how screen captures handle windows' drop down sheets.

**** The Price Is Right, Now It’s Time To See How The iPad Newsstand Really Does <http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/ipad-newsstand-pricing/>
MG Siegler, TechCrunch

It was a decade ago that Apple proved was seemed unbelievable at the time: that people would pay for music online. It simply had to be accessible and the price had to be right. They created that environment with the iTunes Store for music. And now they’re trying to do it for media with in-app subscriptions through the App Store. If publications stop resisting the changes, it may still work.

**** The iPhone Tab Bar <http://www.significantpixels.com/2011/04/04/the-iphone-tab-bar/>
Significantpixels

Over the last couple of years, the iPhone has greatly popularized the tab bar navigational model for mobile handsets. Apple has put together a design rationale for the tab bar in their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) along with lots and lots of other information — they do however leave some question unanswered. Having worked with interaction and graphical design for iPhone applications during the last couple of years I’ve managed to pick up some lessons the hard way, and in this post I would like to share my thoughts on a couple of do’s and don’ts.

**** Long-form Reading Thrives On The iPad <http://www.macworld.com/article/159172/2011/04/longform_reading_roundup.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Joel Mathis, Macworld

Apps and services let you curl up with a good read on your Apple tablet.



The Tomorrow Weblog
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**** Dialing With Your Thoughts <http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37357/?ref=rss&a=f>
Duncan Graham-rowe, Technology Review

Researchers in California have created a way to place a call on a cell phone using just your thoughts. Their new brain-computer interface is almost 100 percent accurate for most people after only a brief training period.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Book Review: 'The Color Of Night' By Madison Smartt Bell <http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-book-20110411,0,548286.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+features%2Fbooks+%28Los+Angeles+Times+-+Books%29>
Tod Goldberg, Los Angeles Times

The ability to comprehend unspeakable violence is based largely on scale. Today it's frighteningly easy to imagine a situation where you might be killed by someone. But for most of human history, it was more difficult to conjure the deaths of thousands of people. Technology makes it possible to the point that we can watch, into perpetuity, as portions of humanity are wiped away by natural disasters or by terrorists in hijacked airplanes. Why do we bother to watch at all? Is it a skewed attempt at empathy?

**** Richard Feynman And The Connection Machine <http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/>
W. Daniel Hillis, The Long Now Foundation

One day when I was having lunch with Richard Feynman, I mentioned to him that I was planning to start a company to build a parallel computer with a million processors. His reaction was unequivocal, "That is positively the dopiest idea I ever heard." For Richard a crazy idea was an opportunity to either prove it wrong or prove it right. Either way, he was interested. By the end of lunch he had agreed to spend the summer working at the company.

**** The Grand Tour <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=all>
Evan Osnos, New Yorker

I chose the “Classic European,” a popular bus tour that would traverse five countries in ten days. Payment was due up front. Airfare, hotels, meals, insurance, and assorted charges came to the equivalent in yuan of about twenty-two hundred dollars. In addition, every Chinese member of the tour was required to put up a bond amounting to seventy-six hundred dollars—more than two years’ salary for the average worker—to prevent anyone from disappearing before the flight home. I was the thirty-eighth and final member of the group. We would depart the next morning at dawn.

**** I'm High On Life! <http://www.slate.com/id/2290972/?from=rss>
Tom Shone, Slate

Do artists do their best work before they get clean?

**** My Broken Marriage In A Shoebox <http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/04/11/divorce_photo_failed_marriage_open2011/index.html>
Marcelle Soviero, Salon

The man I married and had three children with is minimized to a shoebox inside my memory trunk now. There's a photo of us with the ship captain on our cruise to Portofino. A photo from our December wedding, all those poinsettias. And the card Larry gave me for our first anniversary. "Love you forever," he wrote on the popup heart; I bend it back into the box.

Why do I keep this, I wonder? Perhaps I want my children to have access to items that prove their father and I loved each other. I imagine Sophia, our oldest daughter, 13 now, finding this note I wrote to Larry after I became pregnant with her. Maybe these sealed mementos will supplement the images she must have of her father and me dropping her off at one house or another, or standing like stick figures at her back-to-school nights.

**** Step Up To The Plate: The Trainees At El Bulli <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/12/step-up-to-plate-el-bulli>
Lisa Abend, The Guardian

Each year, around 3,000 apply for the privilege of passing six months as stagiaires – technically the word means "interns" or "apprentices," but it translates metaphorically as "kitchen slaves"– at its stove tops. The high regard in which the restaurant is held, as well as the chance to receive instruction from Adrià and his chefs, explains why the final 32 apprentices travel, at their own expense, from everywhere from Seoul to Bologna and Los Angeles to Caracas, to the tiny, overbuilt town of Roses on Spain's Costa Brava. It is also why they agree to work unpaid for 14 hours at a stretch in exchange for one meal a day and a bed in an unattractive apartment. It is why they stand virtually unmoving for seven of those hours, feet planted at the centre counter, squeezing the germ from thousands of kernels of corn or trimming the slime off anemones. If they make it through the six months that El Bulli is open, they can say they have worked in the best restaurant in the world.

**** Consider The Egg <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/apr/12/consider-the-egg>
Oliver Thring, The Guardian

In addition to its place in religious symbolism the egg is unrivalled in its culinary potential. What's your favourite egg dish?

**** Ode To A Composting Toilet <http://www.slate.com/id/2290958/?from=rss>
Sharon Olds, Slate



SingaporeSurf
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**** The PAP Must Yield To The People – Chee Soon Juan <http://ge2011.theonlinecitizen.com/2011/04/the-pap-must-yield-to-the-people-%E2%80%93-chee-soon-juan/>
Jewel Philemon, The Online Citizen

Dr Chee highlighted how many issues remain unsolved in those constituencies and challenged the ruling party to debate these issues openly with the SDP.

Dr Chee emphasised that the SDP will work with the government where they can but they will make sure that the policies must benefit the people. He said that this is the first principle that the SDP will adopt if elected to parliament. He also stressed that the SDP will fight for the issues highlighted in The Promise and they will not back down from fighting for those issues.

**** SDP’s Political And Electoral Strategy <http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=6545>
Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net

Today, the SDP is a far stronger party with considerably more resources at its disposal. They have managed to achieve this phenomenal growth because SDP is a party built on values.

People who share SDP’s ideology of sustainable economic growth, democracy and human rights, free and fair elections, and a more just and equal society, should give it their fullest support.

**** Coupons Apply Only To Labelled Menu Items <http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC110412-0000350/Coupons-apply-only-to-labelled-menu-items>
Juliana Salleh, Today

The coupons for this One Million Plates for Singapore initiative made available at specially designated kiosks are only applicable on menu items labelled "NTUC Value Meal" for same-day redemption.

**** Watch His Lips <http://singaporedesk.blogspot.com/2011/04/watch-his-lips.html>
Singapore Notes

LKY: “I said in that book (“Hard Truths”) that I think that Malays, that Muslims should be relaxed and eat together with the others.”

CR: “And it created a firestorm and your son said, the Prime Minister, differed with you.”

LKY: “That’s right.”

CR: “So, were you right or your son?”

LKY: *laughs*; “He has to be right because he is the Prime Minister.”

CR: “But … but?”

LKY: “But you ask the average person in the street whether what I’ve said is true.”

CR: “And they would say?”

LKY: “You ask them.”

**** What A Loaded Question? <http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-loaded-question.html>
Chua Chin Leng, My Singapore News

Now, what is the purpose of asking if they are ready to form the next govt when they are obviously not? Your guess.

**** In The SDP, Politics Is... <http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4715-in-the-sdp-politics-is>
Vincent Wijeysingha, Singapore Democratic Party

We are a party that believes in the essential goodness of human beings. We are confident that given a choice, all human beings will choose to share more equally the national pie so that no child goes hungry, no older person is denied healthcare, and no family must queue at a charity to get its groceries.

We are not a party that is motivated by money. We are not a party that believes in growth at all cost.

**** 学校食堂食物“缩水”？ <http://www.zaobao.com.sg/sp/sp110412_031.shtml>
联合早报

上个月有媒体对22所学校进行访问，发现其中七所学校的食堂，食物在过去三个月里起价5分至5角钱。其中三所学校的食堂摊贩据说也减少了食物分量。

**** Six Degrees Of Ministerial Pay? <http://www.straitstimes.com/GeneralElection/Blogs/Story/STIStory_655751.html>
Susan Long, Straits Times

As has often been said, the best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table, so that people can focus on the work rather than on the cash.

But instead of taking the issue of money off the table, as raising ministerial pay was intended to do, it has unfortunately become the issue foremost on the minds of many.

**** 选前报道 刘程强误解人协宗旨 <http://www.zaobao.com.sg/sp/sp110412_013.shtml>
联合早报

“这是个重要任务，与政治或者支持行动党完全没有关系。我们要建设一个大家视彼此为朋友的国家，大家交情之深可以使彼此守望相助。当我们做到人人都明白睦邻之道时，新加坡才是个让大家都觉得稳定、安全并引以为豪的国家。”

**** How To Solve The Tin Peiling Issue <http://miyagi.sg/2011/04/how-to-solve-the-tin-peiling-issue/>
Miyagi.sg

By insist­ing on her cre­den­tials and hang­ing on to her, the PAP risks reviv­ing its image as Patro­n­is­ing, Arro­gant Pols on account of one such mere mor­tal (mm, not MM). Why? Is she really worth it? Is she worth rekin­dling cyn­i­cal vot­ers? Is she worth lost votes in other con­stituen­cies to the oppo­si­tion? Is she worth the dimin­ished regard of the PAP’s hal­lowed abil­i­ties? Is she worth the unnec­es­sary detrac­tion from other wor­thy can­di­dates? And, yes, is she worth so much Noise??

**** SGX's ASX Bid Doomed By 'Naivete': Analysts <http://www.todayonline.com/Business/EDC110412-0000677/SGXs-ASX-bid-doomed-by-naivete--Analysts>
Today

**** Election Watch Part XI - Has PAP Started To Contradict And Disagree In This Match? <http://de-leviathan.blogspot.com/2011/04/election-watch-part-xi-has-pap-started.html>
De Leviathan @ Sg

**** Un-published Letter To Straits Times <http://mysingapura.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/un-published-letter-to-straits-times/>
Sha Najak, My Singapura

How can a drug trafficker be sentenced to death when the person who supplied him the job will not have to face punishment? How can Singapore then say that we wish to keep Singapore safe when these invisible perpetrators are able to cheat another young man into doing the same deed Yong did to feed their greediness? Where is the moral explanation for this and how can we hang a young man for this without tackling the problem at the root of its cause?

**** Hard Truths You Won’t Read About Elsewhere, Part I <http://flaneurose.blogspot.com/2011/04/hard-truths-you-wont-read-about.html>
Flaneurose

The PAP could already be failing Singapore, if held to the same measures of success and failure that were espoused by it so many years ago. That it sees itself as being successful may be a function of shifting metrics rather than a reflection of true performance. In other words, the PAP’s performance has been and continues to degrade, but its decline has been masked by the managing of its appearance.

**** No Groupthink Within PAP: Burying Head In Sand? <http://rogerpoh.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/no-groupthink-within-pap-burying-head-in-sand/>
Spotlight On Singapore

Did any PAP MP have the intellectual and moral courage to veer from the official line on important issues like caning, capital punishment, freedom of speech and assembly, media freedom, human rights, why we are still selling arms to a dictatorship like Myanmar and building a democratic society as envisioned in the National Pledge?

As the people’s representative, MPs are expected to be touch with their constituents’ concerns and bring them up in Parliament. Sadly, many of them are tongue-tied and are so self-effacing that the public are hard put to even know who their MPs are.

**** S'pore To Proceed With Pre-feasibility Nuclear Study <http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110412-0000360/Spore-to-proceed-with-pre-feasibility-nuclear-study>
Esther Ng, Today

Singapore will go ahead with its pre-feasibility study on nuclear energy, even as the tsunami in Japan knocking out the Fukushima power plant shows the shortcomings of such technology.

**** Candidate Selection Process – Should We Care? <http://ge2011.theonlinecitizen.com/2011/04/candidate-selection-process-should-we-care/>
Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen

What voters can and should do is to assess candidates on their views on issues and policies and question them about their vision for the country and their constituencies, and then to judge and decide if these candidates are worth supporting. That is what the focus should be on and it is fair for voters to ask candidates these things. What is redundant is to ask how the parties select their candidates.

If Mr Lim truly believes in what he said – that the public deserves to know what opposition candidates are made of – he should advise his ruling party to free up the media and allow more airtime for the opposition parties to do precisely this, to allow its candidates access to the public. And Mr Lim could also do well to advise the PAP to put Ms Tin Pei Ling and its new candidates on national tv in perhaps a “live” debate with the new faces from the opposition. This would indeed allow members of the public to see for themselves the quality of each of them. It would certainly help voters make a more informed choice.

**** Helping The Poor – Too Much Money? <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/04/helping-the-poor-too-much-money/>
Leong Sze Hian / Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen

So, why is it that there are so much unutilised funds which could have been utilised to help needy Singaporeans?

I understand that practically every country in the world is always short of funds to help the poor. Hence, why is it that Singapore’s experience seems to be so different?

**** What Low Thia Khiang Can Learn From Lee Kuan Yew <http://www.straitstimes.com/GeneralElection/Blogs/Story/STIStory_655575.html>
Zakir Hussain, Straits Times

**** Worker's Party Manifesto <http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2011/04/workers-party-manifesto.html>
Diary Of A Singapore Mind

PM Lee said a few days ago that Singapore does not have enough talents for a 2 party system. He is wrong. The PAP cannot find enough Tin Pei Lings to fill its ranks because there are not many people attracted by its ideology and philosophy - many intelligent educated loyal Singaporeans don't want anything to do with the PAP. You see real talents emerging in the opposition ranks and these people stepped forward sacrifcing much with little to gain.

The important changes will never come from the PAP (voluntarily). Their new candidates for the elections shows how determined they are to preserve the status quo, If you want change, you have to support another party with ideas based on a different philosophy. Only when the PAP loses seats, votes and support will they be able to overcome their own ideological constraints and do what is right for the people of Singapore.

**** Why Singapore Needs More Opposition MPs <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/04/why-singapore-needs-more-opposition-mps/>
Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, The Online Citizen

Recall that in Singapore’s exacting meritocracy, we are taught the virtues of competition from the time we are toddlers. Students fight it out for the best grades. Our free-market economy is lauded for promoting the fittest companies.

When it comes to politics, however, Singaporeans are suddenly told that we should forget competition, and instead embrace a monopoly.

Isn’t that odd?

**** SDP Focuses On Constituency “Software”, Asks Balakrishan To Respond To Debate Call <http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4726-sdp-focuses-on-constituency-software-asks-balakrishan-to-respond-to-debate-call>
Singapore Democratic Party

This is a typical example of the ruling party using public funded projects and passing it off as PAP ones. These so-called PAP constituency “plans” are part of ongoing infrastructural projects that involve planning at higher levels by the civil service and governmental agencies. They have nothing to do with the PAP.

We would like to remind voters that such projects will continue with an SDP electoral victory at Holland-Bukit Timah and Bukit Panjang constituencies.

**** Singapore: Buying Good Press <http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3124&Itemid=195>
Asia Sentinel

The FT has thus wittingly or unwittingly underlined the truth of what minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew claimed back in the 1980s — that he would hit the foreign media "in their pockets" if they stepped out of line while trying to sell their products in Singapore. Since then a whole series of cases has showed many media entities would kowtow to the Singapore system rather than lose sales, small though the market may be. The FT itself famously groveled not long ago apologizing profusely for reporting a simple truth about a government-controlled company.

The British have been most easily seduced by these tactics. Indeed, the BBC was probably the original offender, trading editorial independence for transmission facilities enabling it to offer Asian listeners independent radio news about Asia – except for Singapore, where coverage was limited to soft stories or regurgitating the semi-official Straits Times. Reuters followed later, moving much of its operations to Singapore from Hong Kong.

**** GE: Dr Balakrishnan "Sees No Need" For Public Debate With SDP <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1122360/1/.html>
Cheow Xin Yi, Channel NewsAsia

Dr Balakrishnan said finances of the town council are a matter of public record. MCYS, his ministry, had also earlier responded to criticism that it failed to spend within the YOG budget.

**** Singapore Politics Less Adversarial Today: PM Lee <http://www.straitstimes.com/GeneralElection/News/Story/STIStory_655947.html>
Straits Times




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