This video makes me wildly happy because a) it illuminates how explicitly Tarantino intended Kill Bill as a remix, b) it shows how well he executed his plan, and c) it reminds me how much I liked Kill Bill.
Author: Bryant
Apple said something somewhat confusing that nonetheless implies that the way in which they enforce the rules has changed. Gruber summarizes. If Apple means what they seem to mean, that’s alarming. Also difficult to enforce. If Amazon removes the store button from the Kindle app, but still sells Kindle books pushed to the iPad via their Web site, is the Kindle app still offering the customers the ability to purchase books outside the app? I can buy ePub books from various sources without involving Stanza, and then download ’em to Stanza. Does this violate anything?
This wouldn’t have happened when Jobs was around.
That’s a joke.
Mostly.
Sony says Apple rejected their Sony Reader app on the grounds that all purchases on the iPad must go through the App Store. I don’t care that much about Sony on a practical level, but the implication is that the Kindle app is likewise in trouble, since it allows me to buy a book via the Amazon web site and download it to my iPad. If that’s no longer allowed, I’d be fairly annoyed.
On the other hand, the Kindle app pushes you over to Safari to make the purchase. It isn’t clear if the Sony Reader app did the same thing. The Sony Bookstore is not available on the Web; if you click on the “Want this eBook?” link on a Sony Bookstore page you’re instructed to download the Reader. I’m guessing that Sony didn’t implement a secret Web purchase page for the sake of the iPad.
The New York Times is not citing Apple sources in their reporting. There’s one troublesome line: “The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.” At face value, that would imply that the Kindle likewise violates the rules. But Sony has an interest in making Apple look like they’re being unreasonable, and we don’t even know if Sony was the source for that information.
Clause 11.2 of the current App Store guidelines (PDF) says “Apps utilizing a system other than the In App Purchase API (IAP) to purchase content, functionality, or services in an app will be rejected.” Key words are “in an app.” Safari is an app; I think a strict reading of those terms would rule out the way Amazon’s doing it as well. On the other hand, a strict reading of those terms would rule out any ecommerce. It could be better written. Possibly the intent is that it be read as “for an app.” Either way, there’s room for rejecting the Kindle app, and of course Apple reserves the right to do whatever for whatever reason.
Given the upcoming subscription feature launch, it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple’s reevaluating its stance on paid content for iPad apps. It would surprise me somewhat if they decided to tighten the screws on Amazon, and it would disappoint me, but it’s certainly possible. Check back in a month or so, I guess.
Oh, and a side note: the reason Kindle beats the crap out of the Apple iBookstore? Authors can’t link to the Apple iBookstore on their Web pages. I can’t buy while I’m sitting at my computer and push the book to my iPad. I gotta drag out the iPad, search, blah blah blah. Surprisingly bad design decision on Apple’s part. Killing the Kindle app (and presumably other ebook apps like the Nook app and perhaps Stanza) would really hurt the iPad as a book reader.
I started with my previous recipe, and modified it to be in line with this one. I dropped the vanilla and changed the dairy products to one quart of half-and-half as per the second recipe — I’d wanted to thin out the fat content a bit, and getting rid of the whipping cream should take care of that. I also used just 3/4ths of a cup of sugar, and a smidge less than 2 eggs. I suppose I could have scaled the second recipe up but using 1 quart of half-and-half is awfully convenient. The ratio of sugar is a bit lower than before, which should allow the tea flavor to come out more.
I used vanilla chai tea bags instead of loose-leaf tea, so I randomly guessed at 5 teabags for the infusion step. Now that I’ve made the custard and tasted it I think I was too light on the tea, but I didn’t want to do a second infusion because the custard isn’t all that hot. Also I sort of wish I’d gone for a simpler black tea; the vanilla chai will taste really good but it will refer back to plain vanilla ice cream because, well, it’s still vanilla. This is a pretty postmodern flaw when you get right down to it. Maybe I’ll do another batch with Earl Grey and more tea bags. Alternatively, I could squeeze the tea out of the bags more. Or use loose-leaf, but I’m not sure I care that much.
The custard is now cooling on the counter since I’m not in a hurry. In an hour or so I’ll transfer it to the fridge, and I’ll pull out the ice cream maker tomorrow night. I believe this means I’ll have actual ice cream on Wednesday.
Edit: I got impatient and ran the ice cream maker this morning before work, to match the chilly ice storm outside. Looks promising.
LFR Mods
I played everything new for LFR at DDXP except the epic. Brief, non-spoilery thoughts:
The BI had a slightly less interesting story, but I thought it was better structurally. They had one special mission per encounter slot, which only one table could take; when more than one table wanted a given mission, they let the rest of the BI decide who should get it based on a brief speech. The special missions were level-band limited. Also, at the end of the the BI, the Coronal of Myth Drannor awarded unique items to randomly selected players. One of my friends got a special banner, and one got a pumped up version of the Bowstring of Accuracy that allows him to use any bow as a divine or arcane implement. You can give these items away to other players, but you can’t ever get them back.
The BI was fairly tough but not ridiculous. I think they amped it up a bit for the second day, combining two encounters into one. As per expectations, charging into battle was not always the right move. Both days failed one particular encounter, heh.
There were only two specials. While they took place in Myth Drannor and were tightly linked to each other, I didn’t feel like they were super-closely linked to the BI. The paragon one has a ton of replay value and if you do it at APL 18 or 20, you can face off with a pretty big name villain. I played the heroic once and the paragon twice and had a ton of fun both times.
The Elturgard modules were both fun. I was pleased to see that they used the flowchart I sent in after playtesting ELTU 3-1, so if that ever turns out to be useful for you, you’re welcome. I’m getting pretty optimistic about the new story region system.
In general, quite a few adventures had story awards that allow you to buy specific uncommon consumables and so forth; they also seemed to have a lot of bundles of the style “Any uncommon neck slot item of level + X.” So that’s some of how they’re handling the new rarity system.
Oh, and everyone seemed pleased with the epic.
Rumors
New BI at Origins? Maybe!
Heroes of Shadow
I played the HoS preview game, Kalarel’s Revenge; my character was a blackguard, which is a striker paladin build. No mark, lots of ways to burn your own life for extra damage, plus an encounter power that inflicts damage even on a miss and adds ongoing on a hit. Essentials-style character, no attack dailies. Str/Cha. Fun flavor, I liked him. The other characters were some sort of dark cleric, a necromancer with both necromantic and nethermantic powers, an assassin, and something I’m forgetting maybe. I’m sure someone will post the character sheets somewhere.
Also I loved seeing some of the post-Keep on the Shadowfell activity in Nentir Vale. From a roleplay perspective this was great; this module should be made available for download somewhere.
Seminars
I didn’t go to any because I was gaming and someone always liveblogs.
Fortune Cards
I played with some at the Heroes of Shadow game. They were not super-unbalancing with a random selection. However, the rare ones seem to generally give you a floating reroll card when a specific condition is met – stacking a deck with ten of those could be ridiculous and unbalancing. I’m still waiting to see the full card list before I make up my mind either way.
I started with this:
2 eggs (used Eggbeaters to avoid raw egg problems)
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup 1% milk
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla
The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of whipping cream, but I wanted to make it a tad less rich and they sell whipping cream by the cup, so it was simplest to just put half a cup of milk in. I cooked everything but the vanilla over lowish-medium heat till it hit 160 degrees, then poured it into a bowl over ice to cool quickly. The custard texture wasn’t super-thick, but it coated a metal spoon nicely enough.
Because I am impatient, I’m trying to cool the custard in the freezer. I may regret this. I’m going to give it an hour, then if it’s cold enough, I’ll turn it into ice cream. If it’s not cold enough I’ll transfer it to the fridge to sit overnight.
Update: one hour in the freezer cooled it down nicely; it then spent 25 minutes in the ice cream maker and is now in the freezer. It looks pretty good, so I’m optimistic.
Update 2: after freezing, the texture and mouthfeel are perfect. This is a winning procedure for custard-style bases. I want to try the Cuisinart-supplied simple recipe next; I’m curious to see how it’ll change. Flavor-wise, it was a tad sweet and a little bit bright. Possibly a smidge more salt and a bit less sugar is called for? Or it might be that the Mexican vanilla we used is super-flavorful. Definitely tasty, though.
I just realized that I am completely without a personalized letterhead.
I took advantage of a Christmas Amazon gift certificate to fill a few holes in my old Hong Kong movie collection plus make a gesture towards catching up on more recent Hong Kong flicks. I know the Hong Kong movie scene is never going to be quite what it was back in the day, but it’s not like the last decade was a wasteland or anything. I’m behind!
Thus Susan and I watched Sha Po Lang last night. (You’d find it on US video shelves as Kill Zone; despite Miramax’s reputation and the horrendous new title, it’s an unclipped unmangled version.) Simon Yam was the big draw for me, cause I’ve always thought he’s a great Hong Kong character actor, plus it’s got a great rep, plus of course Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen.
So that was a good choice. As heroic bloodshed movies go, it’s not all that heroic, plus it’s more of a martial arts movie than a gunplay movie. It’s coming from the same place as the old John Woo classics, though, just without the moral brightness. The fight scenes are superb, the brutality is sudden and deft, and the personalities are turned up to eleven.
Although, you know, I’m probably doing it an injustice there when I bring up heroic bloodshed. The thing that makes Sha Po Lang really stand out is that the characters are nearly universally dark. Yeah, the propulsive anger that powers the movie is related to Chow Yun Fat’s righteous fury from any number of movies, and the sense of brotherhood is there, but this movie — like Infernal Affairs, to which it owes a great debt — is a deconstruction of the heroic bloodshed myth. Rogue cops are not always forces for good.
Possibly Sammo Hung’s role as a villain — “the first time I’ve done that in twenty-five years” — was also part of that. I’d love to ask Wilson Yip what he had in mind there.
Oh, and if you’re the kind of sad person who won’t go out and rent a movie on my say so, you could always watch this fight scene, which is awesome, but you ought to let the movie build up properly instead of watching it out of context.
The CEO of Evernote posted a followup on their Mac App Store numbers. Convenient; I was wishing they would today. The rush of new Mac users tailed off quite a bit but it’s still a big percentage. He’s gone from thinking that mobile usage drives Evernote to believing that “the presence of a well-formed app store is the single most important factor for the viability of a platform for third party developers.”
I wish he’d talk about the percentages of users he’s getting from iOS vs. Android. It’s a free app on both platforms. Apple people like to critique the Android App Store for being junky, having low app size limits, and so on, but I’d rather see some actual numbers there.
Hulu has the full run of Coupling; the British version, not the really bad American remake. Steven Moffat of Doctor Who current fame was the show’s creator, plus you’ve got Jack Davenport and Gina Bellman in every episode. You’ve sort of got to like sitcoms about people who are not entirely angelic, but it’s kind of sweet too.