Tag: review

Metheny:

But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of [Louis Armstrong] by spewing his lame-ass…playing all over one of the great Louis’s tracks…he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have … developed their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, “let it slide”, at our own peril.

It happens in every industry.

John Siracusa looks at his reviews of the OS X preview releases and the first 10.0 release.

What’s most amazing is how gracefully things seem to have improved in those ten years. The old screenshots now look dated and sometimes downright ridiculous, and Siracusa’s evaluations were nothing short of dire in the beginning, but it’s slowly and steadily become the clear market leader.

One of the best things about Apple is their willingness to put something out that might be a bit of a reach, and then to go back and iterate and fill in the gaps. They pay a boatload of attention to making it a great experience in the first place, but they are always willing to acknowledge that improvements can be both subtle and major.

One day, the Nook may be a much more usable, more capable bit of gear. Of course, Amazon and Sony won’t be standing still; 2010 sure will be an interesting year.

Looks like David Pogue wasn’t too impressed, and B&N didn’t spend enough time refining and polishing their product.

As always, John Siracusa’s is as authoritative as they get. At twenty-three pages, the pagination almost needs its own pagination. I just finished reading, and it’s fantastic.

Even if you’re not an Apple user, you should read this review. It has boatloads of interesting information about how to think about operating systems, and you’re almost guaranteed to learn more than just a few useful nuggets.

It’s probably the most interesting tech article I’ve read in months.

I was asked to do a quick little eval of IRS.gov, and the premise was that “everyone thought it sucked.” It looked nasty, yeah, but there was a lot of good stuff going on there. Over at the Viget UX Blog:

So when a taxpayer is at that dreadful time of year, filing tax returns, finding out that freelance gig comes at a high price in April, or wondering why her employer’s automatic withholdings didn’t cover the load this year, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for that user to say that IRS.gov is anything other than Beelzebub’s homepage. Any slight flaw becomes an enormous headache and a source of angst and confusion.

Can you imagine a world where the overwhelming majority of people actually like the IRS homepage? It’d take more than an act of Congress…