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Apple should have bought Nest Labs. Google bought it instead

I’ve been a long time admirer of the Nest thermostat that I first got for my mother a couple years ago and then one for myself last year. It’s a pretty metallic ring with a nice circular screen that dials temperature up and down and/or connects with its own app on your other devices or your account on Nest.com to have actions performed from wherever you are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8TkhHgkBsg

Then the company came out with this smoke detector, which is cool, but needs to do more than it does (which is just allow silencing by motion and monitoring levels by phone). I want to see surveillance models of all their products (same version but with cameras inside to view your rooms), too.

Anyway: It was formed by an ex Apple employee, reeks of Apple design (which is a pleasant smell) and just has Apple written all over it. I’ve been waiting for Apple to make a damn offer and open up a whole series of house products that connect with the forever-upcoming Apple Television Set and others. For some reason, Apple wasn’t interested and Google stepped in instead. $3.2 Billion later, Nest becomes a Google company.

While Apple, Google, and Microsoft dominate PCs, mobile devices, and car consoles, no company has taken control of the house yet. The connected home has long been tech giants’ white whale of every tech giant; nearly every Silicon Valley player, from HP to Dell to Intel, has detailed its vision for the future of the connected home. But the fantastical future vision videos created over the years have amounted to nothing more than impressive displays of CGI–Nest, on the other hand, has actually started to execute on the promise of the connected home by creating a standard protocol for the house. If Nest is able to get there first, it’ll force other future players to build on its platform–if anyone wants to make some connected smart refrigerator or TV or toilet, the devices will have to speak Nest’s language. That’s the kind of leverage that could make Nest (and now Google) a major player in the industry.

“From the beginning, our vision was to create a conscious home. A home that is more thoughtful, intuitive–and nice to look at. No one had cracked the code and we were confident we could do it with the right product, the right team, and focus,” Fadellwrote today in a blog post. “Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone.”

Perhaps the more compelling part of the deal is acquiring Fadell‘s talent. One of the most prominent characters in the Valley, Fadell helped usher in the mobile era at Apple before leaving to start Nest. Arguably more than any other Apple veteran, Fadell has built his startup with an Apple-like DNA, infusing Nest’s products with a strong sense of design, brand, and purpose. It’s certainly a huge coup for Google, one of Apple’s fiercest rivals. (Apple was reportedly not a potential bidder, whereas Google Ventures, the company’s investment arm, has long been an investor in Nest.)

As part of deal, according to Google’s statement, Nest will continue to “operate under the leadership of Tony Fadell and with its own distinct brand identity.”

UPDATE: Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs’ biographer says on CNBC that Tim Cook is vulnerable and his deal with China takes a back seat as far as big-deals go to Google’s gobble of Nest:

Meanwhile, Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller unfollowed Nest CEO and the Nest company on Twitter. At first glance it may sound like petty high school popularity politicking, but it actually shows the reality that Nest is an Apple enemy now. I don’t get why Apple didn’t want to buy this company and why they didn’t. It makes no sense to me.

As the protector of Apple’s brand, Schiller’s unfollowing of Fadell and Nest is perhaps unsurprising. With the Nest deal, a source says that Google will gain approximately 200 former Apple employees. The majority of Nest employees worked at Apple over the course of their careers, with many being involved in high-profile projects like the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. The design of the Nest Thermostat and Nest Protect have also been compared to the designs of Apple products, so the fact that Nest’s products are now under the umbrella of Apple’s fiercest competitor may not be a pleasing sight for Apple’s marketing head.

This is not the first time that Schiller has publicly taken the stand against Google products. The Apple veteran has blasted Google and its partners on Twitter for issues ranging from hardware benchmark claims to mobile operating system security. Schiller’s practice of taking small jabs at competitors also goes beyond Google. For a couple of years, the then-exclusive-to-iOS Instagram app was heavily promoted both on the App Store and by Phil Schiller. After Instagram expanded its business to the Android platform, Schiller closed his Instagram account.

Japanese game show has people bite objects hoping they are chocolate

We have so much to thank Japan for by way of television game shows alone but a major gem in this treasure from our friends in the far East is this game where the people have to find different realistic-looking objects that are actually made of chocolate in a room…

Nope…that’s a shoe…

But THIS one is chocolate! WIN

NOPE. Just a picture frame.

Gotta think more outside the box of chocolate. The table legs, perhaps?

WIN!

And finally, check out this guy take a chance on the door handle only to think he failed only to find out he really won…

Pic Hall of Fame: The best “Selfies” ever taken

Every one of these bold amateur photographers is a hero deserving of a Major Award. From pregnancy decorum to “mother of the year” nominees to bathroom privacy violations and insanity – each is unique and wonderful and deserves commemoration and remembrance.

I hate the word “selfie”. We don’t need a cutsie word for “a picture of ones self” and its usage should not be encouraged.

I can let that policy slide for these though because their absurdity warrants the silly term.

Continue reading Pic Hall of Fame: The best “Selfies” ever taken

Finally, A Fashionable 3D Cookie-Sheet Dress

Ladies, are you tired of spending literally your entire lives in the kitchen where you belong only to have your delicious cookies you bake get all the attention? How many times have you wished you could just be one of them so someone would notice you and maybe even dunk you in some milk and tell everyone how good you are?

Finally, your hopes and dreams have been answered at Hexa’s Spring-Summer 2014’s presentation during Fashion Week in Paris, France. The dough-tan garment even sports a quail face-pendant because Reasons.

Photo via UPI/Eco Clement (September 2013)

Wentzville Missouri: Mom faces charges for topless hot tub photo with her teen daughter

From my high school hometown comes a story of a hero and her persecution by a fascist government.

A Missouri woman who posed topless in a hot tub with her teenage daughter faces misdemeanor child endangerment charges, prosecutors say.

The photo, taken by another daughter with a phone camera, was posted on Snapchat and circulated among students at two high schools in the Wentzville area, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said both the 50-year-old mother and her 14-year-old daughter had covered their nipples, suggesting they were posing for the camera and expected the photo to be circulated. The girl has already undergone court-ordered counseling for circulating nude pictures of herself last year.

The clear response to this is:

Earlier this year, Kaitlyn Hunt, an 18-year-old — a high school senior, was expelled and charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 years of age (in this case: 14) which is normally something the popular culture frowns upon, but since the other party was another girl, it became a tragic love story or something and there was a big “Free Kate” movement put forward. The parents of the 14 year old girl in the relationship with Kate said they had to go to the law first because after telling Miss Hunt (senior) that Kate needed to “leave [their] daughter alone” and couldn’t stop their lesbian sex to the point of the younger girl sneaking out of the house and blah blah. So fine. Whatever ones position on that situation, there was at least some history and attempts made at avoiding legal entanglement regarding actual sexual activity.

But hand-bra shots of mom and daughter in a hot tub thrown out to Snapchat?
The mother has been charged with misdemeanor child endangerment…

St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lomar told local media the woman should be held to account on the charges, which were filed December 12.

“The mother was very clearly present, involved when the picture was taken,” Lomar told St. Louis television station KMOV in an interview. “It certainly had some sexual overtones. This was a mother who made a very poor choice.”

I kid about the unsung heroism of this mother (cuz-lulz) and her unjust persecution but really… it really is unnecessary hassle-by-government into a matter that’s not a big deal. As initially shocking as the summary sounds, examine the logic behind the known facts of this case…

Pictured: Not the photo…

THE PHOTO: Missouri doesn’t have a law forcing females to cover their breasts on private property. Female breasts, however, despite being the milk-sacks of life to our species, are highly sexualized by males and thusly considered indecent by Western Civilization when exposed, similarly to an exposed penis. For that reason, female breasts are legally classified as nudity and photographs of exposed breasts fall under regulations of such. However, the standard for nudity of the breast is universally the nipples. Indeed, it is not the female breast that is considered indecent, but rather the female nipple, and everyone knows it. That’s why you can cover a boob with pasties and avoid public nudity citations. Well… there is no nipple reported in the photo, so there is no nudity. With no nudity there has to be evidence of abuse or something illegal. Hand-bra’s are usually sexually suggestive and the girl is a minor, but its one friggin picture with zero evidence that the mother had any knowledge of its distribution.

Pictured: Not the photo, either.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES: The picture was taken by a daughter and sent via Snapchat (an app that sends pictures [between users] that are only visible for a few seconds and then deleted) so the boy she sent the awesome shot to either saved it and illegally distributed it or more likely (since no allegations or charges have been made to that affect), this girl sent the pic to everyone on her friggin address book and some buzzkill in the class tattled to their parents. But so what? The most this is is tacky if intentional and, if the mothers profuse claim that this was not posed is true then at worst this was a victimization since it would mean 2 people were breaking no law when a minor took a photograph and distributed it without permission to a person or people who in turn distributed it without permission and got government goons to bully an innocent family in order to protect this Christian country from public sin.

This “26-Ingredient School Lunch Burger” sounds pretty delicious and nutritious.

NPR did this video on hamburgers served in American schools and achieved the opposite of their desired effect. Their description reads “Thiamine mononitrate, disodium inosinate, pyridoxine hydrochloride. In this episode of Tiny Desk Kitchen we explore why so many hard-to-pronounce ingredients ended up in a school burger”. But as soon as you watch the actual video, every ingredient they analyze looks like a perfectly worthy addition to the food.

Just because an ingredient of something you eat is hard for you to pronounce doesn’t make it bad. Acidopholus is one of the best things you can ingest for your guts ecology.

Shocking: Illinois girls suspended for bending their ring fingers

Three Farmington (Ill.) High senior girls basketball players were suspended for making an obscene gesture formed by keeping ones fingers extended, minus the ring finger. The hand formation is called “The Shocker” and refers to a way of penetrating a lady by inserting 2 fingers in her sexual organ and one in her anus but the description is more often referred to in a do-it-yourself phrase that involves the number of fingers with fill-in-the-blank rhyming words to describe the vagina and rectum. ie: “Two in the pink, one in the stink” or “Two in the goo, one in the poo” were the most popular variations back when I was in high school and this kind of thing was slightly more hilarious than it actually is.

From Yahoo Sports:

Farmington senior point guard Jessica Settles addressed the matter on Twitter, first tweeting, “Farmington’s administration shocked us,” followed by a hashtag that included the phrase “f— Farmington.” When a basketball player from a neighboring town responded, asking what happened, Settles tweeted, “suspended two games for shocking ’em in our team and senior picture,” accompanied by an “LOL” and a copy of the picture.

Surely, the administration isn’t pleased with the social media firestorm that has ensued.

Guards Taylor Wassi and Julie Broadway also appear in the photo of the lone seniors on the Farmington girls basketball team. The Canton Daily Ledger recently ran a story on the 10-player team entitled, “Short on experience, low in numbers,” which includes a team photo that does not feature any players on the roster flashing the hand gesture.

The gesture received national attention when cheerleaders for Wichita State’s men’s basketball team flashed it on TV during the Shockers’ Final Four run this past March.

Tis the Season to shoot, stab, kill and trample your fellow man for less expensive products

It’s the wonderful time of year again where early in the morning the day after a national holiday celebrating thankfulness of what we have, the follow-up holiday of trampling over your fellow patriots in pursuit of getting more begins.

It’s the one time of year when American’s wait in lines and navigate often violent and dangerous crowds in pursuit of products now lowered to their normal profit margins for a fake-sale event after having been artificially inflated in order to facilitate the illusion of a grand bargain.

Amidst the human bulldozing and brawls and Salvation Army kettle thefts and stabbings over parking spots and shootings over televisions and dragging of cops through Kohls parking lots and general holiday cheer – it’s important to remember that… actually, I lost the point of where I was going with that.

http://blackfridaydeathcount.com tracks deaths and injuries on this joyous day. So far the tally is at 4 dead, 74 injured.

Merry 25-days-of-Christmas, Everyone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_aGuMvMyik

Ann Coulter defends Alec Baldwin with logic

Alec Baldwin is being attacked by the Tolerance-Police thugs in the hippie faction he supports. The truth is that there’s nothing there to attack him over. While some conservatives might take delight at Baldwin being such an outspoken liberal democrat and then getting chewed up by the liberal democrat wing policing his private conduct with someone allegedly harassing him, Ann Coulter uses logic to come to his empathetic defense.

Speaking with NewsMaxTV host Steve Malzberg Monday evening, Coulter defended the hot-headed MSNBC host from suspension, dismissing his use of the word “fag” as throwaway curse word.

“They shouldn’t have suspended him,” she said, noting that the photographer was “not actually gay.” According to Coulter, “This was just a curse word. It was like using the f-word and, frankly, a lot of these paparazzi photographers deserve it.”

After his comments resulted in media outrage, Baldwin apologized (but not before claiming he said “fathead,” not “fag”). Coulter is willing to forgive the actor’s outbursts, given how much entertainment media hounds him and his family.

“It’s not something Alec Baldwin said in a calm moment on television,” she told Malzberg. “He has been harassed horribly by photographers and now this stalker, and he’s trying to protect his family and he curses. That is what happened.”

That is exactly what happened and good for her for pointing it out.

Wonderama’s Snake Game is Weirdly Compelling

I heard someone on a podcast reference this “Wonderama with Bob McAllister” thing and I looked it up. What I found was oddly fascinating.

If you feel like ingesting an 8 minute sample of children’s programming from another time (at least a decade before me, since one of the questions is “who is the president” and the answer is Nixon and he was prez from 1960-1974), check it out in this Snake-in-a-can game segment. It seems like a lot of time-filler just to occupy groups of kids with working moms. Or something. Every can appears to have a snake, even though it felt like to me that the host was implying its not certain that there are any inside. After you get the snakes, you get a chance to win the prize for that can if you can answer a question on sports, entertainment or government.

No other TV game held quite the thrill and suspense of Snake-In-A-Can. Wonderama aired on weekends in NY on WNEW-TV. It started out as a six-hour show, later shrinking to an equally unreasonable four hours. Two-to-three of these hours were shots of kids waving their arms; the rest of the program had exciting games like this one, where many contestants were too short to be seen. But Bob McAllister was really great with the kids – just watch!

This little girl went on to grow up to be Michelle Obama. or something.