Demain je commence l’atelier de BD au cégep du Vieux.
J’ai l’impression que je vais voir ce qui se trouve de l’autre côté du miroir.

Recently I’ve been going through my blog archives, and looking at very old blog posts that I had totally forgotten about. It was kinda weird to see how my life has been going the last couple of years. This one is like that, for a time very far into the future.

Bon on est le 4 décembre aux petites heures et le monde n’a de cesse de nous fournir de nouvelles raisons d’updater nos status de facebook. Il y a un an, presque personne n’avait entendu parler de ce site, et maintenant, presque personne n’a pas de page sur facebook. Ce site a rempli un trou béant dont personne ne soupçonnait l’existence. Moi-même j’update mon status plusieurs fois par jour, et je ne trouve pas que c’est une mauvaise chose.

… Avec mon iPhone, bien sûr. Ce petit appareil qui a très rapidement pris d’assaut l’industrie des mauvaises interfaces et des téléphones que l’on déteste, en créant un nouveau marché incroyable, délicieux, presque magique. It’s not without its shortcomings, but 4 months into its life, Apple annonce que le App Store offre sa 10 000ème application. Et toujours pas de copy/paste.

Barack Obama va devenir le premier président noir (Afro-Américain si vous êtes PC) et on attend avec impatience l’annonce du météorite qui va inévitablement s’écraser sur ntre pauvre planète. Heureusement qu’on a des Bruce Willis et des Will Smith pour nous protéger, le cas échéant. Dis donc, Francisco du futur, est-ce que Sarah Palin est encore dans le portrait pour faire chier les gens qui ont un cerveau ?

L’économie mondiale est dans le crapper, à cause des politiques économiques à court terme des Américains, qui s’engraissent au dépens de tous les autres habitants de la planète. Le terme Fat American est une tautologie.

Les sables bitumineux de l’ouest du Canada, qui ont fait la fortune des provinces «de droite» vont apparemment tuer 160 millions d’oiseaux dans un futur rapproché. Dis donc, Francisco du futur, est-ce qu’il reste des oiseaux dans ton monde ?

Les glaçes du pôle nord sont rendues tellement minces que les ours blancs sont en passe de devenir une espèce menacée. Dis donc, Francisco du futur, est-ce qu’il reste des ours polaires dans la nature, à l’extérieur du système mondial de jardins zoologiques ?

Économie dans la merde + désastre environnemental = industrie automobile en solide déroute. Les patrons des «big three» cette semaine sont venus quémander un bailout de tellement de milliards de dollars que dans n’importe quelle autre époque ils seraient foutus dans le plus profond donjon et soumis à la Question. En tout cas, c’est ce qu’ils méritent. Dis donc, Francisco du futur, est-ce que des mots comme Ford, GM et Chrysler, ça te dit encore quelque chose ? Ou est-ce que c’est comme quand tu dis à tes enfants « Ça c’est un disque de vinyle, on mettait ça sur une “table tournante” et ça faisait de la musique. Oui oui, j’te jure !» En 2006, j’étais en voyage chez mes parents, au Chili, et un jour en regardant la rue pleine de voitures polluantes et le ciel brun de smog (c’est un SÉRIEUX problème à Santiago) j’ai dit à mon père «Tu sais, dans cinq ans, la moitié des voitures dans les rues de cette ville seront électriques, ou non-polluantes.» Ça me semblait juste impossible que le monde continue à vivre comme ça. Et je crois qu’on s’en va dans cette direction.

La politique Canadienne est en train de vivre un turmoil inprécédenté (oh boy, office de la langue, tu dois pas m’aimer là) avec Stephen Harper qui a essayé de bullyer le parlement, d’éliminer le financement des partis, l’équité salariele (come ON! abolir l’équité salarie, on est en 2008 câlisse !!!!) et le droit de grève de chaipas quels syndicats. Le reste des partis on dit ça suffit, dude, tu débarques. Demain on devrait savoir si ça va marcher. Mais de mon vivant jamais le terme «politique Canadienne» n’a été aussi excitant, aussi dangereux ni aussi imprévisible. Il y a aussi des élections locales au Québec, je les mentionne ici pour pas les oublier, mais c’est plus par politesse. Jamais de mon vivant le terme «politique Québécoise» n’a suscité autant de PAS D’INTÉRÊT.  Jean Charest, Pauline Marois, Mario Dumont. Dis donc, Francisco du futur, est-ce que ces noms te disent encore quelque chose ? Est-ce que Françoise David est rentrée ?

En Inde cette semaine ils ont eu droit à leur propre 9/11 à Mumbai. Et je mesure mes mots. Car cette attaque étrangement efficace et étrangement médiatisée laisse beaucoup de monde perplexe. I smell a rat.

Noël approche, et mes filles croient encore solidement au Père Noël – une chance qu’ils ne surfent pas les blogs encore. Alix m’a dit «Tu sais, papa, ça dérange pas si tu as pas d’argent. Si tu veux quelque chose pour Noël, t’as juste à me le dire, je vais l’ajouter sur ma liste au Père Noël» Je n’ai pas trouvé autre chose à répondre que «Ça marche pas vraiment comme ça, et le Père Noël va le savoir que c’est pas pour toi, un écran LCD de 42 pouces.» Entk, j’espère pouvoir leur offrir (ainsi qu’à moi) la Wii qui nous fait tous tant saliver. Surtout depuis qu’ils ont ouvert un EB Games en FACE de chez moi, les salauds. Dis donc, Francisco du futur… so ?

Finalement, et je garde le plus important pour la fin, tout à l’heure, vers 5 heures 30, Mélanie va arriver, on va réveiller les filles et on va partir à l’hôpital. Car aujourd’hui Maya se fait enlever son Ilizarov (vous taperez ça dans Google si vous êtes pas trop squeamish). Elle se l’était fait poser le 25 mars – jour de ma fête – et après huit mois, le traimement est enfin terminé. 42 mm d’allongement du tibia de la jambe droite. Il en reste encore, la différence initiale était de 50 mm, alors on va devoir répéter le processus dans quelques années, mais ça s’est tellement bien passé. Pratiquement AUCUNE complication, à part un début d’infection il y a deux semaines, qui a été traité avec des antibiotiques, et c’est tout. Ah et ben des scratches sur les meubles. Maya a fait ça comme une vraie petite troopeuse. Elle a un solide caractère, et elle a pris ça avec beaucoup de courage et de sérénité. En tout cas, pas mal plus que ses parents. Dis donc, Maya du futur, est-ce que tu es devenue acrobate pour le «circle» du Soleil ? Travailles-tu dans la station spatiale internationale ?

Bon si je continue comme ça je vais encore me taper une nuit de quatre heures de sommeil.

Ah shit, trop tard.

It works as expected, although reviewing older posts is a little weird because the images appear as HTML code, and look nothing like images.

Still it’s a thrill to be able to post from virtually anywhere. Even if that thrill is a little dampened by the fact that I’m actually sitting in front of my Mac and it would just be so much easier – and FASTER – to just use a regular keyboard. I’ll just have to get out of the house sometime this week to play with this IRL.

The new keyboard thing is also much easier to use than I expected, and thank Steve for the smart auto-complete features. This is something that I will be enjoying greatly.

Tout ce que j’ai créé est absolument inutile. D’un point de vue structurel, le design est totalement inutile. Un travail utile, c’est astronome, biologiste ou quelque chose comme ça. Mais le design, ça n’est rien.

C’est ce qu’il déclare au supplément Leben de l’hebdomadaire Die Zeit. Évidemment il y a  un contexte qui n’est pas expliqué (j’ai trouvé ça dans la Presse) mais le constat est clair. C’est comme quand le Marlboro Man a annoncé qu’il était en train de mourir du cancer du poumon.

Peut-être toutes ces années ont-elles été nécessaires pour que je me rende compte finalement qu’au fond nous n’avons besoin de rien. Nous possédons toujours trop.

Espérons qu’il mette désormais son immense talent au service de quelque chose de plus grand.

So what about this year? How was it?

Well, it sure wasn’t a disappointment. Most of the rumors turned out to be spot-on, the products are really cool, and the livebloggers are getting better and better – although I sure miss the days where it was a live video webcast. So read on to learn what I thought of all the shiny new Apple toys.

Time Capsule



Time Machine is a concept I can’t get behind. I cannot see the usefulness of such a scheme in a professional context. I design websites. When I’m done with a project, it usually weighs a couple of gigabytes, more if there is video. I back it up to DVD, catalog it, store it, and clear the space on my external drives. It’s a project, and it’s over. I don’t need to have it on my drives anymore. And I certainly don’t need Time Machine to keep 2 or 3 versions of it. Anywhere. Even if it’s on a 1 Terabyte drive, it adds up fast and to me it is a waste of resources.Maybe I’m weird, but I have only very rarely deleted something that I needed to get back. I mean, in 15 years of doing gaphic design on Macs, maybe 10 times, at most. Yet Time Machine acts as if this sort of thing happens all the time, and yay! this will save you from that. Well it doesn’t, and it won’t.I use Backup, do a full backup once every couple of weeks, and incremental backups in between, and that also is done automatically. I feel like I’m covered.

Besides, I updated to Leopard without a hitch, but I could never get TM off the ground, and I don’t really have the time or motivation to scour the forums in search of an elusive answer for this problem. I have a pretty simple setup (MacBookPro 15, not a lot of add-ons) and it should run out-of-the-box. It doesn’t. For something that is supposed to «just work», it’s a failure.

So, a useless failure. And on top of that I should ditch a perfectly good wireless router, which I already own? Maybe Steve sould have presented only 3 thing last tuesday and skipped Time Crapsule. 


iPhone updates



I’m in Canada. No iPhone. Next question. 


iTunes movie rentals



Yadda yadda yadda. As I said, I live in Canada, so no renting for me. And judging frome the dismal selection of TV show on the canadian portion of the iTunes Store (to wit : 11 hockey games, Corner Gas, South Park and some other filler) it doesn’t bode well for whenever the service rolls out here. But then again, there is no sign that the iPhone is getting anywhere close, either. Probably around the time we reach the Kyoto protocol objectives. Maybe we could get Greenpeace to lobby Apple for us on this one.

Also, I am part of the 7-million-small french-speaking population that no one in the tech industry seems to know what to do about. Remember that something close to 75% of canadian box-office revenue comes from french movies that only 25% of the country’s population can even understand. There is also a very large chunk of the canadian music industry that is based in french-speaking Quebec. Yet iTunes music store seems to have never heard of Ariane Moffatt, Pierre Lapointe or Jean Leloup.

If you don’t live in the States, you know what I’m talking about.

So basically, to me, what the iTunes Store movie rentals highlights it the incapacity – or unwillingness – of earth’s local movie industries to transform themselves into a global industry. Everyone has their closed commercial borders, and BitTorrent is dancing on their early graves. 


Apple TV



BitTorrent + TVRSS + Miro = only my daughters watch the TV anymore, and my brother who doesn’t have cable, when he comes over to watch a hockey game. I haven’t jumped into the HD giant flatscreen boat yet, as I’m waiting for the prices to reach a more reasonable level – and for the technology to settle down a litte. If you’ve bought a big flatscreen TV in the last 2 years, chances are it’s already obsolete, the black levels are a joke, and the refresh rates make you shed a tear whenever you read a Gizmodo review. And you want me to buy a 229$ box that will allow me to download free podcasts to my TV?

Maybe next year. 


Finally, the MacBook Air



Gahhh… OK Steve, you had us at hello. This thing is beautiful, and as always just a little off from everybody’s expectations. 


Screen size



Not the 12-inch holy grail that everyone was (is still) hoping for. I mean, I just saw a guy typing on a 12-inch PB this afternoon at a trendy cafe! in 2008! The 12-incher is a coveted slab of goodness that has yet to materialize. For myself, I think the 13-inch screen is too small for production needs, but It accepts a secondary screen, so it really doesn’t matter. When you’re out and about you want portability, and in that regard it is a winner.

Keyboard size

You could easily shave 10-15% off the keyboard size, an it would still be very usable. This is not a selling point for me. 


Overall size



The manila envelope idea is one of those flashes of genius that allows Steve to frame the conversation exactly in the angle that makes his products shine the shiniest. It’s small in a way that you can explain to your aunt, and she will understand. 


Aesthetics



The thin sides that fatten up to the center, like the back of the iMac and the «current generation» iPods is another smart way to make things look thinner than they are. It’s very effective design. I’ll have to wait to see one in person and hold it in my trembling hands, but it is a beautiful object of desire, and every self-respecting Mac fan should at least lust afer it, if not get one. Even if it does look like a very very large Nano.I think it would have looked even more desirable if the aluminum bezel edge of the screen wasn’t so wide. Come on, Apple engineers, you got so close! It’s twice as wide as the edges on the MBPro, and you KNOW you could do better than that.

MagSafe connector

I love it. Can I get one like that for my current MBP? The current MagSafe plug I have doesn’t like to be rolled on and off and the cable has become a little twisted. Doesn’t degrade well.The black keyboard is a mistake. Yuk. Expect a revision soon. Pleeeease. 


Innards



1.6 GHz is a disappointment. You just know that iPhoto or Safari are gonna feel a little sluggish, and that will make you feel like last year’s MacBook. Which in fact this is.

2 gigs standard RAM is good news because it sets a precedent for future models, which will have to come with at least that much RAM.The other good news, in my mind, is the «pencil-sized» motherboard. This means that Apple is now capable of producing a tablet that is paperback-sized, with full OSX functionality. Something, say, Kindle-sized? Maybe they’re waiting for OLED to be more widely available so they don’t have a fragile glass screen for such a device. But at least in the hardware department, they’re covered.

Multi-touch is another sign that the much-awaited tablet is on its way. 


5-hour battery life



Come on, Steve, there is no need to bend the truth. No one believes those numbers anymore. Just give us a credible estimate of real-world capacity. We’ll still buy it, and you know it.

The SSD option is nice, but for that price you can get small car. It’s just not worth the trouble at this juncture. It’s another promise of a glorious future, though.

MacBook Air SuperDrive

This one I’m excited about, because my 1st-generation MBPro does not burn Dual-Layer. And I bought a Dual-Layer DVD spindle a while back, which cost about about as much as this little thingy. But speculations say that it’s only for the Air. Which would suck, although it would not be a surprise. Apparently, speculations seem overwhlmingly in favor of a MacBook Air exclusive scheme. 


General thoughts



The MacBook Air is clearly a 1.0 product, and they are learning as much as they are fronting with this. In a year, multi-touch will have made giant steps from where it is today. People seem to forget how long it took for the iPod to take over the entire music industry – we’re at the 6th or 7th generation already, depending on how you count it. I’m sure that the 6th generation MacBook Air will be a very interesting product. And everything we were expecting last tuesday.

The MacBook Air is also meant to be used as a second computer. One for getting out of the office and writing that novel in a fancy café. Or updating your Facebook status in that same fancy café. But heavy Photoshop or video editing will be best taken on with a more powerful machine. 


The Keynote iself




As always, Steve did a great job, full of «innat amazings», but only one Boom. He was in great shape, and the look of pride when he got that flat little thingy out of the yellow envelope was priceless. I just love to see that gleeful look on his face. 

He did make a bunch of little mistakes, like the 3.1% that he quoted as 1.3% and such. When the Keynote is the ONLY moment you will get any info about your products, then every. single. word. counts.I have to say though that most of the rumor sites were spot-on with their predictions, and this guessing game – and the frenzied pitch it reached just before the keynote – is getting close to spoiler territory. It’s just not as exciting when you think «Oh, Engadget was RIGHT!» insted of «Ouch, that BLOWS MY MIND!!!!!» Either they’re getting too good, or Apple is just not trying hard enough anymore.



The performance by Randy Newman was funny and cool, a political rant, which was a change of pace from more boring fare like John Mayer or KT Tunstall. He just swaggered his disheveled head and ruffled shirt and ranted about Stalin and Hitler. I though it was very articulate and really funny, but a little surprising for such a setting. “King Leopold, from Belgium. Everyone thinks he was so great“. As Gizmodo put it during their live blog: “This guy is blowing our minds right now “. And for those who might have gotten offended, well you should work on getting offended about more important things.

On a final note, if like me you played Keynote Bingo, then like me you didn’t win anything. And I really missed Phil Schiller.

You can watch the streaming podcast here, at Apple’s website.

Apple Inc. is finalizing plans for its first Canadian flagship shop, a spacious multi-story retail outlet to be located in the heart of Montreal, a source tells AppleInsider.

The Cupertino-based gadget maker is reported to have secured some 9,300 square feet of space along the 1300 block of Rue Ste-Catherine Ouest…

OK, deux shots de Tequila. Il paraît que ça va être un Flagship Store (le 10e au monde), qu’ils sont toujours stratégiquement placés et… «stainless steel facade»… «trademark glass staircases»… je m’étouffe… la totale !

C’est vraiment des bonnes nouvelles pour Montréal, je trouve. On n’est plus une filiale de Toronto. Flagship-worthy.

Summer or early fall of next year Link

Pour finir l’année en beauté Madame Edgar (cette chère Madame Edgar!) vous présente une nouvelle expo de sacs de designers. Dont moi.

Vernissage le 5 décembre, chez Madame Edgar (ben oui, quoi), l’expo dure jusqu’au 23.

Plus d’infos par ici

Lol! Trouvé sur BoingBoing

Handpainted sign

Originally uploaded by fran6co.