A Breakout clone not to be missed [Flash game]. Go from curious to exhilarated to desperate in a matter of minutes.

Processing's Ben Fry on the iPad and closed platforms. Yet another, but coming from a prime proponent of making programming accessible.

A couple of additional thoughts from me: Video game consoles are closed platforms, and I distinctly remember being upset and disappointed that there was no way for me to make my own games. This was, of course, because I already knew what it was like to be able to do so with other systems. As with the rest of the grew-up-with-open-systems-and-made-a-career-out-of-it crowd, if all I had access to was closed systems, I'm not sure I'd even be curious how they work, let alone be motivated to make my own.

But the iPad is hardly the end of open systems. I'm reminded of another platform that was just closed enough to be out of my reach: Microsoft Windows. To program Windows, you need commercial software that includes programming tools, the system libraries, and documentation. I can't speak definitively about the current state of Visual Studio, but during my formative years, even the steep student discount on Visual Studio made it enough of an investment that I needed to commit myself to the notion before I had a chance to try it. At the same time, Linux was becoming accessible enough to uneducated but motivated college students that it was the natural choice to fulfill my interest. I never developed any Linux desktop software—I'm a web app guy—but it was enough of a runway to build the momentum I needed.

It's awesome and necessary that Mac OS X includes professional development tools bundled with the operating system. Even the iPhone/iPad development tools are easy enough to legally obtain (it's a free download from Apple), so they get props for that. Strangely, I'm not sure that's enough to make them as accessible to neophyte programmers as the open systems of olde that ostensibly launched all our careers. It may be more important that a given mainstream platform be able to run a text editor and a Python interpreter than it have a C compiler and full OS libraries.

So there are many things that alienate people from controlling their computers and learning how to program. An important one in the iPad discussion is distribution. In what way does not being able to share arbitrary software projects with others inhibit my ability to develop an interest and skill in programming? I'm not saying there's no connection, I just can't answer the question directly from experience. Rather, it seems likely that closed development platforms encourage closed development communities—and I'm not even thinking of the original iPhone SDK terms of service that prohibited discussion of the SDK in public.

But I think what people are mostly thinking about with regards to the iPad is that an iPad-like device may eventually be someone's only computer, and you can't program an iPad from an iPad, at least not right now. I wonder how quickly that will change, and I wonder how big a role web applications will play in making that happen. We're a hair's breadth from a browser-based IDE and cloud hosting.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field 3D. Embedded below, but click through and upgrade to 720p for a high-def experience.

Via Gruber, a post by Instapaper's Marco about interface metaphors, and a brief iPad-related response from Chris Clark. Marco uses the Calculator app as an example of when not to emulate a physical interface in a computer application, and mentions Soulver, an awesome-looking calculator app for Mac OS X.

For quick calculations, my calculator of choice is Spotlight. Yes, Spotlight, the little magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of the Mac OS X screen that lets you do text search queries of your computer. If you type an arithmetic expression, the answer is the first "result" in the Spotlight menu. And since Spotlight is always available via keyboard (Command-Space by default), it's the fastest way I know to do simple arithmetic. (I also use Spotlight as a dictionary, and begrudgingly use it as an application launcher. It's pretty much useless for anything else. And yes, I know of the alternatives.)

It's interesting that Marco would bring the calculator example to the table in a discussion about iPad interfaces, because a calculator app for the iPad/iPhone is a prime candidate for emulating the desktop calculator interface. It's a touch interface, so we still need buttons to press to enter data into the calculator. Were Acqualia to port Soulver to the iPad, I'd expect to find a custom calculator-like keypad at the bottom of the screen, at the very least. [Update 3/13: Of course there's an iPhone version of Soulver, with a keypad.]

I want an Emacs port of Soulver. Maybe I'll write one. Of course, Emacs has a fancy calculator built in, and it includes a Reverse Polish Notation mode. (EmacsWiki on Calc.) But I like the idea of a textual calculator with real-time spreadsheet-like capabilities. And there are spreadsheet apps for Emacs, too: Simple Emacs Spreadsheet, Dismal, esheet.

Scott and Scurvy, Maciej Cegłowski. (Via Waxy.)

The making of the 1980s HBO intro:

Even at the time it never occurred to me that none of these effects were "digital" in any sense. Even the colored lights that sweep around the O in "HBO" are actual colored lights that sweep around in front of a camera. Also check out the computer driving the camera.

Craig Ferguson interviews Stephen Fry, without an audience even:

Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 (show outtro).

All hail the long form interview, and praise to Craig Ferguson who seems to be the only one doing it any more.

They Don't Make Computer Manuals Like They Used To, a lovely piece by David Friedman on the manual of the Franklin Ace 100. The Ace 100 was an Apple II clone that ended when a court ruled (rightly) that operating systems are covered by copyright law. The Ace 100 manual includes tons of humor, including long passages railing against copy protection.

David is hosting copies of PDF scans of the Ace 100, 1000 and 500 manuals (links at the bottom of his article).

OK, I'm kind of tired of that Verizon ad already. Come to think of it, I was kind of tired of those gum commercials 20 years ago, too. I think I've found a flaw in their little plan.

Jason Schell at DICE 2010: