iPhone covers

Aztec, Gameboy, and Macintosh iPhone covers on sale here. Via.

Link roundup

1. Nick Denton's latest memo on the state of blogging.

2. NSFW, but really striking iPhone docking station.

3. Detailed analysis of how the Houston Texans' running game works.

4. Has anyone watched Nick's House of Anubis? Seems like every episode to date is free at iTunes. (At first glance it looks like maybe something my boys might like? Or more for tweens?)

iPhone Legacy Case concept

iPhone Legacy Case concept by Les Forges MDK. Via.

Beemo iPhone case

Beemo iPhone case on sale here.

*Buy Adventure Time toys at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Now here's a lawyer who knows how to specialize - - he's sued Allen Iverson three times.

2. How to keep a blog anonymous. Via.

3. "Everything You Need to Know About Using iTunes Match."

4. It's that time of year where USC and UCLA have to hide their school mascots - - "the Bruin Bear is enclosed by an approximately $5,000 box engineered like a jigsaw puzzle."

Link roundup

1. Packaged food makers are trying to pressure grocery stores into placing their products closer to the fresh produce.

2. Cute story about a little girl buying an iPod.

3. Geocache briefcase unlocks when you bring it to the right spot.

Illustration roundup

All Girl Devil Band print by Kristian Donaldson on sale here.



Thomas Perkins draws on his kids' lunch bags. Many more here.



Steve Jobs tribute by Renata Liwska, who has several books on sale at Amazon.



Hot soup with R2D2 by Graham Annable, who has a great vampire riding a shark print on sale for $10.



Daughter's first birthday poster ("with an edge").

*Buy Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Can you identify these monster eyes?

2. Good interview with Jensen Karp about running Gallery 1988. I hope this isn't a joke:

I was actually in a rap group signed to Interscope called Hot Karl. I had songs with Kanye West, Will.i.Am, Redman, Fabolous, Mya, etc. It was a crazy opportunity that came to me while I was attending USC, but it also was never really something I aspired to do. It was just something I couldn’t say no to. So as I say a real way out of it, I decided to take the money I made from rapping and put it into something I could be proud of as a career, and depend on, so the gallery was born with my partner Katie. I was always more interested in the marketing and visual approach to selling music, so it seemed that more curator-based stuff was where I was hoping to go the whole time.

3. Jeff Bercovici commenting on Steve Jobs:

there's something disturbing about people treating Jobs as though he was some kind of saint. The problem with doing so is the way it elevates our own consumerism to something noble and important when really it's the opposite.

4. A look at Sammy Wanjiru, a tremendous marathon runner who died under mysterious circumstances (and Kenyan runners in general):

early on, there were glimpses of fire. In the 1968 Olympics, Kipchoge Keino flew to first place in the 1,500, winning by 20 meters. It's the largest margin of victory in the history of the event and earned Kenya its first gold medal in any competition. This is true despite Keino's unusual morning on race day — when his bus got knotted in Mexico City traffic, he ran the final two miles to the stadium, to the starting line, and to the history books.

*Buy Olympics posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Interesting article on the history of China's Bayi Rockets, the military-sponsored basketball team that got into the big fight with Georgetown. Once dominant, the team couldn't adapt to changing rules:

From its outset, the CBA had allowed teams to import two foreign players, including retreads from the NBA, as a way to expose Chinese players to better competition. The exception was Bayi, which remained all-Chinese. It would have been embarrassing for the army team to import foreign mercenaries. Yet as better foreigners began arriving, Bayi began to struggle, which was more embarrassing. The league tried to give it special protection: Any team playing Bayi had to limit the playing time for foreign stars.

2. I enjoyed Brian Lam's ridiculous article about Steve Jobs. Its subtitle is "Regrets of An Asshole", but he: (1) timed the publishing of the article to benefit from Jobs's death; (2) goes to great pains to brag that Steve Jobs thought he was really talented; and (3) blames much of the iPhone 4 fiasco on coworkers, especially the people still at Gawker media ("I probably should have quit right after the first story was published for several different reasons. I didn't know how to say that without throwing my team under the bus, so I didn't.").

3. And speaking of articles on Steve Jobs, here's Robin Hanson discussing Jobs and signaling.

Link roundup

1. Robert Cringely:

it’s suddenly clear why Apple didn’t introduce the iPhone 5 this week. It would have been lost in the news of Jobs’s death, killing the marketing value he would have loved. I’m sure the phone will appear in a week or two with that appearance in part to encourage the recovery of Apple shares from what is sure to be a short-term decline.

(I don't think he's joking.)

2. Small tree with tiny tire swing.

3. Tim Burton movie-themed craft and costume ideas.

Apple-themed giant robot by 3A Toys

3A Toys' latest giant robot is called Caesar. The regular colorways are lackluster, but check out this Apple-themed version.

*At Toycutter: Custom 3A Toys.

*Buy 3A Toys at eBay.

Mr. Macintosh

Not sure if this is a joke or not:

Steve Jobs often came by Texaco Towers after dinner, to see what was new, and we'd usually show him whatever recent progress we made. Sometimes he'd be pissed off about something, but other times he'd be really excited about a new idea.

I was the only one in the office one evening when he burst in, exclaiming that he had a flash of inspiration.

"Mr. Macintosh! We've got to have Mr. Macintosh!"

"Who is Mr. Macintosh?", I wondered.

"Mr. Macintosh is a mysterious little man who lives inside each Macintosh. He pops up every once in a while, when you least expect it, and then winks at you and disappears again. It will be so quick that you won't be sure if you saw him or not. We'll plant references in the manuals to the legend of Mr. Macintosh, and no one will know if he's real or not."

Read on....

Guess it's real - - here's a description of an abandoned effort to turn him into a Twitter character. Via.

*Buy vintage Macs at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Collection of easter eggs from Deus Ex Human Revolution.



2. "The bizarre saga involving a lost prototype of the iPhone 5 has taken another interesting turn. Contradicting past statements that no records exist of police involvement in the search for the lost prototype, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now tells SF Weekly that 'three or four' SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security officials in an unusual search of a Bernal Heights man's home."



3. The Grant Morrison interview got all the link love, but the truly interesting article in Rolling Stone is this one: How a high school jock from Texas rose to the top of one of Mexico's most powerful and ruthless cartels.

Papecraft Steve Jobs

Download your own Steve Jobs paper toy.

Link roundup

1. News Corp does enough terrible things that you shouldn't have to make up claims.

2. Google's first social network Orkut was briefly very popular in Finland:

Orkut [the Google engineer who built orkut] is Turkish, so we had no idea when we launched it that in Finland evidently that same word means “multiple sexual climaxes.” When people saw a product called orkut, they thought it was a dating service or sex site, and it took off quickly. As soon as they saw what it actually was, interest cooled somewhat.

3. To take a screenshot on an iPhone, hold down the lock button and the home button at the same time for about one second until the screen flashes white. Via.

Link roundup

1. Some interesting predictions about the future of the legal profession. Via.

2. Apple not only censors emails sent by Me.com users, but doesn't even tell the users that their emails have been blocked?

3. The keys to finding a job in Hollywood.

Zombie Snow White Macbook sticker

Zombie Snow White Macbook sticker on sale for $20 at Etsy. Via.

*Previously: Adam and Eve laptop sticker.

Link roundup

1. How to make a Princess Leia cinnamon bun headband.

2. Gizmodo's latest must have iPhone and Android apps.

3. Want to tell if someone's lying? Skillfully question them (rather than looking for microexpressions).

Link roundup

1. New specimen box by Alex CF.

2. I couldn't post anything new before I left for work this morning because Blogger was once again not working (third time this month? fourth?). Meanwhile, Tumblr unveiled a beautiful new app for the iPhone.

3. There's some question as to whether his math's way off, but here's an assertion that Apple's brand new top secret data center is mostly a shell for show.

Watch Steve Jobs pitch the Cupertino city council

Yesterday, Steve Jobs pitched the Cupertino city council on building a new Apple campus. Yes, it's multimedia. And it's fun to see how he reacts when the councilman gives him advice on how to make his presentation at 4:25.

He makes even a building sound like a magical feat: "We've come up with a design that puts 12,000 people in one building. When you think about that, that's rather odd." I wonder how unusual that number is? Via.