“My semi-retirement” from USS Mariner.

I spent this week trying to keep it near me so I could use it immediately if I thought of something. So far, it’s about 50% “this is a large iPhone” and 50% glee that I’m using a device that feels like it’s straight out of all the science fiction I read and watched for decades.

Things it does well I was hoping it would do well:
– Great for reading on the bus
– Makes a great terminal where a laptop/netbook would be inconvenient (couch)

Things it does well I hadn’t thought of:
– Browsing the web with someone (ie, shopping for gifts on Amazon, or clothes). The big display and lack of keyboard make it great for passing back and forth
– Easy mini-projection (I can pull up one of Expedia’s web pages and show it to a small group without having to muck with projectors, etc)
– Turn the wasted first 5-10 minutes of meetings where you’re waiting for the late people into demo time and an interesting conversation about interaction design.

Things it does way better than I thought it would:
– It’s crazy fast. I could not believe how responsive it was for the first couple of days.
– Video. Stored video looks great. Netflix videos look pretty good considering they’re streaming. The display is tremendously nice.
– Immersion. I don’t know how else to put it. That 50% of the time where I’m grinning and you can see the thought balloon over my head that says “wheee!”
– Battery life is crazy. I’m used to being vaguely aware of how long it’s been since I charged my phone, or my laptop. I don’t care at all about the iPad. I know Kindle users can crow about days on days, but I used it on and off for four days and got to 60% before I plugged it in.
– The news apps from BBC/NPR/Reuters are tremendous.

Things it does worse than I’d expected:
– Sync seems to take forever. The first sync was glacial.
– Typing. The dimensions make it hard to type with my thumbs in portrait, and in landscape I’m either typing one-handed while holding it or struggling.
– Dimensions. It’s sometimes hard to balance it on one leg to type, and not fitting in a pocket means it’s hard to carry around without thinking. It’s the same problem you have with a netbook.
– It’s hard to conceal. If you’re in a meeting with an iPhone, it’s really easy to check email (or whatnot) and not be conspicuous. The iPad… no can do. Even swapping over from taking notes to something else is so obvious I don’t dare try it.
– File sync for iWork documents. It’s there, and it’s cumbersome and annoying. See here, here
– I am so tired of “ha ha I’ll wait for the next one that’s twice as good for $2.” 1. Yes there will be a better version eventually 2. I get that you think Apple’s upgrade cycle sucks. I understand, but 3. Is it cool? Do you like it? Can we talk about that?
– “So it’s just a big iPhone”. Even from iPhone owners. Yes. And your iPhone is just a phone with a touch screen and a pretty interface. Doesn’t your experience with what happened with the iPhone make you even a little curious?
– I didn’t think I’d need the 3G version, but I’ve grown so used to having access almost everywhere that it’s weird to not have it. Fortunately AT&T’s terrible network coverage got me used to flaky data access.
– Oh yeah, the wifi. I’ve had a couple problems with it, when one of my favorite things about my laptop is that it works everywhere with every wifi point I’ve ever encountered.

Things it would to well and doesn’t yet:
– Display extension. One of the developers I work with talked about this, and I totally saw what he was saying: it’d be so great to be able to use it as a second monitor for my other computers. There are apps that are trying to get there, and it doesn’t work yet

Should anyone else buy it?

If you’re as curious as me about computing and application and web site design, absolutely.

If you’re thinking about buying a Kindle or whatnot, and an extra hundred/two hundred dollars is worth it to have a fully, awesomely functional web browser, word processing, and all that good stuff — yes! do it! (unless you seriously go to the beach and don’t do beach things but stare at your computer the whole time)

If you’re not sure what you’d use it for… go play with one. Wrestle it from an owner’s hands for an hour. It’s worth seeing how it works. If you don’t get it, wait until you see it do something that makes your brain light up.

And as the apps get better, the case is going to get stronger and stronger. In six months I’m sure I’ll be able to demo a killer app for whatever your need is.

So here’s Penny Arcade’s Tycho on the iPad:

As an eReader, the iPad doesn’t match a dedicated machine for comfort. The iBooks narrative is strong, “does what iTunes did for music,” but that’s purely aspirational and doesn’t recognize just how late they are to the table. They are like Pink suggesting that the party has not been a party prior to their arrival, they’re wrong, and for a company of their vision and scope it’s embarrassing.

First, and I hate to point this out, this is wrong. It’s just wrong. Here’s Jobs presenting the iPad. You can skip the early stuff where he talks about the whole place they see it occupying and get to 51:30, where he starts talking about the iBooks.

By talking about the Kindle.

And how Amazon’s done a great job, and where they see their ability to make something different.

How is this not acknowledging the party in progress? Or asserting that it doesn’t start until they do?

It’s Steve Jobs! At the announcement! Starting his discussion of the iBooks app by tipping his hat to the Kindle.

I don’t know.

And it’s weird — I’m kind of resigned at this point in life to seeing people do things like this, where there’s some stereotype about smug Apple, strutting about like they’re the first ones to the party, and it’s accepted without further examination. Even among Apple users, like Tycho.

But I would think that someone like Tycho, who knows as a gamer what it’s like to be lumped in with the neeeeeeeeeeeeerds, would be more cautious about this kind of stuff.

Beyond which — Apple’s claim here and with the iPhone’s never been that no one had done those particular things. They never said “we’re the first to do email on a phone” or “first to allow web browsing”. But those experiences were painful to the point of uselessness, and they entered the market when they thought they could do it right.

That’s the iPad. And they’re totally upfront about that. They’ll talk about what they think they can do and why they think it’s awesome. And sure that’s arrogant: it’s saying “we think everyone else did okay, but check this out. But I don’t see why they shouldn’t also get at least the credit for specifically calling out the other players who were there first and did well.

Posted quickly for maximum usefulness.

Panelists:
David Hartwell
me, Derek Zumsteg
Bob Kruger

Notes, with some attribution and not a lot of formatting:

Year’s Best 2009 notes

h1. Flash fiction
Brain Harvest (brainharvestmag.com) runs sci-fi/fantasy flash (up to 750 words)
Everyday Fiction runs a lot of speculative flash fiction

Audience suggestion: flashfictiononline.com

Thaumatrope (thaumatrope.com) runs stories and serial via Twitter

h1. Short stories
The big print mags accounted for about a third of the year’s best lists, original anthologies another third, and online sources (particularly semi-pros).

h2. Anthologies:
There were three that dominated the Best of 2009 lists:

New Space Opera 2, edited by Dozois and Strahan
Includes the best short story of the year, “The Island” by Peter Watts. Read it!
Seriously, we went on about this for a while. It’s amazingly good. Watts’ website: www.rifters.com

“Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson (and a general recommendation for him)
“The Far End of History” John C Wright

Eclipse 3, edited by Strahan
“It Takes Two,” Nicola Griffith
“The Pelican Bar,” Karen Joy Fowler

h2. Other fantasy anthologies:
Clockwork Phoenix 2 had a great story, Saladin Ahmed’s “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela”
Cat Rambo’s short story anthology
Camille Alexa has a short story collection

Other science fiction anthologies:
Charles Stross’s anthology “Wireless” contains the novella “Palimpsest” which would have made it into year’s best anthologies but for rights issues

Other Earths (ed Jay Lake and Nick Gevers):
“This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe” by Robert Charles Wilson
“Donovan Sent Me” by Gene Wolfe

“Infinities” Vandana Singh was in “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet”

h2. Magazines:
Asimov’s and Fantasy & Science Fiction produced a ton of great fiction.

Asimov’s
Nancy Kress’ “Act One” tremendous novella
+like 90 other good Kress shorts/novellas in Asimov’s in 09

F&SF
Charles Oberndorf’s novelette ‘Another Life,’
“Blocked” Geoff Ryman
“The Unstrung Zither” Yoon Ha Lee

Analog had James Van Pelt’s “Solace” which was great

Interzone had a great year:
One issue had “Black Static” by Bruce Sterling and “A Clown Escapes From Circus Town” by Will McIntosh, there was another great Domic Green issue.

Also: “Lady of the White-Spired City” by Sarah Edwards

(Interzone: $25 on Fictionwise! Beats paying $1,000 for postage)

h2. Online Zines had a huge year:
Tor.com ran some great stuff. Particularly “Zepplin City” by Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn

Subterranean Online
Clarkesworld — Hartwell loved “Spar” by Kij Johnson in particular
Strange Horizons, recommended by Hartwell.
“Bespoke” by Genevieve Valentine

Fantasy Magazine
“Light on the Water” by Genevieve Valentine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is great, running a lot of extremely good fanatasy

Rudy Rucker’s “Flurb” is pretty awesome

Authors who had good years, generally:
Stephen Baxter was all over the place and they were great. “Formidable Caress” (ran is Asimovs)

Side note: David Hartwell is also a fashion theorist.

More Novellas, from David Hartwell’s Massive Spreadsheet
Hot Rock, by Egan (rights issues prevented it from running in anthologies)
“Wind Blowing, and this tide” by Demien Broderick (ran in Asimov’s)

h1. Novels
Best: Windup Girl, Paulo Bacigalupi.
Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams
The City & The City, China Mieville
VanderMeer’s Finch
Terry Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals
Julian Comstock, by Robert Charles Wilson
Gweneth Jones’ Spirit

Audience suggestion: a “Squid Dog” book which I cannot for the life of me find now that I’m not looking at it. Help!

One of the big things that drives me just batshit about trying to do anything but particularly on the internet is the people who don’t know anything but believe they know not only more than you, but that it proves you have some ill intent.

For instance. Over at the good ship USSM, Dave took on a job to edit a Mariner annual for Maple Street Press. I’m mostly out of writing about baseball, but for Dave, I was totally willing to take on writing two pieces for straight freelance rates. We all got paid a flat rate. Well, we didn’t, because we haven’t even been paid yet, thank you standard industry practices. But yeah: $x and thanks.

Dave did a great job recruiting people, the annual turned out amazing, and as a result, it’s sold ridiculously well. I don’t know how well, but whatever. I posted on USSM about where to get it and noted in passing that we didn’t make any money for extra sales, so we’re not pumping it out of some naked greed.

One of the host of people that like to hang out and complain about USSM accused me of lying about it. While the money we made for each additional copy might only be a few cents, it was something, so I should stop lying to our readers, etc etc.

To review:
– I agreed to write for a flat payment $x, and signed a contract that says that.
– I mentioned that we made no money from additional sales in a post.
– Someone who has no knowledge of what our contracts were accuses me of lying and acting in bad faith because they believe they know more about the situation even though they have no actual knowledge of it.

And it wasn’t “I believe the usual arrangement is x, so I’m extremely suspicious…”

Seriously. This kind of thing drives me insane. Would you go argue with a particle physicist that quarks had three kinds of spin and therefore they were skimming money off the LHC and spending it on ripple and fast women?

Anyway.

“I don’t understand how Miranda and Samara can run around and fight in high-heeled boots like that.”
“Maybe they have anti-gravity or something.”
“But in the future women don’t have flats? Come on, Bioware.”

— actual discussion over coffee today

“If we had signed to Gold Mountain management, or if we had signed with Geffen, maybe Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain sells 750,000 copies instead of 250,000 copies. But it was really just the difference between being Pavement or being Weezer,” Malkmus says. “I never had a great deal of confidence in my ability to write hits. There’s a formula to that, and I’m not a good chorus writer. I’m better at the verses. Sometimes I don’t even get to the chorus.”

— From Chuck Klosterman’s interview of Stephen Malkmus, of Pavement

I had a pair of Killer Loop Coup sunglasses way back when, and they fit amazingly well, I saw well in them, and then someone stole them, and ever since I’ve been burning through knock-offs, being disappointed in new ones, and fighting the temptation to buy a used pair off eBay for $200.

So I’ve been idly trying to figure out what the nearest current replacement is to at least get a reasonable fit. And after searching for a while, I was getting really honked off that the Internet wasn’t bowing to my will and I realized what I was mad about (and that Google has created an Internet where keyword spamming has destroyed nearly all context and meaning).

I was mad that I could not, from my desk at home, search for and easily locate the measurements for a pair of sunglasses from ten+ years ago.

The level of immediate gratification and information retrieval we have available and have come to expect is that high, and the absurdity of it struck me only then: why in the world should it be true that I should be able to go to Google and say “killer loop coup lens width” and have something returned?

And then Bing returned the results, nice and clean, translated from the Japanese.

Seriously.

Lens width: 56 mm
Lens height: 32 mm
Overall width: 145 mm

Aw yeah.

“Blue” is up for the Asimov’s Readers Ballot for 2009. If you dug it, please

vote here