This story amused me to no end because of its brevity. Apparently The Little App Factory got a cease and desist from Apple insisting that they change the name of their iPodRip software to exclude the term "iPod." The head of the App Factory sent a long letter to Steve Jobs explaining why they should be able to keep the name of their app as is. Why they chose to write the head of the company instead of the people that actually handle appeals is beyond me but Mr. Jobs actually wrote back:

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

Hilarious.

If you haven't been paying attention lately you may have missed the fact that Netflix is teaming up with an inordinate number of partners to get their streaming content delivered to your screen of choice. WIRED ran a great article about them not too long ago regarding their tactics and I suggest you read it. Part of their impending empire is partnering with others for worthwhile content; the latest of which is their announcement of a partnership with IFC. You can, supposedly, get any film from the IFC Festival Direct program or their On Demand offerings right into your streaming queue starting immediately. I was a bit bummed that there wasn't a special page on Netflix's site dedicated to these offerings but, in theory, they are there if you search them out.

Pretty tame this week folks but be sure to check the bonus offerings for some non-Youtube goodies. Here's the playlist...

• Auto-Tune the Ads - seems like these guys are quickly moving past their prime and trying to embrace something new. At first I thought this was a bit disappointing but after watching the original ads I think what they've done is pretty amusing. Now how long until they actually get paid to do this?
• What If House Party Were An Action Movie? - the trailer works surprisingly well as a drama/action movie.. I think it's all about the music.
• Cat vs Cop - this is America's Funniest Home Video style humor but seeing a cat climb on top of an officers head is undeniably amusing. Bonus: the cops name is Keith Urban.
• Face Off With a Deadly Predator - National Geographic photographer gets adopted by enormous, terrifying, leopard seal. It offers him penguins, presumably out of pity.
• Jookabox - You Cried Me - Janet introduced me to these guys the other day and I've been pouring over the album. This video is a nice introduction to them and an excellent compliment to the song. Also, ghost eating a hot dog - try not to like that.
• Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait - from the forthcoming IRM album this video consists of an endless number of absurd vignettes. Skateboard on some hamburgers? Got it. Spongebob being tackled by a cop? Done. Pancake Astronaut? Yep. Charlotte Gainsbourg doing her makeup wit a demon in the bathtub? Easy. And the songs pretty great too.

Bonus:

• Beard Bird Cage - Yes, I have seen this. No, I don't believe it's legit.. but it is a funny concept.
• Pop-up Book of Phobias - possible Christmas present for your kids. jk.
• Streaming Gradient by Jen Stark - nice to see some animation implemented with the style of Jen Stark
• Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No - great animation capturing the tale of Dock Ellis and his no hitter, while on LSD.

Have a great weekend.

I will never tire of sites that focus on the absurdity of clients and their out-of-left-field requests. Never. With that in mind, Clients From Hell is right up my alley and provides an endless amount of entertainment. I think you'll agree.

These clever leaves are the work of Christoph Niemann and, for better or worse, are humor of the cleanest and purest sense. You can send these along to your grandparents and all will enjoy a hearty chuckle.. but sometimes you need some good clean fun art to cleanse the palette.

Madrid clued me in to photographer Gabriel Jeffrey and while I've been enjoying the photographic works I think I'm equally enjoying (if not more) the tactic of presentation of the images. The site design is such that if your browser is bigger than the image, it expands to fill the area.. and if it's smaller, it crops the image. Something about that implementation strikes me as a brilliant way to immerse the user into your works. Highly approved. Oh, and the photographs themselves may be a tad bit NSFW (at least the Nylon Magazine set) but nothing too racy. The Lifestyle and Moving Images sets are not to be missed.

Smashing Magazine has a great article on The Death of the Blog Post and subsequent rise of the "Blogazine." Basically they point out a rising trend in a handful of sites that create an entirely new look for each entry they post - embracing a more Magazine style mentality for their thoughts rather than a templated blog post. On the whole, I would like to see more of this but it requires a great deal more writing to make it work effectively and I don't foresee most bloggers diving into long form eloquence anytime soon.

It should also be noted that the article is, far and away, the nicest looking article in the entirety of Smashing Magazine - which tends to have great content but goes for the mundane* style blog format.

* yewknee.com embraces this format as well

It's not quite as compelling as the new Rolland Emmerich epic in theatres now but this 2012 Infographic covers all the bases of Believers vs Skeptics and does a good job in doing so. The charts of solar axis, galactic alignment and celestial equators is too good to be missed. The notion that the 2012 disaster gets any legitimate coverage is laughable to me but this is a nice visualization of all the parts involved.

Via JAson.

While I have no intentions of making any sort of switch to the forthcoming Google Chrome OS I am rather curious to see what new and innovative ways they try to reinvent the wheel. That being said, I was rather excited to read this long summary of the Chrome OS Event in which many of the details of the operating system came to light a little bit more. Maybe it's my own preconceived notions getting in the way but I was little bummed to discover that the OS is intended exclusively for Netbooks and the company has no intentions of it being anyone's main computer - as the processing power won't be present for any of the heavy lifting on bigger projects. With all that in mind I did find this intriguing:

In Chrome OS every application is a web application. There are no native applications. That gives us simplicity. It’s just a browser with a few modifications. And all data is Chrome OS is in the cloud. This is key, we want all of personal computing to work this way. If you lose your machine, you just get a new one, and it works. With security, because everything is a web app, we can do different things. No system is ever fully secure. With Chrome OS no user install binaries, so we can see bad things easier. We run completely inside the browser security model.

Love the idea of all data being stored in the cloud but don't love the idea of everything being run inside of Chrome.. not sure why but that just goes against everything I know of computing. I guess they really are already changing the way most think about computing.

Please take a moment to browse the Amazon listing for this Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. While you're there be sure to check the bevy of customer images that go along with it. Well played Internet.. well played.

I'm not going to lie - I probably should not be posting a link to this incredible video for "Truckers Delight" by Flairs. It's quite NSFW and would probably be considered crass / vaguely offensive by a number of people.

That being said, I love it. The pixel illustration style is pitch perfect, the storyline is as compelling as it is amusing and the song isn't too bad either. I can only hope this is the first of many projects from Jérémie Périn as it's safe to say I now consider myself a fan.

Via Waxy; where good things come from.

Posting this as a reminder to myself and a decent heads up to you.. Find time to read these:

• The Uncollected Stories of JD Salinger, Collected. The title pretty much says it all.
• Letters of Note: Kurt Vonnegut - a short read but an important one as it is a letter sent from Vonnegut during his time in Dresden; which pretty much shaped the rest of his life.

Also, remember to thank Kate for providing such things for me to nab on a regular basis.

Hipster Dad Demetre sent out a great link to Print Society; a repository of compelling images ready for purchasing at a (mostly) affordable price. The Editor's Picks are a great place to start but you'd be selling the experience short if you didn't explore everything else.

The Toki Woki Scroll Clock is one of finest examples of nerdery that I can recall in recent times. It's an impressive and very clever implementation of the LCD concept... except no liquid crytals, just CSS, javascript and some overflows!

I'd seen some pics of this Invisible Man before but never felt too compelled by it until I saw the entire set. The pic with the cop and the extreme blending with the construction equipment won me over.

Two items of note here:

1. Threadless and Griffin Technology have teamed up to take designs from Threadless tees and put them on iPhone cases. This is, unsurprisingly, a brilliant and obvious partnership.
2. I have been bestowed with one of each of the first designs to give away. I've got One Large Shirt, One Medium Shirt and two iPhone cases. So, make your case in the comments for what you'd like to win (i.e. leave a comment). I will pick a winner at the end of the week.

And just in case you aren't much for reading, I am giving away two t-shirts and two iPhone cases courtesy of the Threadless + Griffin partnership. Leave a comment to win!.

Update: I fired up the Research Randomizer and selected winners. If you haven't heard from me, you did not win. Sorry about that.. I gently tried to get more schwag from them but no dice. Thanks for playing!

What do you do when you're a small indie label and the band whose debut record you planned on putting out breaks up before you can do anything with it? Well, if you're SU Records, you go ahead with putting it out. Such is the case with the one, and only, album from The Capulets Classics. The band has since gone on to form new projects (such as The Love Language) but Classics is still a solid release unto itself and the band being together or not doesn't change that. Personally, I'm very glad they went ahead with putting out the album because it's a quality dose of upbeat, often frantic, vaguely lo-fi rock jams.

Go listen to it and, if you feel so inclined, purchase the mp3's. They're well worth it.

It has been well established that I love a photostream of random images, movie stills and bizarre pieces of a bigger puzzle. That being said, the nequest stream is right up my alley. It tends to favor images that are a bit darker in nature but that's more of a fair warning to you rather than a judgment of the content. I'm numerous pages deep already and it's clear that the recommendation is valid.

Did you happen to catch the new Matador Records promo piece for the forthcoming Shearwater record, The Golden Archipelago. It's filled with vintage photographs, dreamy video and a little bit of insight (musically) for the new album. I'm a sucker for all those things (and full browser web video, when done right, is legit) so I recommend catching it while you can.

File this one under: Slightly Impractical But Worth Any Hassle It Might Incur. The Fiat Lux is a lamp that, through an ingenious use of magnets, turns on when the 'switch' is placed in a floating position below the main apparatus. It's basically the defacto light of the future and I welcome it. Be sure to watch the video.

Via Madrid.