I'm just wondering. Because I have yet to hear of anyone using the mobile phone as an actual development platform. So, does anybody out there use a mobile, handheld phone to:

* write executable code (be it compiled or scripted)
* do web development
* design graphics
* write (I don't mean business mail, I mean books)
* and, you know, make anything.

...? If you do, I'd like to hear about it. I'd also like to know where the development tools for the mobile phone are. Now, I know that there are cameras out there where you can rotate the picture or change the hue with a thumb-slider - that's not what I mean. I mean create graphics from scratch. I know that theoretically you could type out Javascript with your thumbs and save it to a text file for later inclusion, or swap Bash code snippets over Twitter, or whatever. I mean real development. Does anybody exclusively use a mobile for development, and they write full applications, compose whole web pages, or render a 3D scene? How about audio and video editing - not just capture, but editing, like you can with Audacity?

Because I see where Google's Europe boss John Herlihy is getting these headlines that say one thing - "desktops will be irrelevant" - while showing an article body that says something completely different - that mobiles will be "the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment."

See, consuming and producing has always led to a dichotomy on the web. The two cultures clash. It's my old "toys vs tools" spiel again. A division of devices intended for consumption and devices intended for production makes a lot of sense. I pray for the day when it dawns on the mainstream media that there are two worlds out there and it doesn't make sense to try to force them onto the same planet.

Somewhat related to that is the endless Linux desktop war - between the "dumb it downs" and the "hands off my geek toys." I've long argued that there should be a division in Linux distros between those intended for producers and those aimed at consumers. And indeed, I've also stubbornly clung to the opinion that open source and open content is more important to the producer than the consumer. The people who do not ever do anything on a computer but consume have no more right to try to take away my power tools any more than I have a right to demand that your camera become a picture-viewer only. I'd much sooner you have your playtoy and I have my power tool and we can each have our own unique needs met.

At the same time, I'd be nervous about building a wall between the two so that one cannot easily cross between the two when needed. That would not make sense - but it would be really, really profitable for big corporations to do. After all, what does open source mean on a phone? Yeah, you can modify it - but on the phone itself? Oh, so then if the computer stores go away and all the consumer is allowed to buy is a mobile - well, then, that's lock-in of another kind, isn't it?

Oh, you've heard web developers complain about IE before, but not like this. Presenting IE is Being Mean to Me. Somebody sign this guy to a label!

Explanation: This is a little joke to post whenever somebody in a forum asks a really obvious question that would typically be answered by "GIYF."

And on a side note, that Urban Dictionary entry appears to have been created by user "Ass Hat Linux." I almost fell off my ice cube.

Just in case anybody out there was warmly smug in the idea that Twitter users represented a more hip, savvier demographic that is too smart to fall for such tricks, I've got a nice sharp dart for your happy balloon.

There's a phishing attack going around on Twitter, and people are falling for it.

Dark Reading has a good cover of the phishing story. The attack, of course, takes you to a Twitter-looking page which has you typing your login into a page on a domain that is most definitely NOT Twitter.

Here's what the offending site has set up, in case you're curious:

And this was interesting as a side note - I've never seen the Mozilla anti-phishing safeguard in action before, so if you attempt to go to the actual phishing domain, Firefox version 3 or higher will show you this instead:

Searching for bzpharma on Twitter will turn up a mix of users who fell for it and users warning other users not to fall for it.

Once again, we see human dumbolution in action. People used to be able to read a URL. What happened?

So, there's a lot of squawking and feathers flying over Adobe and HTML5. If you're new to the story, AJAXian has a good roundup of it so far.

Just an addendum to an earlier thought, here. A few posts back, I audaciously stated that I believe that the Gimp (open source image editing software) is being sabotaged, and that Adobe is behind it. Sure, no proof yet on that one, may never be, but if there is, I wanted to lay claim to saying it first. There's only so many smoking guns you need to find before you have to conclude that something's been shot, even though you didn't see shooting.

Anyway, a much larger crowd is accusing Adobe of sabotaging HTML5. Now, I've not been following that one - mainly because I've learned not to expect anything of web standards. If web standards worked, Microsoft and Adobe would be out of business today.

Today I find Adobe's corporate denial. And believe me, if I didn't pay attention to this fight before, I sure am going to start now! That blog is a snide, slovenly, sloppy attack, stated in the terms of big bullies who's been caught bullying and lie their butt off about it even while they try to wipe the blood from their knuckles. And the denial amounts to "Adobe isn't blocking HTML5; technical issues are! (Oh, and we made up all the technical issues and have a rent-a-mod hatching up more issues day and night.)"

You know how you're just toddling along and all of a sudden somebody jumps up and denies something that you didn't even know they were accused of, but the way they do it makes you think that they must be guilty? That's just what happened here. Groundless rumors would be laughed off, if they even got any attention at all. Adobe is really, really worried about people believing this one.

Just a reminder: You don't have to be Microsoft to be an evil, proprietary software corporation.

It's gone beyond simple browser-tans. Firefox manga art has gotten to be its own franchise, and is wandering into kemono territory. From this Firefox art collection.

Yeah, some of it's kind of disturbing. While we like seeing people love open source, we're not sure we meant it that way. I don't dare speculate if there's any Rule 34 on Tux the Linux Penguin out there, do I? I'm scared to search.

Gee, how can I post my reaction in the most succinct form? Let's see. Maybe the cast of my webcomic can express it best:

Close-captioned for the unaware: US schools would not teach something useful unless Muslim terrorists wiped out the entire US military, invaded, occupied, stationed ragheaded gunmen in each classroom, and pointed AK-47s at the teacher's heads and said "Now really TEACH something!" Even at that rate, teachers probably have a cyanide capsule in a hollow tooth they can swallow just in case this ever happens.

Funny coincidence: When I am confronted with massive ignorance, I, too, find that it enhances my aggressive thoughts and behaviors, and also increases my body's heart rate, adrenaline, and blood pressure. Where's my advocacy group?

Here's the home page of National Institute on Media and the Family, and the Wikipedia article tells you what's really going on. Minneapolis psychologist Dr. David Walsh, founder of the institute, seems like he's eager to fill Jack Thompson's shoes. You know, because we really, really needed another one of those!

By the way, I still haven't seen a serious study conducted into history's oldest "violent" video game. Wake up, sheeple!

I was at the store today - yes, I eat groceries like normal people - and while waiting in line at the checkout, I pondered thumbing through a magazine. But I stopped in my tracks as I beheld the typical dreary selection. It looked just about like this:

Look at it. Look at it! Discouraged, I returned to guard my cart empty-handed. Let me repeat: Rather than flip through a magazine for free for a few minutes while I waited for the register, I preferred to remain standing alone with the thoughts in my head.

So print media wants to know what it's doing wrong? Wake up! The Internet is not killing magazines by being cheaper. Nor is it because of convenience or fascination with shiny electronics. The Internet is killing newspapers and magazines by having better content. Now, don't get me wrong, the Internet also hosts some spectacular crap. But its high notes are far, far higher than anything I've found in a newspaper or magazine in a long, long time.

Those magazines on the rack... they are not reading material. They are wood pulp that has been tortured out of its will to live. They are constrained and fettered and chained down. Can you imagine, just a moment - let your imagination run free here - websites repackaged as magazines? Free opinions, challenging information, eye-opening revelations, risky humor, shocking and astounding artwork. But it can't have that.

• A Best Of Wikipedia magazine? Nope, sorry, won't appeal to housewives in bunny slippers.
• Controversial opinions? Egad, we'd chase away the sponsors! No Huffington Post Observer, then.
• Uncensored treatment of sexuality? Good God, there's children running in the aisle! That excludes about 50% of what you could find on the web.
• In-depth content on brainy subjects? Sorry, the USA is now remolded into Napoleon's "nation of shopkeepers." We have to dumb everything down some more as it is. So shove your Slashdot Weekly.
• Progressive humor? You'll never even be able to sign a lease on Madison Avenue without your white, powdered wig! So much for the Wonkette Monthy Roasting Rack.

And I know whereof I speak; my first ambition was to be a writer. And so, back in the '80s, with a manual typewriter and a stack of creamy bond paper, and a copy of the Writer's Market, I tried to make it into print. Never did, even with years of trying. But now there's the Internet and, for whatever reason, I broke into that just fine, eventually selling my work to websites instead of magazines. Recently, I just picked up a copy of last year's Writer's Market and thumbed through it. I discovered two things: (a) I now get paid more for writing for the web than I would if I got into print in some of the top magazines out there, and (b) the mentality has not changed in 30 years; you still have to have the same thinking that would go along with a white, powdered wig just to break in.

Here, want to see what magazines in other countries look like? My favorite art blog in all the world, Deadlicious, has a category of mag covers. Scroll through a few pages (click 'older posts' at the bottom for more, and mute your sound to shut off that annoying damn Playlist widget). But just look at the mags! In places like France, Japan, and Britain, in recent decades, things like this were published. Even in the US in decades past, some rare, once-in-a-while bit of interest graced a corner of a newsstand for a brief moment.

They're mostly NSFW.

I guarantee you that everyone will find something there to be offended about. Deadlicious does not cringe from the trashy and pulpy.

They are not high-brow, sophisticated reading, for the most part.

I'll tell you what they do have, that's missing from the endcap of your local Ralph's: they're ALIVE! There's blood and pulse and breath in them. They are not instruction manuals for consumer zombies, made up like tasteful corpses and shrink-wrapped in little plastic coffins. These magazines displayed on Deadlicious have a body temperature of 98.2 degrees, and they laugh, cuss, and sweat.

Now of course, I know that the industry does not work that way. The mainstream websites are every bit as zombified as mainstream print media. Indeed, they are often put out by the same company. But the web allows me to fly off and find 999,999 alternatives, whereas if they put that many magazines in the store, there wouldn't be room for food. But print media can't fix that. What it can fix is to fight back by getting our attention again. That means challenging, startling, original, ingenious, compelling, interesting content - even if it's scary - and that's what print media will never do.

Can you name a single, solitary print publication where I could have gotten away with saying what I just said up here? Yes, I can. Alternative weekly newspapers - only some of them. And those that would print this, would fade away in a few years.

Saying all this in a Time article would be unthinkable. It would be the equivalent of Howard Beale in the film Network apologizing on live TV for running out of bullshit.

So, no, newspaper industry, you don't need us. We need us. We're doing fine, thanks. And the sooner you go out of business and we can replace that spot with more corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil rotgut, the better.