An article by Stephen Coles on fontfeed.com about Apple’s increasingly bizarre typographical choices, especially in the iPhone/iPad OS. Helvetica as a system font, Marker Felt for Notes, Verdana in iBooks (without Georgia), and that ebook reader’s plain awful justification scheme. I wasn’t aware of these flaws, and they’re seriously putting me in the wait-and-see category of someday iPad buyers.
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➟ The Unadvisor
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you’re really desperate, maybe you can ask… The Unadvisor.
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➟ Pocket Legends, a free MMO for iPhone/iPad
This looks like WoW for the iPhone. Massively multiplayer, online all the time, on iPhone and iPad. Free to download, but I expect you’ll pay for benefits.
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➟ iPad magazines encounter resistance to newsstand pricing
Pop Sci users called the app “amazing,” but one self-professed “techie” wished it was “a little less flashy and a little more intuitive.” Some commented on [the] Men’s Health app that they saw potential in the format, but complained about the iPad version’s low resolution and scarcity of interactive ads.
Apart from that amazing nugget of information (people actually want ads that take up more space on their device?), this article shows PopSci and Time willing to take two different stands on pricing. PopSci would rather find ways to convince readers of their app’s $5 value, while Time stands by their price for now, and says lower subscription pricing may be coming.
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Nantsuttei Ramen – PARCO Marina Bay, Singapore
We waited in line for about 20 minutes while the other restaurants were almost completely empty, ironic because Nantsuttei has probably the worst interior design of all the restaurants – its mix of corrugated iron panelling and red faux leather seats looks like an American trailer car diner gone wrong. At least you get the menu while you wait, and it’s full of funny illustrations and instructions on how you should go about slurping your Nantsuttei noodles (spoiler: pretty much the same as anywhere, apart from letting the pork soak for a spell. My advice: how about giving us some fattier meat?). I’ll just let the pictures tell you themselves.The basic ramen I had for $12 was worth coming back for, even if it only had one slice of lean roast pork. The soup and signature layer of black “ma-yu” oil topped with spring onions work together well; it never crosses your mind to worry about garlic breath. Noodle density is comfortably in the middle of the scale, with the firm end represented by Ippudo’s wiry, crunchy strands, and the spongy end by the 2-minute instant variety I eat every other night. You get a fair amount of them too. $17 gets you all the trimmings: extra negi, pork, and vegetables, to which you might want to add another dollar for a runny “hot spring” egg.
➟ Star Wars sitcom in the works
It sounds like terrible news, more garbage in the vein of the Clone Wars animated series, until you get to the magic words: From the creators of Robot Chicken.
Missing comments and link posts
Switching from a “blog” subdomain to “www” has caused Blogger to lose all previous comments. I don’t know if I should be upset about it. There were good ones that offered useful information long after I’d posted on a subject, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it except switch back.
In the meantime, I’ve sorted out a format for outbound links. Their post titles are preceded by an arrow symbol (➟) and clicking on one brings you straight to the relevant page.
➟ Popular Science+ on the iPad
A walkthrough of the beautiful Popular Science+ iPad app’s design. More so than others that simply reproduce the print product on screen, this keeps what’s familiar about the magazine format, and extends it with in-article scrolling and clever use of media.


















