I’m hovering over the “agree to these terms” checkbox that comes up when you try to activate Ping, Apple’s “social network for music.”

It sez:

Apple will, from time to time, automatically collect information that can be used to identify media in your iTunes library on this computer, such as your play history and playlists. This includes media purchased through iTunes and media obtained from other sources. This information will be stored anonymously and not associated with your name or iTunes Account.

Now, obviously, I have an assload of pirated music. I couldn’t afford my own tastes if they weren’t misbegotten (“the secret ingredient is crime”, as the poet once said).

Should I fear Big Brother? I would like to start a Ping identity just to try it out, but not if I run afoul of the various entertainment conglomerates.

Blogged from the iPad demo @ Restart!

Awesome!!!

Gizmodo has the specs of the next iPhone.

The story, roughly, is that an Apple engineer was out getting drunk for his 27^th and lost it, someone picked it up, and Gizmodo paid $5,000 to get their hands on it and take it apart.

The big news is that it has a front-facing camera (video calls finally arrive) and a higher-rez screen, as well as a stylizing upgrade and some advanced features (maybe including noise cancellation).

“iPad-ready” has already become a salable business jargon phrase. I closed principle negotiations on a new contract for Samhain today and I was able to use the reality distortion field to judo the meeting into that most-awesome of pre-sales states: excitement.

me: I spent yesterday reading the new iPad documentation and getting up-to-speed on the SDK. Let’s see if we can build an iPad-ready version in 60, oops, I guess now it’s 59, days.

Client: Yes! Sounds fantastic!

Another key technology? Thinking rationally about my own productivity. First, Jill convinced me of an adage I’ve been quoting for a while without, it turns out, truly understanding:

Agenda Books are Weapons that can be used to smash The State*.

Second, through experimentation, I’ve come to the same conclusion as Stefan Sagmeister: unstructured free time isn’t productive (I recommend that link if you’re working overtime regularly). I decided to try the same solution: Scheduling my time like a university student, essentially “giving myself classes” (I suppose that means I should get some kind of review as well).

Through discussion with Jared I thought I’d try having 10 four-hour blocks of time per week, and pre-plot them out on Sunday nights. Photography: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, four hours in the morning.

The immediate payoff, which I didn’t really get until I had tried it, is that structure has a soothing autistic-hugging-machine effect. It adds a dollop of helpful stress to my life, letting me say things like, “gee, I should really get back home it’s time to work on my screenplay“, or, “I schedule my time in ten four-hour blocks per week. I can shuffle some things around to fit your project in”, as I did in that client meeting.

The key for me is to keep things lightweight and email-notification-based. It would be cool if I could set up a Google Calendar that would text & email me (tweet?) scheduling info. Does such a beast exist or did I just invent something?

* I interpret this as “of Affairs”.

OMG FUTUREGASM. They say the name makes it easily comparable to female personal sanitary products (to wit: “it comes in two sizes: maxi and mini”).

But perhaps that was intentional? Anyway, even the cinematography of that ad is dope. Remember when the iBook brand was transitioned to “MacBook”? Have they been planning this for that long?

Apple just brought us the future again and Steve Jobs is the LeBron James of the computer industry.

In many ways, this defines our vision.

iPhone games are getting good…