I am not an iPad fan. I tried to start iPad fights with David Lang and Harrison on msn tonight but neither of them wanted to hear it, so I thought I would write something here. Anyway there are a number of reasons the iPad sucks, but there is one reason in particular that is bothering me.

The iPad is a device that turns it’s users solely into consumers instead of creators. Computers up until this point have encouraged creativity by giving users the choice of software and tools to create whatever they want. If people who are new to technology start using the iPad they will never progress past a consumer level. The iPad is designed to make it easy for you to buy music, movies, books and apple approved applications. However you would never use it to develop a web page, create a piece of design or make music. The iPad, more or less, only allows users to be a spectator and consumer of media. The iPad is aimed at people who aren’t tech savvy, and if they start using this they will remain non tech savvy and ignorant to the real value of computing.  If the iPad catches on it’s just going to be the same as putting a TV in front of that user, which would really be taking 2 steps backwards.

I have no problem with the iPad for people who are already using computers daily and want something light and portable to use once in awhile, but what worries me is that this product is being marketed to a “new to computing” crowd.

The iPad is not a magical device, it’s simply going to make people less inquisitive. It’s so unfortunate that the iPad completely underestimates its audience. What’s much more amazing, and something that has been happening for a long time, is using a computer to make new and exciting ideas a reality.

Edit: Alex Payne summarizes my thoughts better than me.

So for the past 3 days I’ve been in Mountain View at the Mozilla offices for work. It has been a really good 3 days full of lots of free food, and especially free beer. I don’t have a cable for my camera but here are some pictures from my webcam and that I stole from Roland’s flickr.

Here’s a picture I took of myself with all this Firefox swag. Firefox swag is awesome, I got a bunch of stickers and buttons and a livestrong style bracelet. I put a bunch of stickers on my mouse.

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I just finished putting together my good friend David Lang’s new website. You should check it out at www.davidlang.me. David Lang pretty much rules because he has a job where he gets to do the most mind blowingly awesome stuff, is half asian, and falls asleep when he drinks.

I think me and David are going to work on his book next and it’s probably going to rule a lot.

Oh also I’m going to the Bay Area tomorrow for work and then for hanging out with family. Maybe I will update about that but most likely I will just tweet about being at In N’ Out burger.

Here are some things that Raindrop does.

Back in July I had a very brief stint as an intern at Rethink Communications. While there I shared a cubicle with Rory O’Sullivan. Some things I know about Rory are that he doesn’t own a cell phone so you can’t call him, he plays in a band, and at some point during my stay at Rethink he acquired a wife. Anyway Rory sent me an email the other day of this awesome video he made for the Rethink Scholarship. It seems like if you’re a student you should probably apply for this, because $18,000 is a lot of money.

Just wanted to reiterate something that I mentioned the other day.

re: HTML editors – After I type in a -moz value and hit return why am I not automatically given the -webkit value?

I bet this already exists in some editor, or there is an add-on. If so someone please enlighten me.

After 3 months I’ve finally finished building my bike. It was fun to take on building a bike as a design project, and was a nice break from working on the computer. There are still things I would like to switch up, but for now I am really quite happy with it. It rides amazingly and the coaster brake is even more fun than I had anticipated. Here are some pictures I took today, specs after the jump. Click the images to see them bigger, or click here to comment on my flickr set.

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I was just sent a link to a theatre company in Switzerland called Theatre du Grutli who has been using Neighbourhood for their signage, promotional pieces and website. It’s so cool to see Neighbourhood being used in other parts of the world. I added some of their images on the Neighbourhood usage page.

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UGK feat Outkast – International Players Anthem