More from Ryan Cash. This time it’s an interview with that pixel pusher over at Tapbots, Mark Jardine.

(Local aside about Mark, his was the first ever Sweet Mac Setup. His pixel rig has changed since May 2009.)

Photographer Aaron Hockley did a side-by-side comparison of Flickr, Facebook, Google+, 500px, and SmugMug.

Ryan Cash shares about the different ways he is using Flickr and 500px, and how Flickr has become his place for photo storage and 500px is his place for showcasing his photography.

Ben Brooks and I talked for a bit about Flickr and 500px on last week’s episode of The B&B Podcast. Ben has switched to 500px and likes it. I plan on staying with Flickr.

I’ve been using Flickr for years, but I don’t use it for the social aspect or for discovering new photos — I simply use it to store my own images. Even that I do sporadically. The screenshots of this new design look great. I’m glad to see things are buzzing over at Flickr HQ.

If the Tesla’s battery ever gets fully discharged not only does the car becomes non-drivable, but the battery becomes completely useless and has to be replaced. A new battery costs $40,000 and isn’t covered by warranty or insurance:

The affected customers probably would have been in a better financial situation if they’d accidentally rolled their Teslas off a cliff, as insurance would generally cover much of those costs.

Yikes!

Tesla says they have countermeasures in place to help prevent this from happening. And, to give context on that price: a Tesla battery is pretty much the size of an engine.

(Via Matt Gemmell.)

Since iCloud is part of Apple’s strategy for the next decade or more how aggressive will they be with building data centers? How long until they have more than Amazon?

About 75 videos with Steve Jobs. From WWDCs to Macworlds to Stanford to All Things D and more. (Via MG Siegler.)

Here’s a direct link to Bill Weir’s special look inside Foxconn that aired last night. The Verge has a bullet-point list of the most interesting facts and information that were shared during the Nightline special.

Update: See also Lex Friedman’s article for Macworld.

The cloud sync service for Things is now in public beta. For those who currently use Things, there is a special beta Mac app that you have to download and you can’t just migrate over your current library and flip on Cloud Syncing for it — you have to start a new database and manually enter in new to-do items that you want to sync via the Things Cloud.

And note that the beta Mac app has quick entry disabled by default. You can enable it however by running this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.culturedcode.things_beta QuickEntryEnabled -bool YES

 

Brent Simmons points out that according to Macworld’s reviews, RSS support in Mail and Safari are both removed in Mountain Lion.

I still check my RSS feeds on a regular basis — as do many who read this site, I assume — and there is a huge market for good RSS clients. But even still, those who use RSS as a way to follow news are the exception, not the norm. And since you can follow most news sites via Facebook and Twitter, RSS isn’t getting any more popular.

Not to mention, of all those who do use RSS, how many use Mail or Safari to follow their RSS feeds? I don’t know a single person who does.

Dustin Curtis:

Incredibly, despite the mobile device industry experiencing a complete revolution during the past four years, the Android of today is still precisely the operating system Miner described to me in 2008. It has a solid foundation, it can run on a plethora of hardware, it is fully customizable, and the carriers and manufacturers have attempted to differentiate it at the user interface level. It is astonishing to me that Google has held fast to the original vision for the platform considering the poor quality of most Android phones and, far more importantly, most of the apps.

Bill Weir’s report from his 3-day trip to Foxconn (the iFactory):

In a three-golf-cart convoy, both Apple and Foxconn reps took us around to a half dozen production lines in Shenzhen and Chengdu, and there were always five to six people with us as we toured the factories and dorms. But aside from suggesting a visit to the counseling center or canteen, they never steered us to interviews and never interrupted. […]

Over three days in two cities, “Nightline” spoke with dozens of Foxconn workers, both on and off the factory campuses, both on and off the record. We were encouraged to enter any dorm at any time to gather as much insight as any strange Americans with cameras can. All the while, I kept imagining my own reaction if a Chinese TV crew burst into my home or office and started asking me how much I like my job.

Nobody has ever been inside the factory to report on the Foxconn working conditions and to interview and meet with so many of the factory workers.

I pull out my own iPad to show [line worker, Zhou Xiao Ying] a few pictures of my kid and America and her eyes light up when she touches the screen to swipe another photo into view. She’s never seen a working iPad up close before.

“For all the people in America who buy one of these, what do you want them to know about you?” I ask.

“I want them to know me,” she says. “I want them to know we put a lot of effort in this product so when they use this please use it with care.”

This is Weir’s written prelude to the Nightline special, “iFactory: Inside Apple”, that will air tomorrow night.

Beautiful.