Years ago, when I was a headhunter, I proposed a newly retired Marine Captain for a Lotus Notes assignment. I got a lot of pushback from both our client rep and the client simply because he was a vet. I told them to actually read his resume. He'd implemented Notes across the entire Marine Corp. They gave in and he excelled. The military is bigger than corporation. And some men and woman who've served are the best.

It's very difficult to intuit the right gesture if the screen response is slow. Which one worked? The iPod app always gets me double clicking, triple clicking, and swiping furioulsy at the album cover when a song is playing because I can't tell what's right to get it to flip. I'm sure everyone else in the world "knows" the rightngesture. How did the learn? Does anyone know of a source of "standard" gestures for OS4 apps?

No ads = less diverse content. There will be unintended consequences. If one person blocks ads then they're just a free-rider. If everyone does, the web will really suck. Sure, some sweet folks will continue to post hobby sites, just as in the golden days of yore. And non-profits will publish. And big corporate sales and propaganda sites. And the Government and lobbyists. (BTW: They're all selling you something, aren't they?) But most of what makes the web diverse and useful and free today will die if advertising is eliminated. You don't have to click, just like you don't have to listen or look at ads in conventional free media. I'm sure that is seen as a victory for some, but not me. Almost all the cool, independent sites will wither. Maybe a few rich kids can keep BoingBoing alive, but... What may happen is what I would do with my ad supported but still public-serving sites. Block the ads that enable me to give you content: No access to the site. You'll never know what you're missing.

My ancestor Dr JW Carhart is often credited with building and using the first automobile in Wisconsin in 1871. He actually used his 1,100 pound horseless buggy as a circuit-riding Methodist minister (he was also a medical doctor and physics professor). Some claim he won a $10,000 priize in the first organized steam powered race in 1878. His two cylindered coal fired "Car" covered 201 miles in a loop, starting and returning to Green Bay in 33 hours 27 minutes: exactly 6 smoking miles per hour.

If you've looked at the app, and think you can come even close to copying it quickly with a small team then contact me.

A CMS template app that approximates the Daily would be a winner...

Murdoch may be the Devil, but the Devil has the resources to tempt us. The Daily's content and supposed politics may not be to everyone's taste and yet the app itself is something new in at least three ways:

It is probably the most beautifully designed and executed digital media ever - check out that full page picture of the cute little ground hog with the cutting edge headline font and text overlaid. (...and not an ad in site!)

It makes use of the iPad's advantages over Web 2.0. Maybe HTML5 et al will catch up, but can you point out any web content that swirls and zooms a picture of today's snow storm cover story when you open the front page? (BTW this failed earlier today and was fixed by a pushed download). And until you have a tablet, I don't think you appreciate how enjoyable high res video is to hold in your hand. And if you don't want to see content, just flick your thumb and up comes another page - just like a magazine - no mousing required.

The groundbreaking micro payment recurring subscription model may actually become the new norm for big sites. 99 cents a week, 29 cents, 19 cents: some price will work for real content creators, won it? This is big. Watch a lot of publishers follow the model.

Finally, try to resist the urge to criticize something based on it's source. I'm writing this on an iPad after two days of reading The Daily. Don't knee-jerk hate me, either. The Daily may be the first of a slew of beautiful new bright shiny objects (this one from the Devil, in many's opinion... LOL).

But I'm willing to admit I'm jealous. I want the template app for my websites!

The article incorrectly claims Apple takes half the revenue. I believe this new recurring micropayment model (maybe the most innovative feature of The Daily) will become popular with other iPad magazine apps like the Economist, Time etc... This new subscription model, so hated by free as in beer folks, is the real news. iPad's are meant to be consumer devices, and we may see that consumers embrace this new approach even if the hard core tech community does not.

Go to the app store...

I like tablets. I own an iPad and develop for it.

So, many think Murdoch is the Devil. Clearly he can pay some talented developers and designers. (Journalists, too, but I want avoid politics for this post.)

I downloaded the app and liked some features:

It's pretty and doesn't look like a website, or the NYTimes black and white no pictures (mostly) app.

It's effortless to skim through. Just flick your thumb on the screen. Like you thumb through a magazine in your dentist's waiting room.

Ads are easy to skip, (full pages) just flick past them, and content pages don't look like patchwork quilts of doubleclick drop ins.

Easy to trigger streaming video ads, like the full page (HD-ish) trailer for "Rio" are more than print will ever deliver, and since you opt-in by hitting play if you are interested, they are big plus.

I'm incorporating Daily's new full page, no menu bars, etc, zeitgeist, into a conventional site I'm working on today. The design approaches being a new paradigm for web design so I'm trying to learn and copy as much as I can.

I think Daily's weakest at knowing where you are and returning there, though the progress bar - a surrogate for the thickness of real pages helps. And searching. Maybe I just haven't seen it. The slide spinner is so-so for this...

Finally: 99 cents a week (or whatever, as a recurring micropayment subscription) is something I might want to see some worthy but struggling clients try...

A billion dollars? What if I drove to my local Fry's Electronis, and bought IP cams, all-weather cable, cheap routers and switches, and asked you to watch the border from the screen you're on now?

Oh, and maybe we could have 5,000 iPads or iPhones available for pickup at Apple stores so Border Patrol agents could watch too.

I could load the stuff in my pickup, you could set up the WAN, and I'm guessing we'd still have $990 million dollars left to buy up some little-used, suddenly available high tech IR and radar detector form Government surplus...

Maybe it takes an X-Prize.

I'm apostatic about apostrophes...

"nation" was too broad a word. On the other hand, not quite meeting specs to increase profits is pretty widespread... More widespread, maybe, than in the US or EU.

And back to the topic at hand: Modern stealth fighters have very tight specifications.

... to validate a combat-worthy modern fighter.

A nation that puts plastic in its baby food to fake protein levels has quality control issues that will fail a phony fighter at fifty thousand feet. Remember the failure of the counterfeit aerospace bolts it ships to the west.

You can't overcome the demanding laws of physics by proclamation, family privilege, or deceit. Consequently, China's reverse-engineered Russian fighter engines don't match up. (And Russia has refused to sell them it's F22 class power plants because they're tired of getting ripped off. )

Don't even get me started on mastering the voodoo of stealth...

In short, we'll see what they have when it's super-cruising at altitude with working combat systems: Not when its taxi-ing at seal level.