Join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.

Via Chishbak.

• Patrick Thomas, the head of the French luxury goods group Hermès is on the Board of Directors of Leica Camera.
• Hermès has a 49% stake in the Japanese subsidiary of Leica.

Via LR.

Enjoy.

We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.

—One of Jobs’ deputies answer to an AT&T representative suggesting that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board of directors, Wired.

Via DF.

We will be rolling out the fresh features to the entire Flickr audience in the coming weeks, but why wait? The new photo experience is available for signed-in members to preview now. To opt-in, visit any photo page and follow the directions on top of the image.

—Josh Nguyen, A New Photo Experience: Your Photos, Happier on Flickr Blog.

Took them years to add a 'view on black' option — well, better late than never.

Nokia’s CEO calls his new head of mobile devices, Anssi Vanjoki: 'Anssi, we’re hosed.'

A “science fiction” piece from Jean-Louis Gassée.

Via DF.

Computers and robots are doing things considered human a while ago.

And chimpanzees are doing things considered um, very, very human.

To paraphrase Ms. Goodall’s mentor, Louis Leakey, “Now we must redefine wittiness/dance/sex toys, redefine Man, or accept computers, robots and chimpanzees as human”.

Mars! Yeah, BP, that looks familiar, doesn't it.

Via KN.

So that’s why the vast majority of everything on the internet sucks. It’s because most of the people doing it, most of the time, just haven’t put in the hours yet. And most of them never will. So only a small percentage of all the people online will ever be vaguely good at whatever it is they’re doing.

But here’s the thing: I think this is beautiful.

—Derek Powazek, Why Everything Sucks, Why That’s Awesome, and How It’s Changing Us.

So this is it: iPhone 4.

People comparing lists of specs will say "most of these things have been done before and are not new on the market, why the fuss?"

Short answer: Because state of the art design and unparalleled experience are not specs on a list. They are the very soul at the center of the Apple device. Specs are secondary.

Very short answer: Welcome to the post-specs world.

Live coverage of Steve Jobs' keynote at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2010—Monday, June 7th, 10:00 AM in San Francisco (08:00 PM Bucharest time):

• Apple blog;
• Ars Technica;
• CNET;
• Crunch Gear;
• Engadget;
• Fortune Tech CNN
• GDGT;
• Gizmodo;
• Live Tech Events;
• Mac Life;
• Mac Observer;
• MacRumors;
• Macworld;
• SlashGear;
• Technologizer;
• Techztalk;
• Twit Live TV;
• Wired.

What's your favorite source?—leave a comment.

Adobe makes WIRED Reader Application public: Adobe Unveils Digital Viewer for Magazines.

This is kinda rudimentary right now, but could evolve into something great.

Well-Placed Pixels — a visual record of beautiful software.

Via DF.

They take something small, simple, and painstakingly well considered. They ruthlessly cut features to derive the absolute minimum core product they can start with. They polish those features to a shiny intensity.

—John Gruber, This is how Apple rolls.

Over those past five years, Microsoft’s stock has been largely stagnant: it’s up about 4%. Apple’s stock, meanwhile, is up some 550% over that same time frame.

MG Siegler, Boom, Indeed: Apple Passes Microsoft In Market Cap at TechCrunch.

They'll swap places back and forth for a while, but the trend is solid. Amazing.

You may know this already, but Ford had already given up acting after American Graffiti. He kept in touch with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola as a carpenter. He was working on a portico for Coppola's office when Lucas was casting Star Wars.

—Fred Topel, Harrison Ford FINALLY speaks out about Star Wars at Sci Fi Wire.

Even though I do not watch television shows, I must note that Teleenciclopedia — epitomizing the educative mission of a public television — turns 45 today.

One of the things that makes Apple unique is that it never holds focus groups. It doesn't ask people what they want; it tells them what they are going to want next.

—Lev Grossman, Do We Need the iPad? in Time Magazine.

Speaking about Avalanche, here is a fascinating piece on Conficker computer worm.

For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting…

—Mark Bowden, The Enemy Within at The Atlantic.

I'm relieved that the single country named in this one is not Romania.

Ovidiu Șimonca interviewed yours truly [article in Romanian] for Observator Cultural.

Hi, I'm Kit and I managed to stay clean for 4 years, from 2002 to 2006. In May 2006 I picked up the sickening habit again and I did it until December 2009, when I quit. I haven't watch TV at all in 2010 and I don't think I will very soon. Television is a drug. Thank you.

When Steve returned to Apple in 1997 he invited the executives of Adobe over and asked them to help him create a version of their video editing software for Mac. Even though it had been Steve and Apple that put the company on the map twenty years before, they now refused.

—Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business.

Before Flash, (and after PostScript,) this Apple–Adobe war happened before, over video editing software. Funny how things turn around.

Three years after launching Adobe, Steve Jobs created a partnership with the company that licensed its PostScript page description technology to drive Apple's new LaserWriter, with Apple also investing $2.5 million in Adobe for a 15% stake in the company.

—Daniel Eran Dilger, Adobe-Apple war on Flash reminiscent of PostScript struggle at AppleInsider.

Before Flash, this Apple–Adobe war happened before, over PostScript.

A new report blames a single Eastern European gang for about two-thirds of all phishing attempts conducted in the last half of 2009.

and

Researchers believe that Avalanche, like Rock Phish, is run out of an Eastern European country.

Guess the country. You have one try.

Could this passionate We ♥ Apple love declaration coming from Adobe be caused by the fact that the damn customers already decided to buy 85 million iPhones and iPods touch (and a million iPads in the first 28 days) sans Flash?

Update: Zeldman suggests a brilliant answer.

Directed by the French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, Logorama won the Oscar for the best Short Film (Animated).

After 5 years in the making.

Saul Leiter must be the last of pure breed bohemians. Watch his story at International Center of Photography's Lecture Series Online web site.

Cannot link to content — God, I hate how it so often happens that Flash web sites epitomize terrible usability! — you need to go to Video → 2009 → Leiter Saul: Life Lessons → press the red dot.

Thanks, Spo.

About The. Sneakiest. Design. Ever. at Graphicology. Indeed.

More: Tobacco Brands Under Fire at Brandchannel.

Update: And it's dead: Ferrari remove bar code livery from F1 cars.

This decision was taken in order to remove all speculation concerning the so-called "bar code" which was never intended to be associated to a tobacco brand.

Shameless.

Life must be experienced first, then designed.

—Frog Design's David Sherwin in Zen and the Art of Design.

Situation: Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish.

“Cash recycling,” “fried enema,” “Flagrant and Hot Marxism,” and “Urine District” — you'll get an idea watching A Sampling of Chinglish slideshow.

And since the critically-acclaimed series Mad Man runs on Romanian Public Television, here is Mad Men, Mad Props a classic piece by Mark Simonson on the props and typography used in the movie.

Also on the subject, Mad Men Gets All the Details Right—Except One by Andrew Hearst.

“This is Dubai” — a campaign intended to shift attention from Dubai's troubled economy toward Dubai's cosmopolitan mixture of cultures and unique opportunities, via testimonials. From Dubai's buildings to Dubai's people — a smart move.