The good, bad and ugly of the Steve Jobs reaction

Two days after the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, he is continuing to make the headlines as the tech world adjusts to life without his influence. Here are just a few of the happenings.

Staff at software and design firm Mint Digital created the above tribute using only parts from a MacBook Pro.

Investors seem happy with Apple’s post-Jobs corporate plan, or at least already adjusted to life after his retirement: the company’s stock price is barely unchanged since the news broke. That’s a big change to an incident in 2008 when a bogus news story claiming Jobs had suffered a heart attack saw Apple’s stock price slump more than five percent in 12 minutes. It appeared the incident was a misguided prank, though at one stage it was thought a fraudster might have used the story to short-sell stock and cash in.

Analysts are already turning their attention to Apple’s Jonathan Ive, the key physical designer of many of the company’s best-known products, suggesting he’s now become even more of a key asset.

Stephen Colbert covered Jobs’s death on his Comedy Central show in a rare example of the comedian breaking character, and truly outing himself as an Apple geek.

The Public Theater in New York has decided to go ahead with a previously-scheduled October 17 debut of “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, a one-man show that combines the Jobs’ life story with performer Mike Daisey’s experiences visiting Apple suppliers in China. Daisey told Reuters that after Jobs’ death, it was still appropriate to “decide what parts of his legacy we should embrace and what parts we need to reject.”

An authorized biography of Jobs has been brought forward from November 21 to October 24, while Bluewater Productions (which specializes in comic books based on real people’s lives) has already released an e-book version of a Jobs comic that had been scheduled for print release later in the month. It follows the surprising success of a similar title about Mark Zuckerburg,

A homophobic “church” which I won’t do the honor of naming has sought publicity by threatening to picket Jobs’ funeral. When called out for the irony of having announced this via the iPhone Twitter app, a spokeswoman claimed the device had in fact been created by God.

And finally, while there’s the inevitable barrage of offensive or inappropriate jokes about Jobs, I’d like to share a quick-witted post from a friend I follow on Twitter that did raise a smile:

RIP Steve Jobs. I hope you’re in heaven, and not in he’ll

Mindwave + Arduino = Mind-Controlled Car [Video]

B-Reel is not playing around, even though, technically, they are. The production company has rigged up one of those things we thought we’d have in the year 2000: mind-controlled toys.

Using a Mindwave headset for measuring brain activity, an Arduino unit and a Processing script, a team of developers managed to hack together what you see in the video below. To move the car, you concentrate, and the car stops when you lose concentration.

This Scalextric slot car setup is controlled by the wearer of the Mindwave headset, but it’s a little tricky. Apparently Eric here was the one guy at B-Reel could get it to work properly, but reading seems to help (as it always does, Geeks). Check it out in action:

If you want to put your own together, there’s a great write-up here from B-Reel’s UK creative director Riccardo Giraldi.

He-Man Hipsters [Picture Gallery]

They knew about the power of Grayskull before it was cool. All images by Fabian Ciraolo.

[retronaut]

The Ideal Geeky Tattoo [Picture]

Exactly how geeky are you? Here’s a quick test: Sexy Geek Jason Willmore (hi, Jason!) sent us a picture of his tattoo, which works as a sort of geekiness metric for people he meets.

I had a whole year in Iraq to come up with my ideal geek tat. The great thing is not only does it prove my geekiness, if someone knows who all the characters are it lets me know just how geeky they are.

Challenge accepted? Tell us which references you spot in Jason’s ink. :)

Is Barnes & Noble really pulling DC comics from their shelves?

You may have heard recently that DC Comics inked a deal with Amazon to bring 100 of its most popular graphic novel titles exclusively to Kindle Fire (it’s unclear at this point whether they will be available to other Kindle apps as well; at least one source suggest otherwise). These include books like Sandman, Watchmen, and a number of Batman titles.

Now Bleeding Cool News is reporting that Barnes & Noble is a little annoyed over this deal, considering DC’s previous reluctance to bring the titles to the Nook – so annoyed, in fact, that they sent emails to their stores telling employees to take DC titles off of the shelves. That’s right – no hard copies of Sandman at Barnes & Noble. Magically whisked away as if they’re not some of the bestselling graphic novels of all time. At least, this is what BCN is reporting.

So far there hasn’t been any announcement to this effect, just the rumor reported through BCN (apparently passed on by B&N employees), so I’m really hoping it’s not true. If it is, then it would be a huge mistake both in terms of business sense and PR. The issue aside of whether the exclusive deal was a good move on DC’s part either, that kind of reaction would come off as extremely petulant. And they may already have been alienating some customers this week by dropping the Blackberry platform for their e-reader.

So stayed tuned for more information… It seems far-fetched to me, but even as a rumor then some of the damage may have already been done, since Neil Gaiman tweeted about it this morning, and he has as much reach as most major news outlets.

Either way, what do you think of the DC exclusive deal with Kindle Fire? Would you be more inclined to purchase the platform if it turns out that you couldn’t read those titles on an iPad?

Image: Day 89/365 – Enter Sandman / Kevin Harber / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

91% of Employers Are Creeping Your Facebook Profile [Infographic]

Better get your privacy settings (or your public face) in check, Geeks. Turns out potential employers are using Facebook as an applicant screening tool more often than previously expected. The going rate for Facebook profile checking is about 76% of employers of the 91% of employers who do social media screens, which means pretty much anyone you’re going to try to work for.

About 48% of those same 91% of employers check your LinkedIn profile, by comparison, but if you’re posting inappropriate content there we can all assume you’re not really looking for a job.

So what do these results really tell us? From our perspective, there are three key takeaways:

Whether you like it or not, hirers are using social networks to screen job applicants. This means it is important to carefully manage your image on these types of sites.

Facebook and Twitter are being used a lot to screen job applicants. On Facebook and Twitter, we believe hirers are trying to get a more personal view of a candidate, rather than the resume-like view they will see on LinkedIn.

Hirers are looking at the social networking profiles of candidates very early in the process. This means that job seekers need to have their online act in order before they begin looking for a job.

[reppler]

DIY Hobbit Houses [Pics]

So you’ve always wanted to live like Frodo (minus that nasty ring business, probably), but you just weren’t sure how to make that happen. Turns out, it’s totally doable–move to Wales and get yourself one of these awesome low-impact greenhomes or get a little dirty and build one yourself.

If you’d like to actually build one, as this family has–twice!–you can check out their how-to on the Hobbit House site.