• Feel the fluffy pain. Yesterday was International Pillow Fight Day, and cities all over the world celebrated by throwing down-feather-filled projectiles at one another. We didn’t notice yesterday because we were busy obsessing over the iPad. Cute, violent and funny all the same. source

• 30+ people have been killed in the three in-tandem car bombings
• 200+ were wounded; the attacks were near embassies source

• Google faced a similar painful dilemma in China. With potentially billions of dollars at risk, it stuck to its principles, and The Times applauded editorially. I think Google set an example for everyone who believes in the free flow of information.
• New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt • Regarding Google’s China example for free speech and what that means for the Times and its Singapore interests. The company is considering leaving Singapore, where its International Herald Tribune has a major foothold, due to the government clamping down on their free speech. Why? The IHT dared call the current government a “dynasty.” Twelve years ago, the IHT agreed not to do that anymore, but broke their promise when they noted former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong in an article about dynasties. The Times won’t work that way anymore, kids – some are surprised the free-speech defenders did in the first place. source

• We love monuments just as much as the next guy. But for some reason, this pet project out of Senegal leaves us with a cold feeling. It screams, “look at us!” And well, it looks less like a statement of boldness and more like an illustration out of a comic book. We admit it: We’re not easily impressed anymore. They should consider putting an iPad in it. source

• Our take? It depends on the app. Right now, the iPad does three things really well. It allows you to surf the Web at nearly the same clip as a laptop, it rules at non-Flash video playback, and it allows you to read the news better than either a newspaper or Web browser. For a 1.0 product, this is polished. But we’re journalism nerds that read a lot of links, so let’s focus our appeal. How is reading and curating news on this thing, anyway? (Hint: Pretty good.)

First: What a good news app needs

• one A simple format that makes it easier, not harder, to read the news. It’s not a newspaper or a Web site; it’s a little of both
• two An easy way to share content – you should be able to copy quotes, tweet links, and e-mail articles to a friend (or yourself)
• three A solid offline reading mode – these apps need to be able to work without a wi-fi connection nearby; all of the apps had this

Second: The best news apps

• best The Reuters app is
  super-readable,
  easy to scan, and
  best-formatted for
  the iPad. It’s also
  the one that tried to
  look least like a
  newspaper.
• great The USA Today
  app has a mix of
  strong readability,
  easy organization,
  and smart uses of
  swiping. It’s nearly
  as good as the
  Reuters app.
• eh The New York
  Times app isn’t
  bad, but its body
  type isn’t on the grid. The Wall Street Journal app tends to overreact
  to tiny movements.
• wtf The Associated
  Press app went all
  scrapbook with
  their format, which
  is OK – for a
  scrapbook. For
  reading hard news,
  it’s very annoying.

Third: Twitter on the iPad

• 
  Best balance Twitterrific was designed for the iPad the way that one would expect someone to use an iPad Twitter app. The use of Twitter lists, for example, makes for great news-reading. Less is more in this case.
• 
  Most complex TweetDeck could stand to be a little less complicated right now. It loads too many windows at once and comes across as a bit bloated and overwhelming. A bit more interface furniture to clean up the look would help this greatly.
• 
  Best mashup As many people know, the EchoFon/Firefox setup is hard to top for reading linked tweets, and TweetBrowser goes a long way to replicate that on the iPad. Only issue: We wish we could hide the feed in the horizontal format.

• » One side note: Webkit’s skills at rendering the Twitter web apps are mostly pretty good. The web version of Hootsuite is actually better than the iPad-native version of TweetDeck on the iPad. Threadsy also works great, as does the Web version of Seesmic. You’ll have to use a two-finger swipe to navigate, though, which can be cumbersome.

Overall: What did we think?

• » What we like: It’s a good reading format, and Safari could handle nearly everything we threw at it (except the TinyMCE rich-text editor, which means it sucks for blogging because WordPress uses that). The format is awesome for video and music. Once Hulu and Spotify get apps on here, it’s seriously a one-stop shop. Also, being able to load articles on the device and take it on the wi-fi-less D.C. Metro was downright perfect.
• » What we don’t like: It can be hard to hold the device upright, especially if you’re not sitting at a table. It’s strange that Apple didn’t consider putting a kickstand on the back. The keyboard is usable but not heavy-duty. Apple should consider putting in (or allowing) additional keyboard setups that make it more usable for typing in HTML. Right now, it’s a serious chore.
• » What we want to see: Surprisingly, we don’t miss multitasking on the iPad – it actually wasn’t noticeable for most apps. But we think someone needs to create a single app that mixes social media, web browsing and blogging/word processing. TweetBrowser gets the first two down, but WordPress‘ app isn’t designed for this at all. We smell opportunity (eh, Tumblr?).

• OK, they aren’t exactly hip. Doesn’t matter. The Barenaked Ladies are a fascinating band to watch right now. After lead singer Steven Page (who sang, among other hits, “Brian Wilson”) was arrested on drug possession charges in 2008, the band quickly started falling apart, which led to Page’s departure last year. The band continued on as a four-piece and just released a new album, “All in Good Time.” So what comes next for them, and other bands in their spot? We examine.

• 1. Well, this doesn’t sound like the cheeky band that did rapid-fire hit “One Week” 12 years ago. The Barenaked Ladies sound like weary warriors, trying to get past the one truly controversial moment of their career. It’s traditional pop-rock, but not without bite.
• 2. The Pixies: Greatest band of the last 25 years probably, right? Well, yeah, but one thing evaded them while they were together – an inescapable hit. Fortunately for Kim Deal, she had another highly-regarded band with her sister Kelley Deal, The Breeders, and they had a major hit right away with “Cannonball.” Frank Black probably wished he had a hit of this caliber after the break-up.
• 3. Maybe Gorillaz is a better fit for Damon Albarn. After a falling out with Graham Coxon, Blur’s lead singer had to take the lead on the band’s “Think Tank,” an album which notably got a 9.0 on Pitchfork, a C+ in Entertainment Weekly and 2 stars on Allmusic. Albarn hasn’t made another Blur album since, with or without Coxon.
• 4. At the Drive-in were looking like the great punk heroes of the last decade when, all of a sudden, they split. The love child from this divorce? The Mars Volta, a band which took the crazy, interesting parts of the band’s sound and held on tight. Oh, and Sparta. But nobody remembers Sparta.
• 5. Jay Farrar’s career didn’t exactly live up to that of Jeff Tweedy’s, but the breakup of Uncle Tupelo sixteen years ago was a huge blow to the alt-country scene. Wilco’s first album, “A.M.,” was a lot of going through the motions, but Farrar’s band Son Volt hit it out of the park with “Trace,” a true classic which they never replicated. Wilco is now a stadium act.

• 300 atheists in a hotel gather
  to … just hang out source

• I do have to fish or cut bait, just for my own personal peace of mind and also in fairness to the process. The president and the Senate need plenty of time to fill a vacancy.
• Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens • Regarding his pending decision on whether or not to stay a justice. Dude’s not only the most liberal justice (despite getting the nod from president Gerald Ford), but at 89 (90 on April 20) he’s also the second-oldest and fourth-longest-serving in the court’s history. Obama likely wants to replace him soon because he represents one of the four liberal-leaning votes on the court, and he doesn’t have many years left in him. source