Gmail’s logo (Google):

Dennis Hwang spent the day before the launch coming up with ideas for a logo and trying to make it work in conjunction with the clown-colored Google brand.
…
The logo was designed literally the night before the product launched. We were up very late and Sergey and I went down to his cube to watch him make it.

Scott Forstall’s loupe (Apple):

Apple also places an unusual emphasis on interface design. It sweats the cosmetic details that don’t seem very important until you really sweat them. “I actually have a photographer’s loupe that I use to make sure every pixel is right,” says Scott Forstall, Apple’s vice president of Platform Experience. “We will argue over literally a single pixel.”

Attention to Detail is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.

Here’s my tech prediction for 2012: Apple will not release a product called “iPhone 5.”

Why not? Look at the names of the previous iPhones:

1. iPhone (2007)
2. iPhone 3G (2008)
3. iPhone 3GS (2009)
4. iPhone 4 (2010)
5. iPhone 4S (2011)

Notice anything? How about that only a single time has the new iPhone’s name reflected its number in the product series?

Assuming that Apple does release a new iPhone (all signs indicate that this will happen, whether around June, as in 2007-2010, or in September-October, as in 2011), and assuming it’s numbered, it’s going to be the iPhone 6. Another equally likely name would be the iPhone 4G. Of course, that would depends on Apple getting 4G into the iPhone, which they definitely won’t do without some huge improvements to battery life.

So there will not be an iPhone 5.

Prediction: There Will Be No iPhone 5 is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.

Have you ever been in a hot tub that wasn’t hot?

I have. It was not fun.

Cold Tub is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.

My dog Sharav plays with an old rope toy in our new San Francisco apartment.

Now I’m happy to announce that, in the spirit of internet giant Matt Mullenweg, I’ve moved to San Francisco. I have a sweet apartment in an very urban neighborhood, enough space for me and my dog and whichever friends and family would like to visit. Please take note: as in New York and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, my home is open for guests!

San Francisco is a new path for me in many ways. Until two months ago, I’d not ever been west of the Mississippi River. Now I’ve been to the Bay area a bunch of times, on each flight straining my neck to see as much as possible through the plane windows. It might take a while before I feel like I belong here, but I’m hoping the locals will be gracious in correcting my pronunciation of deceptively non-Spanish proper nouns and patient while I master the weird microclimates and the streets and the overlapping Muni/BART systems (so far, everyone has been stellar).

In preparation for my move, about which I’ve known for less than one month, I have done the following:

• watched the entire Real World Season Three, which was set in San Francisco and featured the great Puck vs. Pedro divide
• watched the movie The Rock, which starred Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage and which was set in Alcatraz and San Francisco
• contemplated watching the entire series of Full House, which was set in San Francisco
• reread the first 100 pages or so of Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was mostly set in the Bay area
• asked a bunch of people for recommendations about neighborhoods and things to do in San Francisco
• used the Facebook to discover who of my ~670 friends lives in the Bay area
• walked around a bit, taken the Muni to some places, and generally shown an interest in San Francisco current events
• continued eating San Francisco style burritos occasionally
• purchased a shower curtain that features a map of the San Francisco Bay area
• listened to a lot of Rancid and Operation Ivy

I’m going to be tackling some big challenges in the near future and I’m very excited to get started with them. I’m also excited to meet a lot of interesting new people, to explore a new city in a new coast in a whole new part of the world (for me), and to hear from everyone in Israel and New York and DC soon.

I live in San Francisco now is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.

Boutique medical practices are all the rage: a doctor gives up 90% of his patients to focus on the remaining 10%, who pay him an annual fee for dedicated, around-the-clock service whenever they need or desire it. The doctor probably works much less, has a steadier income, and gets to know all of his patients in much greater depth, which means he can provide dramatically better care. The patients probably pay a lot more, but that’s something they still have the option to do if they want to use more medical care.

I propose a similar model for a barber shop. Instead of paying $15 or $20, plus tip, every three weeks to the barber, and then putting off haircuts because waiting another week saves a little money, or because it’s a pain to sit there and wait in line, let a barber charge a fixed price for unlimited haircuts for one calendar year. Let him also guarantee that every one of his subscription customers will be served within 15 minutes of entering his shop. No tips, either.

I could see this service priced at around $500 or $750 per year. Right now I’m getting my hair cut every three weeks and spending $18, which comes to around $300 per year. So the barber would make a lot more money if I’d pay $500 for a year’s worth of haircuts. True, I might start going more frequently – like every two weeks, or even every ten days – but in that case, my haircuts would be much simpler touch-ups, and it would be closer to a four minute job instead of a 12 minute job. I’d be much happier that my hair would never appear overgrown. I’d be a more loyal customer. And I’d be locked into using this barber for my next dozen or so haircuts.

I think the barber should also sell an unlimited straight razor shave package. A shave takes a little more time and effort, so he could limit the time of day when the shaves are available to whatever hours are off-peak for haircuts (eg, weekday mornings). But of course he should do shaves for the dual haircut-shave subscribers whenever they come in.

Subscription Barber Shops is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.

I have a relatively new telephone number, so I wasn’t altogether surprised to receive a few text messages and phone calls intended for someone else; I filter them out with the Google Voice, so they haven’t bothered me.

But I was kind of startled and a bit depressed to receive this one:

You’ve heard of texting. You’ve heard – I’m embarrassed even to type this – of sexting. What this divorcée is doing is now called exting: using text messages to contact an ex about one’s divorce (or, even worse, to ask for a divorce via text message).

By the way, using the phone number, I was mostly able to piece together the breakup story. It’s sad. Any suggestions about how I can respond without seeming like a total jerk?

Exting: Divorce by Text Message is a post from Lines Writing Lines - Natan Gesher's Blog.