What Giz is Thankful For:
Brian Lam:
• I am thankful for the software revolution in mobiles. That these little landfill-fillers can improve 100x by means of apps, social networks, the internet and new firmware.
• I am grateful I'm learning how to filter the internet. And a big part of that is news, but it's also telling trolls to fuck off or that they sound like the comic book guy from the Simpsons.
• Grateful that facebook makes staying in touch easier. Grateful for software that tells me where to eat, and where my friends are having a drink.
• Grateful for terrific cameras in cellphones.
• Grateful that apple makes most of my computing experience painless. Most of the time. Except iTunes.
• Grateful for Xbox.
• Grateful for Gmail.
• Grateful that almost everything is good enough, from Cameras to TVs.
• Grateful that Netflix exists.
• Grateful for a staff of writers that knows that tech is meaningless without the rest of life's basics.
• Grateful for my banhammer.
• Grateful for a station wagon that is swift, safe, comfortable and surefooted in terrible winter conditions.
• Grateful to still have my health.
• Grateful for the chance to hang out in New York and eat and drink and yet live in California.
• Grateful for a company that supports its writers and supports experimentation.
• Grateful for my iPhone, which I spend 24 hours a day with.
• Grateful for waterproof cameras.
• Grateful for avocados and pork belly.
• Grateful for dogs.
• Grateful for this old house.
• Grateful to live near the ocean.
Jason Chen:
• I'm thankful for the internet, and how it connects people.
Joe Brown:
• In-flight wifi (wish I had it today)
• That 500 horsepower is now commonplace
• That I get to play with toys for a living.
• The noises my TiVo makes. [bloop]
• GPS navigation in almost every gadget I own—because I inherited my dad's sense of direction.
• firing ranges
• dropbox EVERY DAY
• high modulus unidirectional carbon fiber—but only if you can't see it, because otherwise it's too braggy.
• Oh, I am also thankful for the program THINGS, without which I would never be able to handle this job. Seriously, it's the only way I get anything done on time.
Jesus Diaz:
• I'm thankful for the ability to delete mails without reading them.
• I'm very thankful for the iPad. I love to be on the sofa with it, reading a book or a comicbook while
listening to songs, watching Netflix with my big headphones on, using Aweditorium, flickering through Twitter, Facebook and Mail, playing games. It's the most pleasant computing experience I've ever had, very immersive, natural, comfy, and just relaxing to me. Unlike having to use a hot notebook with a keyboard in the middle in an awkward position, or focusing on a tiny screen. It's the tactile and immersive pleasure of using a book, but you can make the "book" do whatever the fuck you want. Oh, and I love that it has brought back the pleasure of flicking through old school 80s and 90s porn mags in PDF format.
• I'm thankful for big headphones. These Denon sound like heaven and I couldn't live without them when there's noise somewhere in the apartment or the street and I need to isolate myself to work or enjoy my "privacy".
• And also for Airplay.
Joel Johnson:
• That I was born into a species that uses copulation as entertainment.
Brian Barrett:
Tech:
• Netflix Watch Instantly, being able to tap into shows I'd always heard about but never gotten into actually watching (slings and arrows!).
• People who upload facebook photos. I always forget to take out a camera during important moments, or moments that don't seem important but end up being so. 80% of pictures I have of myself since college are ones people have tagged me in.
• Location-based apps that let me know how close I am to a great meal.
• iPhone battery case for sure.
• DVR for shows that aren't on hulu or netflix
• Free Wi-Fi wherever I can get it
Non-Tech
• My family
• Pork belly
• IPAs (Goose Island and Southampton, in particular)
• Cheese
• Tobias Wolff
• Having had the chance to perform in front of a couple hundred people every week for the last four years
• Airplanes
• Chocolate frosted donuts
• Baseball
Kat Hannaford:
• I'm thankful for Blu-ray boxsets, and how they help me unwind. Not to mention one-day film processing; Android's ease of use; how Twitter lets me stay in touch with people without having to actually email or talk to them, and how Skype makes me feel I'm right there in the room with my family and dog, despite being 9,000 miles away from them.
Jack Loftus:
• I am thankful for inexorable advance of modern medicine and technology. My dad is cancer-free today because of it and that tumor, which I worried privately about for so many months before his surgery, is now worthless medical waste.
• I am thankful for commercial- and DJ-free subscription-based music and radio—Sirius, Pandora or otherwise.
• I am thankful for Apple and its uncanny and undeniable ability to push the envelope in the areas of design, culture and usability. To be so loved and reviled at the same time is precisely where this company needs to be.
• I am glad Steve Jobs is an intelligent, cognizant asshole. Those people get things done.
• I am thankful for dogs and their perpetual superiority to cats.
• I am thankful for the Shigeru Miyamoto of the 1980s and 90s, but not so much now. He should probably retire.
• I am thankful for the period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.
• I am thankful that I can afford incredible whiskey.
• I am thankful for Google Reader.
• I am grateful for Audi
• I am thankful there are fewer Audi-driving assholes than BMW
• I am thankful for digital content of all kinds; for its ease of use and instant accessibility, and that "collecting physical things" is going away forever
• I am thankful for the inevitable death of wires.
• I am thankful for Carl Sagan, Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.
• I am thankful to be alive during one of the most amazing, tragic, wondrously limitless periods in human history; and I'm thankful to be surrounded by great friends, family and colleagues (your virtual email selves included) who are here to experience it all with me.
Christopher Mascari:
• ipad for allowing me to enjoy any type of media and stay connected no matter where my body is
• airplay for super easy music enjoyment
• new tech in snowboards that allow me hit anything and still be comfortable
• internet communications for keeping me close to friends I need even though I'm thousands of miles away
• iphone 4 for being my still camera, video camera, life partner
• Snow, treats, drinks and friends for altering my mind
• Amazon.com for making my french deodorant purchases possible in the States
• iphone back up battery pack (HyperMac nano) for keeping my shit powered
• Bose QC15 headphones for allowing me to fly comfortably, never fly without them
Rosa Golijan:
• While I appreciate all the technologies available to us, what I'm thankful for is the people I use them with.
Kyle VanHemert:
• Airport Express. Cheap wireless music is the best.
• Also thankful for good documentaries and to a lesser extent good infographics. My favorite kind of stuff.
Sam Biddle:
• I'm thankful for the fact that my 92 year old grandfather got to use FaceTime with me this year. The guy was an engineer during the Cold War, and I still don't think he ever expected something like that to occur in his lifetime.
• How incredibly easy and ubiquitous video chat is now. I have friends I miss a ton whose faces I might have forgotten by now if it weren't for the ability to use video with Gchat, Skype, iChat—whatever. And of course, always a hit with parents.
• Amazon Prime for making it a normal life event to order a 15 pack of deodorant off the internet.
• The internet itself, for shocking me, disgusting me, teaching me, and simultaneously destroying and reaffirming my faith in humanity every day. But at the very least, being interesting. And for making sure that when I'm having an insomniac moment, there's always at least ONE friend out there to talk to.
• Google Maps. I don't think I ever reflect sufficiently on how much having a map of the entire world in my pocket has changed my life. My friends and I can always find each other.
• Also thankful for OK Cupid for keeping me company in NY after my girlfriend and I broke up.
John Herman:
• Internet on my phone
• That I get to speak to gajillions of people, usually about nothing that matters and having done little to earn the privilege
• That a bunch of the people I am kept aware of all day through the internet are Real Actual Friends
• Having pretty much every type of food at my fingertips, available in any quantity. That's an absurd privilege in about three different ways
• This one lady!
• Seltzer
Christina Bonnington:
• Getting to live in the awesome city that is San Francisco, with my fiance, and my cat Leeloo (Dallas Multipass...)
• My iPhone 4/Google Maps/the surprisingly non-crappy AT&T reception in my area
• My new-found cooking skills
• All of the opportunities that have come my way
• Never having to take another engineering exam again
Nick Denton:
• Airport Express, totally — stream mood music like a playboy
• Practical environmentalism through Sodastream
• New friendships built — or reinforced — on Facebook
• Facetime: finally a natural phone conversation with my niece
• Next day's NYT as bedtime reading — on iPhone
• Stress-free music on Spotify
• Instapaper on iPad for long flights
• Looking up an address on Google Maps after getting into the cab
• Video Pano for group shots
• Dropbox: never having to worry about losing precious documents and photos
• Synced calendars — I don't miss appointments any more
• Text messages when I'm abroad — on Google Voice
Scott Kidder:
•I'm thankful for the fact that Sam Biddle is currently sitting on the lap of a Santa sent to our office by Microsoft.