March 2011
Remember when we said ‘reuse’ instead of ‘upcycle’?
February 2011
“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again...”
– Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Via The Atlantic Wire)
“George Washington did not have wooden teeth. According to a study of...”
– From Wikipedia’s list of common misconceptions.
“It’s sobering. We’ve done a lot of serious reporting on many serious...”
– Ira Glass (Via NYT)
“I sent a grand total of two e-mails as president. One to our troops in the...”
– Fmr President Bill Clinton, in a talk about the role of technology as an agent for change. (via officialssay)
Apple Has Locked Up 60% Of The Touch Panel Supply →
In short, there will be more $800 Android tablets.
Rick Santorum's Google Results are Ruining his... →
Savage, who is gay, set out to ridicule Santorum by creating a new word, “santorum,” to be given a prurient definition by submissions and a final poll among his readers. We will not print out exactly what “santorum” is on this site, but a reader can find it very easily through a Google search.
“Nearly 20 percent of the nonhuman genomes held in computer databases are...”
– Surprises are in store for future clones. (Via NYTimes.com)
1 tag
“Digital cameras produce a reassuringly retro but artificial shutter snap when...”
– Joshua Brustein considers the Kindle’s ‘pages.’
Last week I was discussing how these cues from past functions aren’t useless at all: they provide context for us to understand something completely new.
The iPod is a great example of this technique. Prior to it, MP3 players...
Arcade Fire winning the Grammys is an offering to the omnipresent force of digitally connected youths. Yemen and Bahrain hope it soothes the beast.
Stuxnet has been decompiled and posted at github →
Egypt's Military, Inc. →
Essential listening given today’s news. From the always excellent Planet Money podcast.
“The Administration believes that we must continue to take the necessary steps to...”
– Today’s housing finance report from the Obama administration. (Via Planet Money)
“After she was accepted to Berkeley in 2006, Elaine Davis of Utah tried hard to...”
– The NYTimes has a trend piece on students getting married to save on tuition.
The VipRiser →
The VipRiser is extensible virtual PDF printer for OS X, with abilities to send output directly to your iPad for easy reading, letting others annotate it online using the CrocoDoc or share the file with others using the DropBox account, all built-in.
VipRiser combined with GoodReader’s new DropBox support is a godsend.
“There is something rather awe-inspiring about the idea of two great beasts from...”
– BBC business editor Robert Peston wins the 2011 Microsoft/Nokia Metaphor Cup. (Via BBC)
The MPAA Catches Google Employees Downloading The... →
Threatens to shut off their internet.
The Complete Oral History of Party Down →
Instapaper Blog: Full API now available →
instapaper:
The full Instapaper API is now available for developers. See the Full API documentation to get started.
I’ve made an unusual decision for it that I’d like to explain. I was reluctant to make a full API before now for a few reasons:
So excited. Have more than a few ideas for this I’ve had to set aside. Can’t wait to start testing.
1 tag
“The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that...”
– Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, in a memo to company employees today.
I’m a huge fan of this: Nokia has always invested in R&D and cherished design (at least internally), but it’s taken 5 years for someone to call out Symbian inside their walls. I hope this memo heralds some bold decisions...
“There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop. Thank you for your...”
– Detroit Mayor Dave Bing
Someday I’m going to earn a reward from a crime hotline so I have something to put in that box on my tax forms.
“With the growing popularity of cat art and the consequent rapid rise in prices...”
– HOW TO DEAL WITH FAKE CAT ART
Complete with handy test to see if you can spot fakes! (via lifeaquatic)
1 tag
“Defining the town center of Râmnicu Vâlcea is a towering shopping mall that...”
– Wired reports on How a Remote Town in Romania Has Become Cybercrime Central
Instead of Playing Music, Yo La Tengo Performs an... →
The band then left for a minute and came back on stage with scripts in hand and acted out the entire “Chinese Restaurant” episode of Seinfeld — all 22 minutes of it. Ira was Jerry, Georgia was Elaine and James was George. The stagehands did the other characters.
It was nuts. The crowd was largely with it for about 8 or 9 minutes, but at some point they realized that they were going...
Every meal that isn’t a burrito is a foolish waste of my waning time in Northern California.
“Everyone ordered, and the food arrived. Their No. 1 status seemed to hover over...”
– John Seabrook, in his Talk of the Town piece on the Decemberists and their #1 album. (Via The New Yorker)
Motorola Xoom Will Cost $800 →
And I’ll keep focusing on iOS.
“At the heart if it all is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future.”
– Paul Mason lists 20 reasons why revolutions are kicking off all at once. Read the whole thing. It’s brilliant.
Google Tried To Buy Path For $100+ Million. Path... →
Wow. Crazy offer, crazy rebuff. Dave Morin must really not want to work at Google.
Google was particularly interested in Path, we’ve heard from multiple sources, because they loved the team, particularly the team’s “design skills,” and were very enthusiastic to get a prominent ex-Facebooker, Morin, at Google. They hoped it might help Google recruit more Facebook employees over time.
Google:...
Top 3 Searched Terms on WebMD in 2010 →
Pain relievers
Anti-depressants
High blood pressure medication
(Via Pew)
How is Bing ‘stealing’ Google search data any different than Google News?
Side question: did Google actually think this would be a PR coup? That people care how their search results are obtained?
“These sites festooned with social media buttons—they look like primitive...”
– Nick Denton on Gawker Redesign: Only Facebook Matters.
“It’s like research. Google all day. iTunes all day. Man, it took all of spring...”
– Torii Hunter on picking at-bat music. He also teamed up with Ludacris to find music that would help introduce inner-city youths to baseball. (Via Old Time Family Baseball)
“When the unfortunately named rapeseed oil had trouble competing with products...”
– From Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. (Via Marginal Revolution)
