August 2011
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U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T,... →
(Via Bloomberg)
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Be like Bill Nye, not like Isaac Asimov
Earlier today, William Gibson retweeted this into my feed:
This thinking was rampant in the Valley. It’s one of the few facets I don’t miss about the Bay Area.
Asimov crankily implies that the ‘ignorant’ view their ideas as ignorant. These people, he suggests, hold onto their beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary. Such a view, and shrugging off these people as...
iTunes Match Streams and Downloads Your Music →
At WWDC, iTunes Match was presented as a locker system where you download music, then listen. But with the developer launch yesterday, streaming has been added.
Plug in your iPhone and look at what’s taking up the bulk of your storage. A cheap, 8 GB iPhone is nearly a lock.
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“Coca-Cola’s marketing research department used its IBM 1401 computer to...”
– Coca-Cola initially refused to allow the name “Diet Coke” for fear that it would damage the brand. So they wrote a script. (Via Wikipedia)
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Types of People on the Street the Morning After...
Walking in the East Village, NoHo, and SoHo:
People with dogs
Tired parents with stroller aged children
Tourists shielding their maps from wind, reluctant to abandon the vacation
Hungover college bros in search of an open breakfast venue
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“El Niño, the cyclical warming of the equatorial Pacific ocean every few years,...”
– Financial Times
“You can now Ignore people who you have in your circles instead of blocking or...”
– Gizmodo on a new Google+ feature.
We can integrate computers into our lives, but can we integrate our lives into computers?
If Irene ends up being worse than anyone imagined and New York plunges into a swampy, Mad Max scene, at least we can laugh at the Burners who paid for the same privilege.
Contemporary hurricane checklists include offsite backup, Twitter follows, and cellphone battery packs. The lady at J&R said I was the 20th person to pick up a Mophie today.
“What is the one thing people will always need? It’s obvious: printers. Printers...”
– Tim Cook, according to The Onion
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“The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things if you look at it right.”
– Richard Feynman explains rubber bands. (Via Good)
“A recent study for America’s Social Science Research Council found that DVDs of...”
– The Economist partially attributes media piracy to cost.
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“We believe that we’re on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s...”
– Tim Cook, speaking on an Apple earning call in January, 2009, after Job’s last medical leave. (Via SplatF)
Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple →
Whoa. This has been the least quiet August I can recall.
Update: and he’s now Chairman of the Board.
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Scaling & Stability Concerns at Google Scale →
Include:
Thieves: People don’t only like to steal data, but sometimes the machines it’s stored in.
Drunken hunters: You know those large red balls placed on power lines so low-flying aircraft know they’re there? It turns out some hunters like to shoot at them, which isn’t good for keeping the power on.
Sharks: They’ve been known to bite the fiberoptic cables that traverse oceans.
(Via...
iPhone feature request: different unlock codes let you land at different, preset applications.
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On Professional Journalism →
Thinking of starting a collection of reporters awkwardly citing Twitter as they rush to publish. Here we see CNN:
Twitter traffic suggests the quake was felt all over the east coast.
In Philadelphia, HunterPence3 tweeted, “Wow Earthquake just shook the entire locker room!”
In Cleveland, “tribeinsider” wrote “I’m no expert but i think we just had an...
5.8 Earthquake in VA →
Going to see the Oakland A’s tonight and feeling earthquakes! It’s just like home!
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Fox’s 8-Day Delay on Hulu Triggers Piracy Surge →
TorrentFreak tracked the trend:
During the first 5 days, the number of downloads from the U.S. for the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen increased by 114% compared to the previous 3 episodes. For MasterChef the upturn was even higher with 189% more downloads from the U.S. For MasterChef; the extra high demand may in part have been facilitated by the fact that it was the season finale.
“Not even the actual news reporters want to cover campaign finance. We decided...”
– An anonymous Stephen Colbert staffer on Colbert’s Super PAC. (Via NYTimes.com)
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All Google+ Accounts Might be Eventually Verified →
Ars reports:
The company insists that every Google profile must bear the real name of the same person operating the account, an approach that Facebook expressed public support for recently. The verifications will only appear on the profiles of public figures, celebrities, and “people who have been added to a large number of circles,” said Wen-Ai Yu, a member of the Google team,...
Apple adds Earthquake Warning Alert to Japanese... →
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Perhaps The Problem with Rating Agencies is the...
In a recent issue, The Economist discussed the financial markets’ reliance on ratings agencies. In the piece they unpack the reasons for this reliance and the alternatives going forward.
Reading it spurred a thought: perhaps the issue lies not with the ratings agencies but with the concept of rating itself. Boiling down complexities to a single note is always perilous. In the best cases,...
“Is Warren Buffet a socialist??? You really have no fucking clue what socialism...”
– Jon Stewart responds to Fox’s “critique” of Warren Buffet.
Watch the whole thing. Stewart at his finest; Fox at their worst.
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“Nokia is exiting software business, Google is entering hardware business and HP...”
– Horace Dediu
Facts about Dueling →
Speaking of dueling, the Wikipedia page is fascinating:
“In 1808, two Frenchmen are said to have fought in balloons over Paris, each attempting to shoot and puncture the other’s balloon; one duelist is said to have been shot down and killed with his second.”
Many duels were prevented because the parties couldn’t agree on rules. “In the instance of Dr. Richard...
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“I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against...”
– Notch, creator of Minecraft, challenges Bethesda to a duel to settle a potential trademark issue. (Via Boing Boing)
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Loyal Customer Myopia
What happens when you’re obsessed with appeasing your current, insanely loyal customer base? You end up adding features requested by superusers and end up with this:
The Age of the $600 TiVo is Nearly Upon Us (via Gizmodo)
BlackBerry Bold-ly Gambles with High Cost Handsets (via GigaOm)
Who needs a TiVo with four HD tuners and storage for nearly two weeks of HD content? I’ll bet you...
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AT&T Prepares for the Post-SMS Future →
AT&T is responding to a BBM/iMessage/Facebook Messanger/Twitter world:
AT&T is going to make its new customers choose between unlimited SMS messages for $20 per month or metered SMS messages for $0.20 each, Engadget reports. In other words, it’s getting rid of any plans in between, such as $10 per month for 1,000 SMS messages. (It will have an unlimited-SMS family plan for $30 per...
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Vatican offers forgiveness for abortions...for six... →
motherjones:
Yeah, a diamond-studded tour of Spain would put us in a pretty accommodating mood, too.
God’s a stickler for the expiration data on the coupon.
Google’s Official Profanity API →
The most interesting aspect of Google Plus is the exercise of bucketing and prioritizing friends. This triage was the most introspective experience I’ve had on a social network. It was more like an experiential art piece concerning the digitization of relationships than a sign-in process.
I can’t believe that a network where you encounter such a stark experience upon joining will be...
“The British Government’s wariness of the Internet and Blackberry Messenger –...”
– Global Times, a Chinese state media website.
Thanks DC! (Via Zero Paid)
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“This is not a boring book. More to the point, it’s not even a book about Rick...”
– Ezra Klein on Rick Perry’s book. 