January 2011
73 posts
I’m grateful that photons don’t make a sound when they bounce off things.
December 2010
35 posts
The Passionate, Strategic Age | TightWind →
(via Instapaper)
The Unbearable Inevitability of Being Android,... →
Like Microsoft, Google doesn’t sell best-of-class user experiences to paying customers. It sells their eyeballs to advertisers. The more eyeballs, the better. The most, the best. If it can dominate a market and thus make its products and platforms inevitable, it wouldn’t even have to care about user experience at all.
“…a University of Kansas study, to be released today, will show that firms...”
– Return on Lobbying Investment: 22,000% - Sunlight Foundation
“According to the Sunlight Foundation, the average rate of return on Lobbying was...”
– Why don’t big companies innovate? - Quora
http://nyti.ms/hrQXiY →
I’m 100% sure there is a boilerplate “rare winter blizzard completely disrupts holiday travel” news story that gets updated every, oh I don’t know, YEAR when it happens! Why the fake tone of surprise?
Sort of hoping to have to put the chains on, and engage the 4WD on the way to our land Om Gaia at the Oregon coast. :)
Unexpected Cover Songs
I have something of a fascination with unexpectedly great covers. Here are some of my favorites:
Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
Roy Buchanan’s cover of Neil Young’s “Down by the River”
Bonnie “Prince” Billie plus Tortoise’s cover of Elton John’s “Daniel”
Gil Scott Heron’s cover of...
“Bradley’s gonna become a “spy” whose “espionage” consisted of making the...”
– Bruce Sterling’s thoughts on Wikileaks (via zachklein)
I accidentally made a culinary miracle for dinner: braised vegetables with dahl. The key was to carmelize the yams first, then add the remaining veggies.
slowly getting better at just making the damn judgement call, even if it’s the wrong one.
“Privacy for the people increases their power. It also increases liberty, because...”
– Schneier on Security: Recording the Police
Looking for the “Don’t Play Jandek Ever. Again.” button in Pandora. No luck so far.
Ron Burk: Cash Cow Disease: The Cognitive Decline... →
How did Microsoft manage to acquire a relatively hip and happening company like Danger and turn it into a complete flop of a product launch with the Kin? To oversimplify: by having all the money the world.
Yes! The best thing for Microsoft would be to split Windows and Office into a firewalled division that has no control of or contact with the rest of the company, let that division keep 20%...
Magnetic Yellow Card - cyclist-intervention -... →
Awesome subtlety!
Cool Tools: Split-Pea Lighter →
This is just too cool!
Schneier on Security: WikiLeaks →
Reeder →
The most fluid, beautiful RSS experience I’ve ever had, at least on my Mac. Haven’t tried the iPhone version.
NPL Literary Award » “Driving Myself to a Poetry... →
Just lovely.
Windows
I would gladly pay $5/month to have a private Windows VM hosted somewhere on the Internet.
“An empty Washington Monument would symbolize our lawmakers’ inability to...”
– Schneier on Security: Close the Washington Monument
Xbox-Modding Judge Berates Prosecution, Puts Trial... →
Impressive.
“More is not always better. In fact, more is almost never better.”
– Seth’s Blog: The inevitable decline due to clutter
“Lightnin’ change when Lightnin’ want to change.” - Lightnin’ Hopkins”
– How to Play Blues Like Lightnin’ Hopkins
Anderson Cooper humiliates a Texas birther →
Facts, logic, and reasonable discussion are hard for some people.
“Introverts are collectors of thoughts, and solitude is where the collection is...”
– Laurie Helgoe (via itookadeepbreath)
How our "security" obsession costs us - Salon.com →
This article sketches out how both sides of terrorism function, but it does not delve into the “why.” May I suggest that so-called terrorism is a department within the multinational business of war, and that very simply explains the “why” of the USA’s reaction to terror events. Every terror event creates a new or expanded market, and large companies, which have a sort...