March 2012
47 posts
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“There isn’t room for every college undergrad to drop out and start a new...”
– Dave Winer
February 2012
53 posts
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The Multi-Touch Chinese Finger Trap →
Ari considers the moral implications of buying phones, tablets, and computers that were made in China almost certainly in factories which place their workers in hazardous conditions or even life-threatening conditions:
Like many happy Apple customers, though, I’ve been forced to consider the very unhappy conditions under which these gadgets – and others like them – are produced. How should...
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TEK →
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IV V II III VI →
I’m sold. It makes so much sense.
Link via MR.
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“Not every player has to inspire a Hall of Fame discussion garner career...”
– Joe Sheehan
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“The Little Boy Who Cried ‘Don’t Be Evil.’”
– John Gruber on Google (in regards to Nick Bilton’s Disruptions: Growing Too Big for a Conscience)
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“I consider it a fundamental freedom of the computer user that he be able to take...”
– Pierre Lebeaupin (via Michael Tsai)
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The Age of Feudal Security →
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“But Santorum’s notion that career advancement in manufacturing is possible...”
– Dan Drezner
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Dropbox Is a Feature →
Farhad Manjoo argues that Dropbox is a Feature, not a product (via Mets Fan #1).
Sync is certainly crucial as a feature for modern computing. And so he’s probably right if you think that in the future everyone will choose a single vendor for all of their computing needs be that all Apple or all Google or all Microsoft. Sync will really just be a feature.
And Manjoo is probably wrong if...
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“It doesn’t matter. We’re not here to drink; we’re here to play baseball. This...”
– David Ortiz on Bobby Valentine’s booze ban
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“Infrequent busts and even more infrequent successful appeals — This seems...”
– Rob Neyer on Ryan Braun and MLB’s drug policy
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Our Hopeless Intellectual Property Laws →
Shepard Fairey is facing jail time for his behavior defending himself from the Associated Press over the Obama “Hope” poster.
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A Preference for Type II Errors →
Tar Heel Political Scientist Jason Roberts on Type I and Type II Errors in the Ryan Braun case.
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In Defense of Government →
Paul Begala:
Some of this country’s bravest and best work for the government. Yet in the GOP debate at the Reagan Library, Perry simultaneously praised the Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden and claimed government doesn’t create jobs. Precisely whom does he think those SEALs work for? Enron?
This is old. I guess it sat in drafts for a while. I meant to connect it to something Ari wrote about...
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Lighthouses, Autopsies, and the Federal Budget →
Planet Money made a nice podcast about public goods. I don’t really like the normative frame that comes close to implying that government should be responsible for the provision of only and all public goods. But it’s still a nice little episode with their usual humor.
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“Every time I hear someone on a podcast say that RSS is dead I can’t help but...”
– Brent Simmons
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Metaservices →
I’ve been recommending the web service If This Then That a bunch lately, but I haven’t really started using too much myself. Still, I hope that the future — like the past — allows for us to take small tools and join them together to make something that the creators of the tools never envisioned. If This Then That and other metaservices described by John Battelle hold out...
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Ambition Vs Celebrity →
Conor Friedersdorf is worried about the effects that Fox News and the riches of reality TV shows are having on the ambitions of U.S. politicians (via Brendan Nyhan).
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Apple & Bloggerdom →
Apple knows how to capture our attention. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that Apple does this with an understanding our new media environment better than most companies in that treat both employees of major media outlets and so-called bloggers with respect.
Listen also to The Talk Show episode #79: 8:31 AM.
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“[T]he iPhone came. There was no Office. People got things done. Then the iPad...”
– Patrick Rhone relays the wisdom of his wife on Microsoft (via DF)
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In Defense of the Public Library →
We (and by we I mean I) don’t spend enough time appreciating that the public library has become one of the only institutions we have attempting to bridge the inequality of the digitial divide (via Matt Haughey).
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“The Modern Lovers is modern in the sense of being continuously modern, of having...”
– Keith Gessen on the Modern Lovers and Jonathan Richman
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Is the Best Part of Kansas in the Public Domain? →
Warner Bros says “no.”
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“So, in 2011, there was no government shutdown, no default on the debt, and no...”
– Ezra Klein argues Obama won 2011
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It Won't Ever Be the Same →
Rob Neyer on the retirement of Tim Wakefield:
I have felt an affection for Wakefield that I might feel for John Cusack if he’d invited me to the set of Eight Men Out and introduced me to all the guys, maybe had a game of catch with those old-timey baseball gloves.
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“I’m also sad to note that amongst the new slate of editors, you won’t find...”
– Ari Kohen hasn’t sold out but has accepted some of the editorial power of Tumblr’s politics tag
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Well Done, Wake →
See also some photos.
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“Amateur hour is over. The choice of a president is simply too important to put...”
– Richard Hasen on caucuses as part of the presidential nomination process (via Taegan Goddard)
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“If I link to [an academic] paper on Marginal Revolution, it gets the authors...”
– Tyler Cowen
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Mtn Leo →
David Pogue:
Over all, Mountain Lion shows that Apple is continuing to unify its ecosystem — to bring the same apps, interfaces and data to all Apple gadgets. It’s a calculated, evilly smart way to make staying within the Apple family even more desirable, comfortable and useful. All your data is waiting for you in identical format and placement on every Apple gadget. All of its operating...
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“He just did it. He always put music first. If that’s what it’s...”
– Justin Vernon on Neil Young as inspiration for Bon Iver
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“[I]t’s an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his...”
– David Brooks on Newt Gingrich
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White Headphones →
Rob Walker writing for the New York Times Magazine in 2003:
… I made a jokey observation [to Steve Jobs] that before long somebody would probably start making white headphones so that people carrying knockoffs and tape players could fool the world into thinking they had trendy iPods.
Jobs shook his head. ”But then you meet the girl, and she says, ‘Let me see what’s on your iPod.’...
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“People complain about the cost of software, then act surprised when companies...”
– Marco Tabini (via David Chartier and Watts Martin)
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On Gamification →
Faruk Ateş:
Most gamification sucks because it breaks down our humanity like it is no more than a computer program that needs to be understood and then rewritten for maximum reward—reward for the company behind it, rather than for the player. That’s how gamification is disrespectful: because it no longer treats us like people.
Via Brent Simmons
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“The white working class has not, as a whole, become more Republican. Full stop.”
– John Sides trying to stab-out zombie misconceptions of American politics
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The Internal Contradictions of Mitt Romney →
As documented by Paul Krugman (via MR).
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“The liberation of American women also damaged the quality of public education,...”
– Tyler Cowen
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Melissa Harris-Perry goes to Rockefeller Center →
Duke-trained political scientist makes good (via the Monkey Cage):
Ms. Harris-Perry will be the only tenured professor in the United States — and one of a very small number of African-American women — who serves as a cable news host…. In an interview that day, she recounted numerous times when she had watched political strategists on TV and wondered why political scientists had not been booked...
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Independent Businesses →
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Setting Up Mac OS X →
It was time for a periodic update to my setting up a Mac post.
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“There are only two ways to write AppleScript code: 1. Copy someone else’s and...”
– Dr. Drang
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“Text is an amazingly versatile medium. Relative to other media, text has very...”
– Marco Arment in an interview at 512 Pixels
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It Gets Better, Corporate Edition →
Frank Bruni on corporate America’s sensitivity to public opinion on gay rights:
In addition to Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon spoke up for same-sex marriage. All have surely taken note of several polls over the last year suggesting - for the first time - that a slight majority of Americans supports it. All have no doubt taken even greater note of a generational divide. In a Gallup poll,...
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“I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a...”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Pop and Circumstance →
James C. Mckinley Jr., for the New York Times:
Let’s say you’re a Republican running for president.
You’re looking for a rousing pop anthem to pump up your troops and underscore your message. There’s plenty of music out there, but you have a problem: most of the pop stars, it seems, prefer Democrats.
Perhaps a market failure?
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Paying Customers →
Marco Arment (developer of the much beloved iOS app Instapaper and co-host of the 5by5 podcast Build and Analyze) discussed his business model on NPR’s Planet Money:
Apple already had everyone’s billing information from iTunes … you could buy things just by typing in your password … That, for the first time, brought very, very easy payment to the modern software world....