• Why are software development task estimations regularly off by a factor of 2-3? – Great answer. Very, very familiar…
• The Lego ZX81 – As per title. Very cool!
• Why I Hate Android – “When you think about it in the context of this election season we’re entering, it’s a brilliant political maneuver that Google has pulled off with Android. They’ve taken something they’ve done that’s actually bad for us and spun it in such a way that most people actually buy into it being good for us.”

Apparently the movie studios are placing further restrictions on rentals in order to promote the purchase of shiny disc. Marco Arment says this won’t work because:

If I’m adding a movie to my Netflix queue, I’ve already decided not to buy the DVD. I’m adding it because it looks mildly interesting and I’d like to watch it sometime.

I take the opposite approach. I am unlikely to buy a movie unless I have previously rented it. Why would I buy it if I don’t know whether or not I like it?

This weeks PhotoFriday is “Greenery.” Maybe it’s too obvious, but my first thoughts were about green, verdant forests with bubbling streams and soft light. I have a few of those in my library but in the end went with this one taken in Kamikochi, Japan.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Pristine.” I’m entry number 132.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Pristine,” is a word that I always associate with clean, white, untouched snow. I’ve only ever been skiing once and, since I spent most of my time falling down, I didn’t have my camera with me very much. So instead, I have the above image, taken near Lake Tahoe. The snow, despite it being July, is still pretty much untouched.

You’ve almost certainly seen that Wikipedia is kinda-sorta offline today protesting a proposed US law that would effectively give copyright holders the ability to blacklist pretty much any website without judicial review.

While rights holders do have legitimate concerns over people taking content without paying for it — I don’t like to call in piracy or theft — this really isn’t the answer. Wired sums it up nicely:

According to the tags in Flickr I have already used this picture for a PhotoFriday previously. Unfortunately I can’t think of a better one for this weeks theme, “Cloudy,” so you’re stuck with a repeat, I’m afraid.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Days End.” I’m entry number 159.

It seems that there’s a large variation in people’s experience with iCloud and iTunes Match, Apple’s recently introduced service for making your entire music collection available across all your devices. At the risk of making things worse — since I have nothing conclusive to add — I thought that I’d add my anecdote to the collection.

Like most software — and especially Apples — it works best when you work in a particular way. It’s often difficult to tell how close your expectations are to the real thing until after you’ve handed over your credit card. But what I will say is that iTunes Match works pretty well if you want to do what I do. So if you read nothing else in this post, you should look at the next few paragraphs.

• The Myth of Japan’s Failure – “Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.”
• Man Embraces Useless Machines, and Absurdity Ensues – Technology: making life simpler.
• Merry – Sat here with my newborn son and wife, with all my family staying nearby, this post rang bells. It’s sometimes important to realise what you have.

[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephendarlington/6653145361/ ““Hobgoblin” beer by stephendarlington, on Flickr”)

What better way to celebrate the end of a hard day than a relaxing glass of beer? Well, that’s what I think anyway, and so it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Day’s End.”

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Best of 2011.” I’m entry number 121.

I took a pretty literal interpretation of this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Best of 2011.” I guess I could have used something that signified highlights of the year on a global scale, say my exclusive and so far unreleased images of Osama bin Laden and Gaddafi, but, frankly, nothing better signifies 2011 to me than the birth of my son a few weeks ago.