No sense of humour at all – "Personally, I'd love to see the Pope in a debate on abortion, where he would actually have to address difficult questions and defend his own ideas. Best idea yet would be a debate on various controversial topics, like birth control, abortion, the role of women in the church, and homosexuality…with the Pope on one side, and Stephen Fry on the other. It could be perfectly respectful, and it would be hilarious."
Do liberals read only liberal blogs? – The dangers of the "long tail…" I deliberately go read Daily Mail headlines on a regular basis just to check that I'm sane. The moment I start to agree, please shoot me.
Why Creativity Needs Shorter Copyright Terms – The subject line says it all. The "creative" industries have done a good job of convincing politicians that longer copyrights are better, but they're only better for those middle-men…
Giant ring detected around Saturn – "The scale of the new ring feature is astonishing. Nothing like it has been seen elsewhere in the Solar System."
I don’t go to restaurants to tell the truth – "Tips are embarrassing and stupid – they're vestigial haggling in a society that has otherwise moved on. If you're going to a restaurant to be served and eat a meal, why is the price of the delivery open to negotiation but not that of the food itself, the ambience, music, heating or use of the furniture? All of these things can disappoint or delight. It's illogical to fix the price of one element but not the others."
Galileo’s telescope reaches 400th anniversary – "Exactly 400 years ago today, on 25 August 1609, the Italian astronomer and philosopher Galilei Galileo showed Venetian merchants his new creation, a telescope – the instrument that was to bring him both scientific immortality and, more immediately, a whole lot of trouble."
Creationists, now they’re coming for your children – "The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it."
Microsoft's Long, Slow Decline – "The evidence is staring Microsoft’s leadership in the face that they have lost the most lucrative segment of the market, but, judged by their actions and public remarks, they seem to think it’s all a big joke. They should be sweating this but they’re laughing it off."
Year two – Nice analysis of where the App Store need to change in order to keep both customers and developers happy.
Let's all take a deep breath and get some perspective – "[Google are] starting to look like the new Scott McNealy. Remember him? Ran a company called Sun, which had a great little business going until McNealy became obsessed with Gates and started doing things like paying millions of dollars to buy StarOffice so he could get into that booming free software business."
Market Yourself An iParadigm – "The part I love the most is that the people making the 'just market your app!' comment have no real idea how much effective marketing costs. Oh sure, you can go far on viral and word-of-mouth marketing, but it all pales in comparison to even a small banner graphic in the App Store." Making your application visible is hard.
Robbery suspect left his address – "Chicago police have arrested a man who allegedly robbed a bank using a threatening note written on the back of his own pay cheque." Brilliant.
Reliving Cuba's revolution – Interesting to see this on "film." They wouldn't let us take cameras up there when I visited in 2004. (Plenty of other pictures of Cuba on ZX81.org.uk though!)
What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting – "Once one understands that a text message travels wirelessly as a stowaway within a control channel, one sees the carriers’ pricing plans in an entirely new light." I worked on text messaging software back in the late nineties and, at least for GSM, is absolutely true.
Internet sites could be given 'cinema-style age ratings', Culture Secretary says – "Giving film-style ratings to individual websites is one of the options being considered, [Andy Burnham, British Culture Secretary confirms]." The government still seems not to understand how the internet works. If implemented, this will basically result in a system that's easy to circumvent and is paid for with higher ISP connection fees. We all lose.
Happy Birthday Earthrise – "Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Isn't that something…" Still very much awe-inspiring even forty years later.
Fearless: Apple's Macworld Expo exit is part of its DNA – "In Apple's estimation, the best time to kill off a successful product or brand is 'as soon as possible.' Dropping a winner means creating a new winner to replace it, and that's exactly what Apple has decided it must do to be successful: create great new products again and again."
