April 2010
23 posts
1 tag
“This is what psychology and neuroscience tell us: the beauty and the rot is all...”
– Amy Hoy, Don’t listen to Le Corbusier—or Jakob Nielsen
1 tag
1 tag
“I’ve got a theory, and it’s this: Steve Jobs believes he’s...”
– Charlie Stross, in a must-read piece on the future of the personal computer industry: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash
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“I can’t wait for the iPad Shuffle. Who needs a screen?”
– zeptillian, in a comment on reddit
3 tags
“The problem with Christians is that they want to invoke the forgiving Jesus of...”
– Me
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I'm So Tired of the Alleged iPhone4.0 Story
Okay, I get it. Allegedly stupid dude at allegedly annoying blog allegedly fucks up big time and may be singing the felony blues someday soon. Shut up about it. Worse shit of vastly greater import happens every day.
The real reason so many people in the Apple-sphere are raging at Chen/Gizmodo is that they’re royally disappointed that he ruined the big iPhone 4.0 surprise. Santa...
“Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Facebook”
– Title to a blog post by Andrew Sullivan linking to Farhad Manjoo’s article on how Facebook is “co-opting the rest of the Web.”
“RICHARD NIXON: “Do you know what happened to the Romes, Romans? The last six...”
– http://www.csdp.org/research/nixonpot.txt ( as quoted by madregale).
That’s just awesome. And they say Nixon was, effectively, much more progressive than any contemporary right-winger (for instance, ever hear of the EPA?).
“A number of people linking here seem to think that I like Apple or forgive its...”
– Stanislav at Loper OS Blog, “Non-Apple’s Mistake.”
This article was linked by McGruber, so of course it saw a lot of traffic from people who assumed the author was a fellow-traveler in the world of Apple Apologia (Applogia?), and the author had to add this post-script disclaiming any...
“We told the R&D guys they could come up with anything they wanted, as long...”
– Merlin Mann, A new brown thing you’ll totally eat.
Such a brilliantly savage portrait of the despair of living middling lives in modern middle America.
“There should be a name for the feeling of a place after it is gone. It would be...”
– Settlement (via beenthinking and kathleenjoy)
And I struggle with the idea of a physical place transforming into an immediate personal experience, and then into a memory, and — as the place itself changes — only a memory, itself embroidered and colored and weathered by other...
“A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Communications found that men with...”
– Tom Bartlett, The Trustworthiness of Beards- The Chronicle of Higher Education.
And while we’re on this subject, I have a bridge to sell you…
“Edward Tenner sees the closed architecture of the new Apple to be unsurprising...”
– Andrew Sullivan quotes Edward Tenner who quotes Umberto Eco, The iReligious Wars.
I’m not at all sure what to make of this comparison. Does this mean that if I like Apple products, I have to be willing to look the other way while some number of its devotees are molested by Genius Bar...
Dear Tumblr,
Your recommend feature, while easy to use, is kind of off-putting.
The “fine print” at the bottom of the form is scary, and after reading it, I decided not to recommend a blog. The fine print reads (emphasis mine),
[Blog X] is written by (or for) [Audience] and I understand that if it blatantly isn’t, my account may be suspended.
I find and follow a lot of tumblr...
“I just turned 30 and decided that you are not officially “old” until you can...”
– Comment on reddit.com (via solipsism)
Well then, I’m officially “old.” I suppose you’re “old and wise” if you’re not really attracted to people half your age. So I’ve got wisdom, too, at least.
“In forming crinoid comparisons amongst these august worthies, our self-appointed...”
– Gilbert Alter-Gilbert, “Poets Ranked by Beard Weight”, ‘excerpting The Language of the Beard, originally circulated by The Torchbearer Society, London, 1913.’ H/t kottke.
It occurs to me that it seems an opportune moment to observe that I stand among august company. A...
“A few months ago, I heard suggestions that Apple had tentative plans to release...”
– MacGruber, “Reading Between the iPhone OS 4.0 Lines” [emphases mine].
That’s just as I feared, and wrote about more than once.
As the inventor of the Jesusphone himself announced at MacWorld 2007, Apple is no longer a computer company.
“Obviously this isn’t the way the web has worked for the last 16 years...”
– Pete Warden, PeteSearch: How I got sued by Facebook.
Short version: solo developer doing data analysis of social networking tools uses existing web search capabilities to gather six months of publicly-available Facebook profile data (who’s friends with whom, where they live, etc.) —...
“Anecdotal evidence! I hear you cry. Fear not, there is some peer-reviewed data...”
– Vaughan at Mind Hacks: The personality of the Messiah.
The good news? At least one group thinks that Jesus has the same Meyers-Briggs personality type as yours truly: INFP (aka Idealists/Healers). That’s got to give me some kind of inherent authority, doesn’t it?
Sam Harris and the Question of Objective Morality
I discovered the work of Sam Harris from Andrew Sullivan’s link to Harris’s TED talk, which argued that there can be — and is — an objective, evidence-and-logic basis for determining good moral systems. His talk includes the suggestion that we can, and should, empirically critique religious or cultural moral systems for their relative “rightness” in achieving...
“Do you have more e-mail addresses than pants? You’re a techie.”
– David Pogue in his Review of the iPad.
Oh gods, he found me out.
Pants I own: 7, maybe 8-10 if you count dressy stuff I never wear
Email addresses I have: 13 at least, though I don’t check them all regularly