From an interesting contrarian rant by Astro Teller (head of Google X) and Mrs Teller. Both authors are, I believe, the grandchildren of Nobel laureates. Not sure what difference that makes.

The origins of the parenthood religion are obscure, but one of its first manifestations may have been the “baby on board” placards that became popular in the mid-1980s. Nobody would have placed such a sign on a car if it were not already understood by society that the life of a human achieves its peak value at birth and declines thereafter. A toddler is almost as precious as a baby, but a teenager less so, and by the time that baby turns fifty, it seems that nobody cares much anymore if someone crashes into her car. You don’t see a lot of vehicles with placards that read, “Middle-aged accountant on board.”

On this day in 1982 the first commercial CD players appeared in UK stores.

Historic day, eh? The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Golf’s governing body, votes today on the thorny issue of whether to admit women as members.

Oh, and the people of Scotland also vote on whether they want to be independent or not.

(Which makes one wonder what will the “United Kingdom” be called if they vote “yes”. The two candidates I’ve heard so far are fUK — “former UK” — and UK-lite).

UPDATES

1. The R&A decided to admit women members.
2. The Scots decided that it was still the UK, not the fUK.

… even in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Photograph by Douglas McArthur.

Terrific video I haven’t seen before. Thanks to Dave Winer for the link.

Now that Mark Zuckerberg’s company is worth more than $200 billion — $201.55 billion at the time of this writing … my favorite comparison — now making the rounds on Twitter — is with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crown jewels, oil producer Rosneft, natural gas monopoly Gazprom and state-owned lender Sberbank. Their combined market cap is $202.3 billion, meaning that Russia’s vaunted energy wealth plus its financial power is worth about as much as a company with 7,000 employees that had just $7.8 billion in sales last year, compared with Gazprom’s $165 billion.

Source

An asteroid just missed Earth. The rock known as Pitbull is 60 feet in diameter—similar to the asteroid that blew up over Russia last year. It was 25,000 miles (40,000 km) away at its closest point, or just beyond the orbit of geostationary satellites.

From Quartz

One of the difficult balancing acts involved in writing about digital technology is how to keep up with it without drinking its Kool-Aid. In that context, I’ve just come on an observation that Walter Benjamin once made about being a critic.

“Criticism is a matter of correct distancing. It was at home in a world where perspectives and prospects counted and where it was still possible to adopt a standpoint. Now things press too urgently on human society.”

He wrote that in 1928. So maybe nothing changes.

Bill Stickers is innocent. (Old joke.)