“Please switch off that book, Sir. We’re preparing to land.”
Ryanair stewardess to blogger (me) peacefully reading Miriam Gross’s memoir, An Almost English Life: Literary, and not so literary recollections
Quote of the Day
“I’ll believe corporations are
peoplepersons when Texas executes one”.
Protest placard quoted by Larry Lessig in his Graduation Address to John Marshall Law School.
Keyboard on a keyring?
Hmmm… I’d need to see some reviews first. $99 from Brookstone.
The next phase (and the threat to Apple and Google)
From Business Insider.
There are two major trends that will dictate the future of the tech industry.By the end of this decade more people will be using the Internet through a mobile device than through their desktop.The Internet is becoming Chinese. Already, there are more Internet users in China than there are in any other country in the world. That lead will only grow. Research firm IDC says China’s market already accounts for 25 percent of the world’s smartphone sales, more than the US’s 17.5 percent.These trends combine to create an obvious reality: Any company that wants to control the future must have a firm grasp on the smartphone market in China.
The Dome
What’s a lawyer for?
Terrific address by Larry Lessig to the graduation class at John Marshall Law School. It’s about what’s happened to the practice of law in America. Vintage Lessig: witty, thoughtful, moving. Inspiring, even. Best lecture I’ve seen in ages.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and watch it.
Nipplegate
It seems that the New Yorker got temporarily banned from Facebook for violating their community standards on “Nudity and Sex,” by posting a Mick Stevens cartoon showing a post-coital Adam and Eve. Here’s a snapshot of the relevant section of the aforementioned guidelines:
Reassuring to know that male nipples are ok, isn’t it?
The open road
Broken Windows and the iPhone 5
It’s not every day when one finds Paul Krugman writing about technology, but here he is today on the strange theory that the iPhone 5 (out tomorrow, for those who have been vacationing on Mars) might give a boost to the US economy:
I can’t judge how plausible the sales estimates are; but it’s worth pointing out how the economic logic of this suggestion relates to the larger picture.
The key point is that the optimism about the iPhone’s effects has nothing (or at any rate not much) to do with the presumed quality of the phone, and the ways in which it might make us happier or more productive. Instead, the immediate gains would come from the way the new phone would get people to junk their old phones and replace them.
In other words, if you believe that the iPhone really might give the economy a big boost, you have — whether you realize it or not — bought into a version of the “broken windows” theory, in which destroying some capital can actually be a good thing under depression conditions.
Of course, it’s nice that the reason we’re junking old capital is to make room for something better, not just for the hell of it. But you know what would also be nice? Building useful stuff like infrastructure employing labor and cash that would otherwise sit idle.
The Gold Coast
Well, it is if you consider the wines it produces: Beaune, Gevrey-Chambertin, Puligny-Montrachet, etc.