From the 10 Downing Street Twitter feed:
PM and Premier Wen of China exchanged warm congratulations on the UK and China’s Olympic performances ahead of a bilateral meeting tonight.
Tag clouds: the silver lining
I love tag cloud generators. Wordle, created by Jonathan Feinberg, is the nicest I’ve come across. This is a cloud from some transcripts I’ve been doing for the just-launched Arcadia Fellowship Project, for which I’m Academic Adviser.
And you thought Cheney was scary?
Well, just watch this.
I’m tired of hearing people pay obesience to John McCain because of his, er, heroism. Whatever principles he once may have had have already been jettisoned in the interests of getting elected. Besides, a guy who could offer this religious crackpot to his country as a potential president needs to be certified, not elected.
Clay’s Must-Read list
While browsing I came on what his agent describes as Clay Shirky’s ‘Must Read’ list.
Rise of the Stupid Network, David Isenberg — Why the Internet works
End-to-End Arguments In System Design, J.H. Saltzer, D.P. Reed, and D.D. Clark — How to Design for the Internet
Worse is Better, Richard Gabriel — Why weak but flexible systems beat strong but inflexible ones
Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson — Group coordination costs as a key aspect of organization design.
Le G-phone est arrivé
Good Morning Silicon Valley is spot on. It’s not about phones, it’s about philosophies.
It comes down to closed vs. open. In political terms, the Apple environment is like Singapore, where some freedoms may be ceded in favor of providing a pleasant and orderly experience, and Google, with its Android platform, is like a loud and messy New England town meeting. Apple has one iPhone, a tightly controlled App Store for third-party programs, and a touchscreen design that favors consumption of iTunes entertainment. The G1 is but the first of many Android-based devices to come, all of which will be served by the wide-open Android Market, and its design, featuring a real keyboard, leans toward typing-oriented functions like mail, messaging and mobile search, not coincidentally all Google strong suits. If you’re already happy in the Apple ecosystem, or with an “it just works (most of the time)” approach to tech in general, and you’re in the smart-phone market, there’s probably not much that Android handset manufacturers can come up with that will tempt you away from the iPhone. If you’re already happy in the Google ecosystem, then the tight integration of Google applications and services and the breadth of third-party development possibilities will make an Android-based phone more appealing. At the core, the iPhone and the Android phones may not really be the direct competitors they’re made out to be, but rather comparable alternatives whose appeal depends mostly on whether your tastes and needs put you in the closed or open camp.
Walt Mossberg’s useful first impressions are here.
Meanwhile, Google has been posting demo videos like this on YouTube.
Hasselblad no Leica
Excuse the variation on the Dorothy Parker Walter Kerr joke*. Also, non-photographers and all readers infuriated by gadgeteering, please look away. Those of us who follow these things have been pondering the extent to which Leica seemed to have lost the plot. Its moves into digital cameras have been, to say the least, patchy. And its flagship M8 model was beginning to look a bit outmoded with the launch by Canon and Nikon of ‘full-frame’ (i.e. 24x36mm sensor) digital SLRs. My expectation was that we would soon see a full-frame M9 limping into sight.
But it now turns out that Leica was switching strategy and going for the very top end of the professional market — the folks who use Hasselblads for magazine and advertising work. Yesterday news leaked out of the Leica S2 series — a DSLR with a 37 megapixel sensor. That’s equivalent to the sensor in the Hasselblad HD3-II (£18,265.00 exc VAT to you, Sir).
Needless to say, there’s no pricing available yet for the new Leica product. But the old rule applies: if you have to ask the price then you can’t afford it.
*FOOTNOTE: Hmmm… I’d always been led to believe that “Me No Leica” was Parker’s verdict on the theatrical adaption of Isherwood’s I Am A Camera. But this source, among others, attributes it to Walter Kerr. Still, it was a good line, no matter who said it.
Please Hank, what do I say next?
One of the creepiest aspects of the Perfect Financial Storm is the way Dubya has been reduced to being a bit-player in his own Administration. It’s clear from the few public statements he’s made that he hasn’t a clue what’s going on and is reading from a script written for him by others.
Stanford everywhere
Good stuff here…
For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection is all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience.
This fall, SEE launches its programming by offering one of Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering…
Kodachrome: the end?
Yep. Looks like Kodak are phasing it out.
Only one commercial lab in the world, Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan., still develops Kodachrome, a once-ubiquitous brand that has freeze-framed the world in rich but authentic hues since it was introduced in the Great Depression.
Eastman Kodak Co. now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35 mm format, and production runs — in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls — fall at least a year apart.
Kodak won’t say when the last one occurred nor hint at Kodachrome’s prospects. Kodachrome stocks now on sale have a 2009 expiration date. If the machines aren’t fired up again, the company might sell out the remaining supplies, and that would be the end.
“It’s a low-volume product; all volumes (of color film) are down,” said Kodak spokesman Chris Veronda.
Sigh. There goes part of my youth. And of Paul Simon’s.