- On the Future of MetaFilter – Marco.org
Marco Arment discussing the Google-inflicted problems MetaFilter are having, pretty much nails what I consider a reasonable and sane attitude to Google: "People wonder why I’m so skeptical of Google and careful not to rely on them for too much. This is why: they’re in this unassailable position of absolute monopoly power for such a massive part of web publishing because too many people aren’t so skeptical."
Tag: evil
Bookmarks for August 24, 2011
- New Android spyware answers incoming calls – SC Magazine US
Anyone want to bet me that there was a governmental intelligence agency involved in the development of this, at some point?
- Home – Readmill
I've just signed up for the beta of this service. Will dump books across to it in the next day or so, and give it a go. The app certainly looks nice, just as a shame apple don't expose an API to pull books out of the iBooks app, meaning I'm going to wind up with (quite a lot of) duplicate data on my iPad.
- FOSS Patents: Samsung cites Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' movie as prior art against iPad design patent
This one is really interesting, and I kind of hope they succeed, just so sci-fi writers all over American can get really litigious with big corporations going around turning all their ideas into reality.
- What Does Google Mean By “Evil?” (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
This has been on my mind lately, and it's an interesting perspective. Swartz is suggesting that Google's definition of "evil" is "not making things worse for users in order to make more money". It's not a bad suggestion, and if it's accurate, it's still more than many companies even attempt, but (as is probably obvious if you've listened to me bang on for a while) I think it's perfectly possible to be "evil" and still hew to that definition. (I also don't agree that the G+/real names nonsense passes that definition of "evil", but that's another thing.)
Bookmarks for November 2, 2010
- The lampshade that drives its owners mad: Strange truth behind 20th century's most disturbing object
Yes, it's a lampshade made of what you think it's made of, at least if the author of the book is to be believed. Objects like this are widely regarded as urban legends, and I don't know if I 100% believe that this one is real, although I also don't know how much of that is just that I don't *want* to believe it. Still, just reading the article, it's not hard to understand the sort of fascinated repulsion an object like this might produce, if it is real. Interesting mis of reactions as to what should be done with it, as well.
Bookmarks for January 18, 2010
- 5 Reasons to Ditch Your Digital SLR | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
I am not 100% convinced by this, just because of the simple practicalities – I do not want to be fixing my fairly hefty lenses to something the size of a compact – I suspect the balance and weight will be fucked, and shooting will feel awkward. But I admin, I'd like to be able to have a play with one of these for a bit, particularly when Nikon and Canon get in the game.