512 Pixels

From my trip to Chicago this weekend:

Chairmen Gruber:[1. In a footnote to an article on app economies.]

Sensational headlines are one of the worst aspects of web-based news media. Pre-web, there wasn’t much temptation for publications to juice their headlines, with the notable exception of tabloids. In print, all publications care about is the circulation for entire issues. With the web, particularly with CPM advertising, publications are motivated to drive traffic to each individual article. Total page views, rather than issue sales, are the metric, and one easy way to juice page views is to use sensational headlines.

They may be a little late to the game, but this UI is a pretty impressive combination of the best ideas from iOS and WebOS. I’m surprised this looks so good.

I do have one question, though. With touch-sensitive bezels, how do you hold the device with one hand?

[via DF]

The WSJ:

The billionaire founder of social network Facebook Inc. has agreed to give the majority of his wealth to charity, part of a broader group of rich entrepreneurs committing to philanthropy earlier in their lives.

Mark Zuckerberg has signed onto the “Giving Pledge,” which asks its signatories to commit publicly to give away the majority of their wealth.

The 26-year-old is one of 16 billionaires new to the pledge, which now totals more than 50 donors. New names include AOL co-founder Steve Case, investor Carl Icahn and former junk-bond king Michael Milken.

Steve Jobs isn’t on the list. Say what you will about Gates when it comes to technology, but the man has created a truly wonderful program and a powerful legacy of doing good. We all can learn from this.

That’s an exact quote from Fox News’ Bob Beckel, talking about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Here’s Ron Paul:

In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, however, we are in big trouble. The truth is that our foreign spying, meddling, and outright military intervention in the post-World War II era has made us less secure, not more.

As usual, Ron Paul speaks sanity in a world of madness.

That’s how Google describes the Cr–48 notebook it is using for developers and testers to start kicking the tires on Chrome OS.

It also speaks volumes to how Google sees the world and the future of computing.

Dave Caolo:

In short, I think the transition from the original iPad to its successor will mimic the transition from the iPhone 3G to the 3GS, rather than the 2G to the 3G or the 3GS to the iPhone 4.

I think he’s right on the money, especially about this:

Though, honestly, Apple doesn’t really give a shit if you are aggrieved.

Mark Gurman at 9 to 5 Mac is reporting that the white iPhone 4 Woz showed off in a video with CNN is a fake. Here is what Woz wrote to an inquisitive 9 to 5 Mac reader:

This Chinese teen sold the white parts on the internet. I got in early (although the kid had already made $130K) and got my front and back plates and modified my iPhone 4.

I don’t see why anyone (especially a writer for a Apple-centric website) would assume that anyone — even the mighty Woz — would have a legit white iPhone 4. It is a product that Apple hasn’t released, assumedly due to endless production problems. Why would Apple allow anyone to have one if it is so riddled with problems?

While we all learned this summer that Apple employees carry devices off-campus for testing purposes, to think that Woz would have one of these devices, and be dumb enough to show it off to CNN is pretty hard to believe.

For most people, at least. Gurman:

Oh, and we thought Woz had connections.

Thinking is hard when you’re focused on traffic-grabbing headlines.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my desire to build a custom desk for my home office. Here’s what my dad and I have built so far.

The top is a solid-core birch door, 6 feet wide and 2 feet and 8 inches deep. It stands 31 inches tall, with legs built using pine. The top will have a quarter-inch thick sheet of glass on it, held in place by poplar trim. We are putting three holes in the back panel and the work surface (including through the glass) for cables to run, and installing a piece of gutter underneath (just inside the back panel) to keep excess cables from hitting the floor.

As these photos show, most of the major construction is done. All that’s left is to finish the trim, stain the top and paint the sides.

Ian Hines:

With the recent Tumblr downtime incident fresh in everyone’s minds a lot of folks have, understandably, been considering moving from Tumblr to WordPress. I’ve made that journey twice and I can tell you that it is possible to move your site from Tumblr to WordPress without any significant front-end changes.

This exhaustive, end-to-end guide is simply brilliant.

Eugene Huo at Macgasm:

As the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, Steve Jobs has been named the CEO of the decade by MarketWatch. Calling him the “rock star of Corporate America“, Jobs was praised for resurrecting Apple, and driving it to the top of the heap in the technology sector. Had you invested $1000 in Apple stock at the end of 2000, it would now be worth $43,000.

Steve Wozniak, via CNN:

All of a sudden, we’ve lost a lot of control. We can’t turn off our internet; we can’t turn off our smartphones; we can’t turn off our computers. You used to ask a smart person a question. Now, who do you ask? It starts with g-o, and it’s not God.