posts

Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky, in a great editorial about a problem on the Android Market:

Earlier tonight our friend Michael Gartenberg tweeted that when he went to the Android Market to search for the word “Jewish,” a number of Nazi and Hitler themes turned up. Of course, we had to take a look for ourselves, and sure enough, the search for a fairly innocuous word related to a religion and culture turns up skins which are disgustingly, hatefully pro-Nazism and pro-Hitler. That’s a problem, no matter how you look at this.

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Awesome, but this line from C–3P0 comes to mind:

I’m standing here in pieces and you’re having delusions of grandeur!

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Benj Edwards:

Even a decade after its debut—Steve Jobs unveiled the Cube at the July 2000 Macworld Expo in New York and the desktop shipped a month later—the Cube still stirs passionate debate between its detractors and defenders.

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Shawn Blanc, in an interview with Brett Kelly:

An oversized desk is the only sort worth owning. For one, they’re there for you when you need that extra space for papers and other work (when you need the space, there never seems to be enough). Secondly, when your oversized desk is clean and empty, the unused acreage is a sight to behold.

When a small desktop is clean it merely looks tidy, as it should. But when an oversized desk is clean? That’s conversation worthy.

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Fellow Memphian and nerd Jen Simmons said this on Twitter last night:

I guess Android vs iPhone is the new Mac vs PC. Except iPhone is PC.

Which, of course, blew up the Memphis+Nerd Twitter conversation last night.

I think comparing computers and mobile devices is a fundamentally flawed activity. Smartphones and computers are similar devices, but at the same time, they are very different. Computers are usually long-term purchases, but without strings attached. Computers don’t come with cell phone carriers. Computers aren’t hopelessly out-dated in just 2–3 years like smartphones. Don’t like the Mac? Buy a PC. Don’t like Windows? Move to the Mac. Most people aren’t tied to a single platform in the age of webmail and online photo services anyways. Mark Sigal posted a whole long thing on is just a few months ago. Go read it.

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Dave Caolo, on his favorite keyboard:

First is the sound. That lovely wooden-stick-on-a-hollow-log “thonk” that announces each keystroke is yet to be duplicated. It’s satisfying in a way that affirms your productivity. Much like the jackhammer operator feels content at the end of a noisy day’s work, I feel that I got much accomplished with all that thonking and clacking.

[…]

I also love the keyboard’s feel. Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards are nice, but the keys barely move when pressed. In contrast, the Extended Keyboard’s keys just drop when pressed, providing wonderful tactile feedback. They then spring back with perfectly appropriate force. I’ve used some keyboards that either repelled my fingers on the upstroke or yielded like cold oatmeal when pressed. They’ve all made me long for the ancient artifact in my office.

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The first Mac I did serious work on was a 450 Mhz Blue and White PowerMac G3. It was a few years old when I started laying out pages and mixing audio on it, but with OS 9 and 512 MB of RAM it was by no means a slouch. Even so, it wasn’t able to do much more than one intensive thing at a time. The computer’s limitations necessitated doing one thing at a time — the hardware just couldn’t cut it.

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My Apple Newton:

So you want to buy a Newton and get it going?

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From the Google Public Policy blog:

It is imperative that we find ways to protect the future openness of the Internet and encourage the rapid deployment of broadband. Verizon and Google are pleased to discuss the principled compromise our companies have developed over the last year concerning the thorny issue of “network neutrality.”

The two companies aren’t quite ready to embrace full-blown net neutrality on the wireless side of things quite yet, however. Darren Murph at Engadget:

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Nira Sheth for the WSJ:

AT&T Inc. said Friday it doesn’t expect to suffer a “material negative impact” from the end of its exclusive arrangements to carry handsets, including its lucrative deal for Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

[…]

“We do not expect any such terminations to have a material negative impact on our wireless segment income, consolidated operating margin or our cash from operations,” AT&T said in the filing with regulators on Friday.

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The New York Times:

Mark Papermaster, the Apple executive in charge of hardware for the company’s flagship iPhone, has left the company in the wake of widely reported problems with the antenna of the recently introduced iPhone 4.

It is not clear if Mr. Papermaster was ousted or left on his own accord.

Word is he was let go.

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University of Georgia [PDF warning] has new research out about journalism graduates:

The percentage of spring journalism and mass communication bachelor’s degree recipients who reported having at least one job offer when they completed their studies dropped in 2009 by nearly 10 percentage points compared to a year earlier. Only 46.2% of the bachelor’s degree recipients had a job on Oct. 31, 2009, which was more than 10 percentage points fewer than a year earlier. The level of full-time employment for bachelor’s degree recipients in 2009 when they returned the questionnaire was 55.5%, which was down significantly from the figure of 60.4% a year earlier. Such a low level of full-time employment has never been recorded since 1986.

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