Lines I Liked

[sutterbomb]

I care more for truths than facts.

[sutterbomb]

Spending $20,000 to try to get an edge just shows that you don't actually take the technology seriously or rely on it in any way.

Yet. Yglesias on algorithm script evaluation.

[sutterbomb]

As a member of society, I'm a little disappointed to see Apple expending all this money on increasing its owners' incomes rather than devising some insane moon shot scheme. But as the proud owner of nine shares of AAPL I'm excited about my $27.

Yglesias on Apple's latest earning call and share repurchase program.

[sutterbomb]

But we are, once again, in a strange new world. Maybe there are ways it will get weary and will break. But if there are, we don't know what they are yet. And for now, it's just a mysterious kind of fun. The gee-whiz factor is high again. ;-)

Dave Winer wants to know where the app is. The browser? The cloud? Seems to be both and we don't yet know the implications.

[anemptypavilion]

an idea about flags and tragedies

what if each time there is a Horrible Thing that happens, instead of lowering the flag halfway down and then putting it back up later, we permanently moved it down an inch or two? and then if it gets all the way down to the bottom, we have to start a new country and try again. 

[justin-singer]

I once thought that however thin the public arguments for large corporate transactions, there was probably some serious analysis going on behind the scenes. Just as I once thought that whatever nonsense politicians might talk on public platforms, more substantive discussion took place when they retired to their offices. But closer acquaintance with business and politics dispelled both illusions. What you see and hear is more or less what there is.

John Kay - The brashness and bravado in big deals (via justin-singer)

[dbreunig]

I love that Tumblr is Gawker and Buzzfeed’s backup solution.

[sutterbomb]

This is the kind of artifact that reminds me that real, actual, doodling people had to deal with managing the world's nuclear weapons stockpile. Draw box. Write missile in it. Consider nuclear apocalypse I can avert. Draw circle. Write missile in it. Ponder the end of the world. Draw circle. Write missile in it.

Alexis Madrigal on JFK's doodles during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Click through to see the doodles.

[fred-wilson]

And if you’re interested in the future of Web video, YouTube’s ability to serve up eight million livestreams at the same time is a really big deal, too.

All Things D (via fred-wilson)

[onestrikeaway]

“Sometimes you have to go really high to realize how small you are.” - Felix Baumgartner

[shortformblog]

A man, falling into a far deeper void than any of us have ever experienced.

[itsokaytobesmart]

And coming out the other side, unscathed.

[sutterbomb]

"I'm going home now."

[sutterbomb]

Trying tumblrs new photoset app with some recent vacation pics.

[theverge]

I am mildly ashamed to say I often begin the day by immediately picking up my phone from the windowsill and checking first my email and then Twitter. Twitter, for God’s sake. I just feel like there is something inherently pathetic about a human being waking up and deciding their first moments of consciousness need to be spent looking at what happened on Twitter while they were asleep.

Will Tracy: What I Read - Entertainment - The Atlantic Wire

I do the same, I feel the same. I fear that most people, myself include, will never be able to keep pace with the change in technology.

[jkottke]

Over my dead fat diabetic body!

kottke on the NYC ban on large sugary drinks.

[theverge]

@ftrain

Pure evil

[theatlantic]

Facebook launched in 2004. Today, it has more users than the entire Internet had in 2004.

The Atlantic

[sutterbomb]

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history.

NYT on the big shifts coming in our lifetime.

[sutterbomb]

Two pieces of news that are no longer new. First, check this video of 2pac performing at Coachella. He's long been dead but is now almost live — it's creepy and incredible to think about the future of what it means to be human. Then there was some great reporting from Extreme Tech on just how large the online porn industry is. The massive amount of fleshy video sent over the wires is almost unfathomable. Now if you connecting the dots, it should be easy to see where these technologies converge. If you're skeptical, I don't think you're in tune with some basic facts about human nature.