Arguments of Technical People Against the iPad, No 1:
“I am a coder, and I learned my chops on systems of type X, ergo any new coders and tinkerers of the futures can and should discover their passion for code the same way. Change is bad because I can’t contemplate the possibility that anything but the systems and standards I grew up with will produce coders. And therefore everything must remain the same and all devices and systems must be identically open so that one day, somewhere, a new coder may be born. Because any encounter with a closed or proprietary system will break their little hearts and doom software development for ever.”
John Scalzi on the latest AmazonFail
A very succint and useful analysis of the spat between MacMillan and Amazon over the weekend. I’ve bought books and countless other products from Amazon for years - indeed, they were my first and only online shopping experience for most of last decade.
Now, however, I’ll be getting my games, music and DVDs from Play.Com and my books from Waterstone’s, when I don’t just go out and buy them from my local bookshop.
Glorious Spirit
Xkcd today is wonderful, but heartbreaking.
Hell Yeah Friday Night Shopping.
stevenf.com - I need to talk to you about computers. I’ve been...
Fantasic and very perceptive post about what the iPad represents. Worth reading for the pleasant mélange of analogies alone.
(via Instapaper)
Fairly easy to see where most of the British national papers see the future of text-based news going.
Sleep Talkin' Man
Quite simply the best blog. Ever.
Orson Welles on Citizen Kane and Rosebud (via Kottke.) Fantastic interview (despite the interrupting interviewer). It takes something special to puff on a cigar, drink from fine china and hold forth the way he does in this.
It’s not December until you’ve seen a Weegie snowman half-inching your precious, precious Bru.
In Defense of Pax Americana - David Brin
Via the ever-excellent Futurismic.
