grah.cc

topherchris:

(Re: Police Seize Jason Chen’s Computers)

Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.
Lao Tzu (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)

Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes.
Marshall McLuhan

Computational feat speeds finding of genes to milliseconds instead of years

The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
John Carmack

The Emperor’s Castle originates from a mythical and ancient tale hidden within a woodblock landscape scene created by Japanese Ukiyo-e printmaker, Ando Hiroshige. This tale charts the story of two star-crossed lovers, the weaving Princess and the Cowherd, who have been separated by the Princess’s father, the Emperor. These characters have been replaced by architectonic metaphors creating an urban theatre within the grounds of the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo.

— The Emperor’s Castle by Thomas Hillier

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
Clay Shirky. The Technium: The Shirky Principle

Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less
Start-Ups, Not Bailouts - NYTimes.com

These featured places appear because a lot of Loopt users liked the place, or are currently there. Or maybe the place has positive reviews in the local paper. You can also sort by events and friends. On the friends tab, you only see places that your Facebook friends like (you connect via Facebook Connect). “To most users we’ve spoken to, that’s the recommendation they care about the most,” Altman says.

— Loopt Pulse bets that location on the iPad is about planning

There is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery. Ten years ago, the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today, it receives four pieces and by 2020, that number will fall to three.

USPS files 5 day delivery plan

The invisible networks of past generations..

The first five million will be sold in a heartbeat,” said Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was a marketing executive at Apple in the 1980s. “But let’s see: you can’t make a phone call with it, you can’t take a picture with it, and you have to buy content that before now you were not willing to pay for. That seems tough to me.

Cost and Redundancy Issues Confront iPad

I totally agree with the sentiment explained here. The price is a little high ($199 would get this device to mass adoption).

But, right now, there’s nothing really compelling about the iPad to get me or anyone i know (apart from gadget freaks) to buy one. My dad will get one - but thats only on my recommendation that it’ll be easier for him to browse the web and check his email (he doesn’t have a laptop).

Apple is in the experience business and although the iPad feels great, I’m not sure that many people will rush out to buy this device - simply because it doesn’t do the 20% of functions that a person wants. No matter that the other 80% of stuff feels great.

I think they’ll have to open up just a little bit more to go mainstream with this device.

Google Street View - in 3d :D

It’s tacky as hell, but nonetheless interesting..

About 15 years ago, the supply part of media’s supply-and-demand curve went parabolic, with a predictably inverse effect on price. Since then, a battalion of media elites have lined up to declare that exactly the opposite thing will start happening any day now.
The Collapse of Complex Business Models - Clay Shirky

Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine

A classic - well worth reading again.