July 2009
15 posts
1 tag
Why Japan's Smartphones Haven't Gone Global →
My Answer: wireless carriers are cartels or outright monopolies almost everywhere around the globe. The Internet is a historical anomaly and the way technology has propagated on it is one of the luckiest things to happen in modern technology. Japanese smartphones won’t make many inroads in the US until the Internet significantly erodes carrier power.
Old Crow Medicine Show - Highway Halo
2 tags
Tom Waits - Hoist that Rag
3 tags
Dueling Phrases: Over the Transom
It’s probable that you’ve heard the phrase ‘over the transom.’ If you’re a sailor (particular a sailor of small, classic boats like the Herreshoff 12 1/2), it’s probable that you thought this always referred to the way that water spills over the back of the boat (the transom) as the boat starts heeling sideways.
However, the lexical usage always seemed...
3 tags
“If you find yourself in competition with the Internet, you should find a way...”
– Dave Winer, Evan Williams [twitter] vs. the Internet
Hot 8 Brass Band & Marvin Gaye - Sexual...
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“The problem with abdicating your content consumption to other people, though, is...”
– Alex Payne, Fever and the Future of News Readers
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The Quiet Coup →
by Simon Johnson
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could...
Florence & the Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise...
3 tags
“If the US wants to create a strategic advantage vis-a-vis China, all we need to...”
– Scott Rafer, reacting to: Apple Close to Offering iPhone in China—Minus Wi-Fi | AllThingsD
“Apple was hellbent on having the iPhone be wifi-enabled,” Mathison told BusinessWeek. “The Chinese government has been just as adamant that it not be.”
1 tag
“This is related to the phenomenon of the Professional Smile, a national pandemic...”
– David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again - footnote 40
“People wouldn’t think I was so crazy if they saw who the hell you really...”
– Lisa Marie Presley, Rolling Stone [transcript]
It would have been awesome if Michael Jackson had just played himself as related by Lisa Marie on SNL. Also, I’m relieved to learn that the high voice wasn’t permanent.