Linked List: October 3, 2007

Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Thanks to everyone who emailed to point out that the aforelinked “24 vs. 6 varieties of jam” study was popularized in Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice.

Mac Market Share Rising at Cornell University ★

21 percent of the students in Cornell’s dorms are using Macs this year — which means 21 percent of them couldn’t use a Zune even if they wanted to. Most interesting is the trend:

So one way or another, Apple’s market share among Cornell students connecting to ResNet has increased from 5 percent in 2002 to 21 percent in 2007.

The Effects of Too Much Choice ★

Interesting example from Intel’s Timothy Mattson regarding the dizzying array of languages currently in vogue for parallel programming:

They created two displays of gourmet jams. One display had 24 jars. The other had 6. Each display invited people to try the jams and offered them a discount coupon to buy the jam. They alternated these displays in a grocery store and tracked how many people passed the displays, how many people stopped and sampled the jams, and how many subsequently used the offered coupon to buy the jam.

The results were surprising.

24 jar display: 60% of the people passing the display sampled the jam, 3% purchased jam.

6 jar display: 40% of the people passing the display sampled the jam, 30% purchased jam.

(Via Daniel Pasco.)

Reversing Cause and Effect ★

Keith Schacht:

You have to pursue greatness not success. Achieve greatness and success will follow.

(Via Rentzsch.)

‘Who Broke Up With Who Now?’ ★

Good one from The Macalope, including this bit regarding ZDNet’s Larry Dignan’s suggestion that Apple should have offered iPhone early adopters a $250 credit:

But let the Macalope get this straight, Larry. You’re asking Apple to refund early adopters more than the price drop? That’s um, well, nuts is what that is. The Macalope didn’t think it was possible but you may have out-Enderled Rob Enderle. There’s a feather in your cap.

Avoiding the Silly Auth-Requiring Amazon MP3 Installer ★

Bill Bumgarner:

Amazon decided to package the application into some installer app that requires authentication to install the downloader helper. But there doesn’t seem to be any reason why admin access is required for the downloader helper and, as such, all this is doing is creating an unnecessary barrier to entry.

Path Finder 4.8 ★

Another free update to Cocoatech’s Finder alternative that packs a ton of new features, including per-folder view settings.

TUAW Interview: Ambrosia’s Andrew Welch on the iPhone Update and iToner ★

Andrew Welch, in an interview with TUAW’s Mat Lu:

“We’re not putting anything but data on the iPhone, and we’re doing it in the right way, and we’re putting it in the user area of the iPhone. Apple is intentionally making sure that products like ours don’t work. That I think is a mistake - it’s as if in an iPhone OS update, Apple decided that MP3s you got from ripping a CD should no longer play on your iPhone, and you should instead buy them from their store.”

Read the whole thing, Welch makes a slew of good points.

Gary Voth: ‘Why You Should Ditch That Zoom for a Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens’ ★

Gary Voth on why your first camera lens should be a normal prime, rather than the cheap kit zoom most consumer SLRs ship with:

Creating such images is nearly impossible with “slow” zoom lenses, which are harder to focus and inadequate for use indoors without flash. Nor can they easily render backgrounds out of focus. In fact, the technical limitations of these lenses tend to lead to the kind of snapshots that the photographer presumably bought an SLR to avoid.

(Via Coudal.)

Kathy Griffin Talks About Woz on Larry King ★

Larry King is under the impression that Woz “invented the podcast”.

Zune.net ★

They look OK. The thick black border around the flash ones is chintzy, though. Interesting, too, that the new UI embraces the term “podcasting”.

Sony BMG Lawyer Claims That Ripping Your Own CDs Is Stealing ★

Jiminy.