Linked List: May 30, 2009

Saturday, 30 May 2009

How the Web and the Weblog Have Changed Writing 

Philip Greenspun:

Our literary culture is impoverished when every idea is stretched or amputated to fit the Procrustean bed made up by magazine and book publishers. When an author runs out of relevant stuff to say after 20 or 30 pages, that’s how long the essay should be.

Google Wave 

I’ve been thinking about Google Wave since it was announced earlier in the week at Google I/O. It looks brilliant and impressive as technical accomplishment. But I don’t understand what it is. It seems not just technically complex but also conceptually complex.

Communication systems that succeed are usually conceptually simple: the telegraph, the telephone, fax, email, IM, Twitter. So color me skeptical regarding Wave’s prospects.

See also: Buzz Andersen’s take.

Update: Facebook is a good counter-example of a conceptually complex communication system that is very popular. My pessimism/skepticism regarding Wave is probably biased by my own strong preference for conceptual simplicity; I have not and don’t intend to sign up for Facebook.

Boy Genius Report Reviews the Palm Pre 

High marks for the display and WebOS. Low marks for the keyboard. No benchmarks for battery life or performance. Interesting that BGR got a unit to review so far in advance of release.

New Mac Clone Maker to Open Retail Store in Los Angeles 

I’m sure this will work out just fine for them.