Linked List: September 14, 2010

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Anti-Masturbation Candidate Wins Republican Senate Primary in Delaware 

“The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can’t masturbate without lust!” You can’t make this shit up.

Twitter’s Growth Chart 

90 million tweets per day now; kind of amazing considering how much Twitter struggled with — relative to current traffic — so few tweets back in 2006-07.

Twitter.com Redesign 

Looks good to me, but I don’t use the web interface much, and didn’t much care for the old one. A little reminiscent of the layout and flow of the new Twitter for iPad app. Clicking around some more, it’s hard not to attribute a lot of what’s nice about this new design to Doug Bowman. It does a lot more but feels a lot less cluttered than the previous design — a hard combination to pull off.

Joel Johnson on AirPlay 

Joel Johnson:

But it looks like Apple is setting up the possibility to share the content on your iOS device with just a couple of clicks, not just at home, but anywhere.

Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack 

Adobe:

This add-on for Illustrator CS5 15.0.1 provides initial support for HTML5 and CSS3, extends SVG capability in Illustrator CS5, and helps you easily design web and device content.

Here’s an interesting demo from Adobe’s Greg Rewis showing how it can be used. (The video, ironically but unsurprisingly, requires Flash Player.)

The Luckiest Bastards Alive 

Made my palms sweaty. (Some of these people — the train dodgers in particular — really put the dumb in dumb luck.)

Paul Karl Lukacs Was Detained by the Feds for Not Answering Questions 

Paul Karl Lukacs:

“Why were you in China?” asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron.

“None of your business,” I said.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“I’m not going to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country,” I said.

This did not go over well.

Don’t miss the follow-up, either. (Via Jonathan Wight.)

A Failure of Ethics in Journalism 

Crazy Apple Rumors:

Just as reporters in the 1930s helped cover up Roosevelt’s illness and in the 1960′s helped cover up Kennedy’s philandering, we in the Apple press community help cover up the fact that Jobs is a ninja. We’ve been doing it for years.

Is Verizon Set to Launch Their Own ‘V Cast’ Android App Store? 

Taylor Wimberly at Android and Me:

On September 1st Verizon opened submissions for Android apps into their V CAST App Store. Entry into the store is completely free, but unlike the official Android Market (where anything goes) each app will go through a detailed evaluation and approval process prior to launch.

No information was provided on the launch window for the app store, but Verizon is hosting their developers conference on Sept. 21-22 so we should have more details soon.

If Verizon’s store is presented as an alternative to Google’s Android Market, this could be a good thing, both for users and developers. Competition is healthy. But what if Verizon is planning it as a replacement for Android Market? Is exclusivity a requirement for apps to get into the V Cast store — or can developers sell the same apps through both stores? If they’re exclusive, then it’s a way to prevent users from switching to an Android phone on any other carrier.

Everything Is a Remix 

Part one of a four-part series by Kirby Ferguson. Trust me, watch it.

Security Advisory for Adobe Flash Player (APSA10-03) 

Adobe:

A Security Advisory (APSA10-03) has been posted in regards to a new Adobe Flash Player issue (CVE-2010-2884). A critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and Android.

Flash Player for iOS is not affected.

Fighting the Wrong Fight 

Smart piece by Elia Freedman, cutting through the noise:

We have been distracted by ridiculous arguments and fabricated “wars” for too long. We have been distracted by thinking that Google is Microsoft and Apple is Apple in a doomed fight already fought 20 years ago.

But that is not the fight we should be caring about at all. The fight we should be talking about, but aren’t, is the fight between mobile device makers and the carriers. This is the only real fight that matters.

Super Mario Bros.’s 25th Anniversary 

Nice commercial.

App Store Instant 

Live search front-end to the iOS App Store.

SPA Magazine: Steve Jobs Stopped at Japan Airport Over Ninja Stars 

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said he’ll never come back to Japan after officials at an airport barred him from taking Ninja throwing stars aboard his private plane, SPA! magazine reported in its latest issue. […]

Jobs said it wouldn’t make sense for a person to try to hijack his own plane, according to the report. He then told officials he would never visit Japan again, the magazine reported.

I wonder if they were gifts for Larry Ellison?

Update: Apple, in an official response, says Jobs did visit Kyoto in July, “but the incidents described at the airport are pure fiction.”