Linked List: December 6, 2011

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

On the Impracticality of a Cheeseburger ★

Waldo Jaquith:

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors — in all likelihood, a couple of dozen — and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

Love the Sagan quote at the end.

BP Says Halliburton ‘Intentionally Destroyed Evidence’ After Gulf Oil Spill ★

Shocking!

Aaron’s Twitter Viewer ★

Not sure how I missed this before:

I made this little program so you can view and link to a whole conversation from Twitter in context.

Example. Pretty sure I prefer this to the aforelinked Exquisite Tweets in every way — especially in terms of information density in the display.

Exquisite Tweets ★

I’ve been looking for something like this, so I could link from DF to an interesting multi-tweet discussion on Twitter:

Paste in the URL from a single tweet in a conversation to get a one-page thread you can share or save.

My biggest gripe is the display is so sparse. I’d much prefer a layout that packs more tweets into each screen. (Via Justin Blanton.)

Update: Aaron Swartz’s Twitter Viewer is better.

Latest Version ★

Matt Gemmell, on the question of how far back iOS developers should go in terms of supporting older releases:

But when people ask how many OS versions they should support in their new app (which they do, often), they’re not looking for a common-sense and at least reasonably evidence-based answer like that. Instead, they’re looking for this answer:

It’s OK to support only the newest version of the OS.

That’s what they want to hear. Honestly, I think it might even be true, but I know that we all want it to be true. So to help you to convince yourself, here are the relevant arguments conveniently collected in one place.

It’ll be interesting to see how iOS 5’s long-awaited over-the-air software updates affect the new OS adoption rate.

Why Android’s UI Is Laggy Compared to iOS and Windows Phone ★

Interesting technical look at the design of Android’s graphics and event processing by Andrew Munn, trying to explain why it feels so laggy compared to iOS and Windows Phone:

Android UI will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints I discussed at the beginning:

UI rendering occurs on the main thread of an app

UI rendering has normal priority

[…] This is the same reason why Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, and Symbian have terrible touch screen performance. Like Android, they were not designed to prioritize UI rendering. Since the iPhone’s release, RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia have abandoned their mobile OS’s and started from scratch. Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.

I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before, but I think he’s right. Symbian and the old BlackBerry OS aren’t gone yet, but they’ve been deprecated by Nokia and RIM in favor of OSes designed post-iPhone.

Also funny to see in the comments a few Android fans denying that Android is laggy. “I don’t mind Android’s relative UI lagginess because of X, Y, and Z other things that Android does better than any other mobile OS” is a reasonable stance. “It is a myth that Android has issues with lagginess and UI responsiveness” is not.

Siri Wish List ★

Good list of suggestions from Lex Friedman and Dan Moren. (Via Mat Honan, who suggests turn-by-turn navigation as another.)

Time Ducks Video Game Trailer ★

Terrific homage to Kubrick’s groundbreaking trailer for Dr. Strangelove. (Via J.C. Hutchins.)

Android Phone Name Generator ★

Even this thing couldn’t come up with a name as dumb as “Xyboard”.

CNet Is Bundling Open Source Software With Malware ★

“Fyodor”, on a mailing list for developers of the open source Nmap app:

I’ve just discovered that C|Net’s Download.Com site has started wrapping their Nmap downloads (as well as other free software like VLC) in a trojan installer which does things like installing a sketchy “StartNow” toolbar, changing the user’s default search engine to Microsoft Bing, and changing their home page to Microsoft’s MSN.

The way it works is that C|Net’s download page (screenshot attached) offers what they claim to be Nmap’s Windows installer. They even provide the correct file size for our official installer. But users actually get a Cnet-created trojan installer. That program does the dirty work before downloading and executing Nmap’s real installer.

Some of the programs the installer puts on your system are identified as malware by McAfee and F-Secure. Isn’t this sort of crap exactly what Download.com was started for? To serve as a place from which Windows users could trust what they download? Shameful.

LG XNote Z330 ★

Reminds me of something I’ve seen before. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

Why Siri Had to Start in Beta ★

Benoit Maison:

I worked on speech recognition with IBM Research for nearly six years. We participated in DARPA-sponsored research projects, fields trials, and actual product development for various applications: dictation, call centers, automotive, even a classroom assistant for the hearing-impaired. The basic story was always the same: get us more data! (data being in this case transcribed speech recordings). There is even a saying in the speech community: “there is no data like more data”. Some researchers have argued that most of the recent improvements in speech recognition accuracy can be credited to having more and better data, not to better algorithms.

Astronomers Find Biggest Black Holes Yet ★

Dennis Overbye, reporting for the NYT:

Astronomers are reporting that they have taken the measure of the biggest, baddest black holes yet found in the universe, abyssal yawns 10 times the size of our solar system into which billions of Suns have vanished like a guilty thought.

Maybe RIM can shoot those unsold PlayBooks into one of them.

Why Europe’s Trustbusters Targeted Apple’s E-Book ‘Cartel’ ★

Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

The language of the European Commission’s press release Tuesday announcing the start of a formal antitrust investigation of Apple and five major book publishers doesn’t address the obvious question: If Amazon is the 500-lbs. gorilla in the e-book trade, why has Apple’s much smaller iBookstore been targeted?

Bottom-line: the EU thinks the “agency model” constitutes illegal price-fixing.

Facebook Flaw Allows Access to Private Photos ★

There’s still never been a better time to not have a Facebook account.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words ★

Dan Frommer:

(Google’s specific statement, when I emailed: ”Verizon asked us not to include this functionality in the product.” Verizon didn’t immediately get back to me with an explanation, but it’s easy to speculate that this has something to do with Verizon’s own projects in mobile payments, namely Isis.)

In a twist of irony, or maybe just a coincidence, that new phone — the Galaxy Nexus — runs on the very Verizon network that Google fought to keep open. But now Google is the one helping deny consumers access to a cool new application.

This is neither irony nor coincidence. This is hypocrisy, pure and simple.

Kodak’s Long Fade to Black ★

Michael Hiltzik, for the LA Times:

Once ranked among the bluest of blue chips, Kodak shares sell today at close to $1. Kodak’s chairman has been denying that the company is contemplating a bankruptcy filing with such vehemence that many believe Chapter 11 must lurk just around the corner.

The Rochester, N.Y., company said it had $862 million in cash on hand as of Sept. 30, but at the rate it’s losing money from operations (more than $70 million a month), that hoard would barely last a year. As for future revenue, it’s banking heavily on winning patent lawsuits against Apple and the maker of BlackBerry phones.

A sad, ignominious end to a once-great company. (Via Stephen Hackett.)

Motorola Xyboard 8.2 and 10.1 ★

Joanna Stern, The Verge:

Verizon has just officially announced that its version of the Xoom 2 and Xoom 2 Media Edition — the poorly-named Droid Xyboard 8.2 and 10.1 — will be hitting this month. However, like the original Xoom, you’re looking at a two-year contract and some rather high pricing. The 16GB model of the 8.2 will go for $430 while the Xyboard 10.1 will hit for $530. Those prices are not only higher than the UKs Wi-Fi-only offerings, but you’ve also got to commit to two years of Verizon service, which is a minimum of $30 a month for 2GB of data.

Good luck with that.

In better news, Verizon is promising that both tablets will be upgradeable to Android 4.0, though it isn’t committing to a timeline on that.

Of course not.

Analyst Shaw Wu: RIM ‘Blindsided’ by Kindle Fire Pricing ★

What exactly has RIM actually been prepared for in the last five years? Remember this one, where they thought the iPhone was impossible after Steve Jobs unveiled it?

TSA Strip Searches ★

Ken Kaye, reporting for the South Florida Sun-Sentinal:

Three South Florida women, all elderly and with medical problems, say Transportation Security Administration officers made them take off their clothes during the screening process at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport last week.

All three, one with a defibrillator, one with a colostomy bag and the other with diabetes, say they were forced to disrobe in a private room at the same terminal.

Errors in Redaction ★

Dan Levin and Carlyn Kolker, reporting for Reuters:

In her 65-page ruling denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung, Koh attempted to redact nearly two dozen sentences or short fragments. But because of a formatting characteristic in the prior electronic version, the redacted material can be viewed by copying text from the PDF and pasting it into another document. […]

According to the redacted portions, Apple’s own studies show that existing customers are unlikely to switch from iPhones to Samsung devices. Instead, the evidence suggests an increase in sales of Samsung smartphones is likely to come at the expense of other smartphones with Android operating systems, Koh wrote.

Nothing shocking about that, but it’s interesting.

In arguing against the injunction, Samsung — which is also a huge components supplier to Apple — said Apple’s supply cannot keep up with market demand for smartphone products.

Nice try.

The 2011 Eddys ★

The editors of Macworld choose the best products of 2011. Great selections, as usual.