Linked List: December 22, 2011

Thursday, 22 December 2011

That Exact Nonsense 

Penn Jillette, in his book, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist:

There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

(Via Kottke.)

700,000 Daily Activations 

Amit Runchal:

The last time Rubin talked about Android activations was back in June, when he said that 500,000 devices were being activated daily, and that they were seeing week-to-week activation growth of 4.4%. There’ve been about 25 weeks between the two tweets. Some quick math reveals that week-to-week growth since June hasn’t been anywhere close to the 4.4% Rubin was seeing. It’s now closer to 1.4%.

The slope seems to be tapering off on Horace Dediu’s graph, too.

New Release of Firefox for Android, Optimized for Tablets 

On the one hand, Firefox is ideally positioned to prove that Apple’s App Store policies are holding iOS back. A Firefox for Android that is best-of-breed for touchscreen post-PC devices but banned by App Store policies could either force Apple to open up or move Android ahead.

On the other hand, watch this video. Even in Mozilla’s own demo — which presumably puts Firefox for Android in its best light —doesn’t the whole thing look a bit herky-jerky, in terms of touch responsiveness and scrolling smoothness?

A Christmas Message From America’s Rich 

Matt Taibbi:

Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich.

What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens.

Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It’s called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put our next door neighbors out on the street with a robosigned foreclosure, or steal the life’s savings of some old pensioner down the block by selling him a bunch of worthless securities.

It’s the cheating.

Vanity Fair on the Uselessness of TSA 

$1.1 trillion down the toilet. Enjoy your holiday air travel.

Hasbro Sues Asus Over Transformer Prime Tablet 

Sean Hollister:

Hasbro sued Asus over the name of its Transformer Prime tablet last week, in a federal district court. The toymaker is no doubt worried that the name could be confused with that of its Transformers franchise, not to mention Optimus Prime, the lead protagonist of the animation and film series.

Asus should sue Michael Bay for having made those godawful movies.

Quicken for Mac Not Dead Yet 

Aaron Forth, Intuit:

As you may know, Quicken for Mac 2007 does not currently work on Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). I understand the frustration this may have caused you and have put a team in place to address this issue. I am happy to announce that we will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac “Lion-compatible” by early spring.

You know your app has fallen behind when you’re making promises about a version whose model year was five years ago.

Seems like Intuit finally sees which way the wind is blowing, though.

How to Prevent Stolen iMessages 

Lex Friedman:

Macworld can confirm that perhaps the easiest way to ensure that a stolen phone stops receiving iMessages is to remotely wipe the phone, and then call your carrier and instruct them to deactivate your old SIM. The third and final step? Activate a new SIM in your new phone.