Linked List: November 13, 2012

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Pundit Shaming 

Stock your freezer with this collection of delicious electoral claim chowder.

2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Tesla Model S 

Motor Trend:

Wait. No mention of the astonishing inflection point the Model S represents — that this is the first COTY winner in the 64-year history of the award not powered by an internal combustion engine? Sure, the Tesla’s electric powertrain delivers the driving characteristics and packaging solutions that make the Model S stand out against many of its internal combustion engine peers. But it’s only a part of the story. At its core, the Tesla Model S is simply a damned good car you happen to plug in to refuel.

(Via Kottke.)

NextDraft iOS App, Now Universal 

The iOS app for Dave Pell’s excellent daily NextDraft newsletter, now optimized for the iPad. Free.

HTC Droid DNA Has 440 PPI Display 

Nathan Ingraham, The Verge:

While the Nexus 4 has an excellent 1280 × 768, 4.7-inch display, the Droid DNA ups the ante with its 1080p, 5-inch screen. That works out to a 440ppi display, pixel density completely unheard of in the current smartphone landscape.

That’s 1920 × 1080 pixels. Insane. Is there a catch? Battery life?

Kara Swisher: ‘In the Sinofsky Departure, Bill Gates Sided With the Other Steve’ 

Kara Swisher:

“He had no factions, except those who worked for him,” said one source. “He picked a lot of fights.”

That included with former chief software architect Ray Ozzie — who left Microsoft in 2010, in part after battling against Sinofsky over how the cloud-based world was shaping up and how Microsoft should respond.

Likewise, former Entertainment and Devices unit leaders Robbie Bach and J Allard also found themselves on the losing end of a corporate battle with Sinofsky, as Microsoft axed their planned Courier tablet and agreed to give tablet responsibilities to the Windows team. Both left the company in 2010.

Sinofsky also clashed with former Microsoft Business division head Stephen Elop, who left the company in 2010 to run Nokia, now an important partner in the smartphone business.

Having sided with Sinofsky in all those fights, though, Ballmer belatedly decided that he wasn’t the right choice to bring the company together in the future. Sources said Ballmer raised those concerns with Gates, who agreed.

Of course he did. No way could Ballmer have done this without Gates’s (and thus, the board’s) approval. That’s a lot of heads that have rolled at Microsoft in recent years.