Linked List: January 18, 2013

Friday, 18 January 2013

Remember the piece I linked to earlier this week, wherein Joe Springer pointed out (all the way back in November) that large institutional investors who’d sold options on Apple’s stock back in the summer stood to profit by billions if AAPL closed today at $500 or under? It closed at $500.00.

I still have that bridge to sell you if you don’t think the fix was in on this.

Enable Quick Look for Markdown Files ★

I linked to QLMarkdown a few years ago, but it’s worth a re-link. Great project.

‘The Mac Faithful’ ★

This week’s episode of my podcast, The Talk Show, with special guest John Moltz. Topics include Apple’s battered stock price, just what it is about Apple that makes so many people lose their damn minds, the pace of innovation, and the goofy suit Steve Jobs wore for the introduction of the original iMac.

Brought to you by two excellent sponsors:

Infinite Refrigerator — The kid- and kitchen-friendly app for archiving and sharing childhoods.
Tonx — The best coffee in the world, delivered right to your door.

Samsung Galaxy Fonblet Rumor: 5.8-Inch Display ★

I’ll play devil’s advocate here, and suggest that at a certain point, it’s better to think of these things as small tablets than big-ass phones. Pair it with a Bluetooth headset so you don’t look like an ass while talking on the phone, and you’ve got one device to carry instead of two. There’s a pocket-ability problem for someone like me, but not for men who wear jackets and women who carry handbags. The biggest problem I see is that so many Android apps are designed for phone-size displays, not tablet-size displays.

I sure hope “Fonblet” isn’t what they’re actually going to call the thing, though.

‘Every Empire Crumbles’ ★

A gem from John Moltz.

‘Swallowed Whole’ ★

The Macalope, quoting Byte’s Larry Seltzer:

If anyone’s the leader in the smartphone market now, it has to be Samsung, which just announced that the Galaxy S3 has sold 40 million units in 7 months. In 2 years and 7 months since its launch, the Galaxy S line has sold over 100 million. Wow.

Larry, when coming up with that statistic, did you pause to think for even one second how many iPhones Apple’s sold over that period? Because it’s more than twice that. FYI.

Wow, indeed.

The NRA’s Successful Campaign to Prevent Firearms Research ★

Michael Luo, reporting for the NYT back in 2011:

Are communities where more people carry guns safer or less safe? Does the availability of high-capacity magazines increase deaths? Do more rigorous background checks make a difference?

The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.

“We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions,” said Mark Rosenberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was for about a decade the leading source of financing for firearms research.

They don’t want pesky facts getting in the way of their “more guns will make us safer” argument. So: no science.

The Success of the Australian Assault Weapons Ban ★

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard:

In the end, we won the battle to change gun laws because there was majority support across Australia for banning certain weapons. And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996. The American Law and Economics Review found that our gun buyback scheme cut firearm suicides by 74 percent. In the 18 years before the 1996 reforms, Australia suffered 13 gun massacres — each with more than four victims — causing a total of 102 deaths. There has not been a single massacre in that category since 1996.

The other thing about the success of Australia’s gun laws is that studies have shown there was no offsetting increase in other forms of homicide. More guns, more killing, that’s what the data shows. President Obama isn’t pushing for anything more than restrictions supported by Ronald Reagan. Reagan.