Linked List: March 11, 2013

Monday, 11 March 2013

Google Admits WebM Infringes H.264 Patents ★

Marco Arment:

Looks like we’re establishing a clear pattern: Google clearly (and often willfully) infringes on someone else’s IP, can’t believe that it’ll ever have any repercussions, and claims they’re doing it to be “open” or some bullshit. It betrays a culture at Google’s highest levels of arrogance, entitlement, and dishonesty.

Shocker.

The Small-State Advantage in the United States Senate ★

Everything that’s wrong with U.S. politics, in one picture.

2005 iPhone Prototype ★

Great find by Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica.

‘Mad Men’ Season Six Poster ★

Randy Kennedy, reporting for the NYT:

But as the show prepared for its new season, which begins April 7, its creator, Matthew Weiner, inspired by a childhood memory of lush, painterly illustrations on T.W.A. flight menus, decided to turn back the promotional clock. He pored over commercial illustration books from the 1960s and ’70s and sent images to the show’s marketing team, which couldn’t quite recreate the look he was after.

“Finally,” he said, “they just looked up the person who had done all these drawings that I really loved, and they said: ‘Hey, we’ve got the guy who did them. And he’s still working. His name is Brian Sanders.’”

Perfect.

When Ian Fleming Picked Justin Rowlatt’s Grandfather to Steal Nazi Secrets ★

Justin Rowlatt:

In essence what Fleming was proposing was a team of authorised thieves and looters — mavericks who would operate ahead of the forward troops and who were instructed to do whatever necessary to capture enemy intelligence, equipment or personnel.