Linked List: May 9, 2013

Thursday, 9 May 2013

Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley’s Elite ★: Ashlee Vance profiles Netflix and Reed Hastings for Businessweek:

On a normal weeknight, Netflix accounts for almost a third of all Internet traffic entering North American homes. That’s more than YouTube, Hulu, Amazon.com, HBO Go, iTunes, and BitTorrent combined.
Peter Nixey on iCloud and Photo Management ★: Good piece by Peter Nixey on the convoluted state of photo management with iCloud. I’d like to see something like this:

Get rid of photo streams. Make the camera roll a single photo stream that shows up in iPhoto (on all devices). I want a single camera roll that all devices feed into. I want to take photos, queue them in my camera roll then pull them out as I organise and sort them into my library. Let me explain: photos and videos have two phases: (1) on the camera roll; (2) in my photo library. Nowhere else.
Amy Worrall’s Proposal for App Store Trial Periods ★: I’m surprised Apple hasn’t yet implemented something along these lines. Hope we get it in iOS 7. (Via Dave Addey.)
An Awful Lot of Purported Wine Experts Are Full of Shit ★: Robert T. Gonzalez:

In 2001, researcher Frédéric Brochet invited 54 wine experts to give their opinions on what were ostensibly two glasses of different wine: one red, and one white. In actuality, the two wines were identical, with one exception: the “red” wine had been dyed with food coloring.

The experts described the “red” wine in language typically reserved for characterizing reds. They called it “jammy,” for example, and noted the flavors imparted by its “crushed red fruit.” Not one of the 54 experts surveyed noticed that it was, in fact a white wine.