Cliff Edwards’s 2001 “ Sorry, Steve: Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work ” piece for Businessweek is deservingly notorious in the annals of claim chowder, but there are a few things about it worth keep
The Autism Advantage Thorkil Sonne and his son Lars, who has autism, at home in Ringsted, Denmark. Credit... Joachim Ladefoged/VII, for The New York Times When Thorkil Sonne and his wife, Annette, lea
I used to work for a very large survey company. They conduct phone surveys, mail surveys, in-person surveys, and they gather data automatically using various gadgets, apps, and plug-ins. They gather a
The story of the three wise men got me wondering: What if you did walk towards a star at a fixed speed? What path would you trace on the Earth? Does it converge to a fixed cycle? —N. Murdoch If the wi
Only once in my life have I owned the best of anything. That was on June 29th, 2007, the first day the original iPhone went on sale. Purchasing an 8 GB iPhone in 2007 meant I owned the very best mobile phone money could buy 1 . In 2007 the iPhone was in a league of its own. Android would not be…
Brent Caswell wrote a post called " Rethinking the Lockscreen ". Unfortunately he opened his post by heartily bashing iOS. This caused the comments to degrade into a flame war that buried any constructive discussion of the ideas Brent presented. This article is my critique of his ideas. The lock…
I remain steadfast in my belief that one of the best examples of the disproportionate value of the iPhone is the fact that we are able to completely ignore the fact that its form factor is horrible to use as a camera. Yes, the internals are amazing, the guts of the camera are terrific, but when…
No, no, grapefruit is actually NOT a great gift idea for loved ones. Photograph by Thinkstock. Happy holidays, and brace yourself for the season’s worst tradition! I speak not of the crass commerciali
(This essay was a finalist for a 2013 National Magazine Award in the Essay category.) THE PROBLEM WITH environmentalists, Lynn Margulis used to say, is that they think conservation has something to do with biological reality. A researcher who specialized in cells and microorganisms, Margulis was one…
John Sculley: “I think they’re going through a very significant change now in terms of product cycles,” Sculley explains. “Traditionally Apple introduces products once a year; now it’s really introduc
There aren’t very many qualitatively different types of computer interfaces in use in the world today. But with the release of Mathematica 9 I think we have the first truly practical example of a new
Early in October, I got a call from Bayard Winthrop, an entrepreneur who claimed to have created the world’s best hooded sweatshirt. Because I found this claim amusing—who sets out to make the world’s
[The following is a post written by James Allworth. James is the co-author of How Will You Measure Your Life? . He has worked as a Fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business Sch
Remember the web before Movable Type ? If you wanted a blog you had to program one. You had to know databases and webhosts and PHP or Perl. If you were “just” a web designer, or a writer with ideas, y
A little over a week ago I published ‘Subcompact Publishing’ . The essay is a consolidation of thoughts and prescriptions for tablet publishing. There is a manifesto bit, too. Which is something of an
… Zip drives ate floppies. CD s ate Zips. DVD s ate CD s. SD cards ate film. LCD s ate CRT s. Telephony ate telegraphy. Text messaging ate talking. Tablets are eating our paper … Imagine a table: Hund
Prior to the Model T, before Henry Ford supposedly said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have made faster horses,” there was an entire industry making faster horses, applying technology according to convention not according to potential. Such behavior continues today, and it’s…
Honolulu after Pearl Harbor: A report published for the first time, 71 years later By Elizabeth P. McIntosh, On Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, I was working as a reporter f
It’s the Economy The ‘Mad Men’ Economic Miracle Credit... Illustration by Jasper Rietman Three months ago, “Breaking Bad” cut off its fifth and final season on a maddening cliffhanger. Just as the D.E
Home Apps Social Apps Twitter Twitterrific is the Star Trek of iOS. Not only is it the original, but more than any other app, it has proven its ability to re-invent and re-invigorate itself, over and
Earlier this morning in a post about Apple manufacturing their products in the US, I wrote "look for this "made in the USA" thing to turn into a trend". Well, Made in the USA is already emerging as a
Why are third parties important in the Twitter ecosystem? Let Twitterrific count the ways: First use of “tweet” to describe an update (see page 86 of Dom Sagolla’s book .) First use of a bird icon . F
I’ve always loved shows that take you behind the scenes of creative efforts: Project Runway and Classic Albums being two of my favorites. Here’s one about the development of Twitterrific 5. Since a lo
Economics Economics Indicators Central Banks Jobs Trade Tax & Spend Inflation & Prices Economics Turkey’s Credit Outlook Raised by Fitch as New Policies Pay Off Economics Portugal’s Outlook Raised to
It was my birthday yesterday, and I had to lay down Mister President , my dog of ten years, to rest forever. All things considered, my family and I were fortunate in that we were able to say goodbye t
Emily Lakdawalla ⢠Dec 05, 2012 Now that Casey has explained the budget implications of yesterday's 2020 rover announcement, and The Planetary Society has issued a formal statement , I thought it wa
Most magazine articles do not, as a general rule, inspire impassioned responses. But in 2003, when The Atlantic published a short essay by correspondent Jonathan Rauch on the trials of introversion in
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and mala
Jeff Sonderman, writing for Poynter : With the benefit of hindsight, there seem to be at least two othermajor lessons from The Daily’s failure: Audience clarity. It was difficult to grasp who exactly
I wouldn’t call myself a calendar power-user. Ever since I started organizing the things I have to do with a system I can trust , I’ve faced a workflow conundrum: is this a task or a calendar event? I
Published in I. M. H. O. · 4 min read · Nov 30, 2012 -- For the past decade, I’ve tried every new social media product to come along but I find myself returning to the two giants of the industry most
Op-Ed Contributor Bad Connections Syracuse SINCE 1974, when the Justice Department sued to break up the Ma Bell phone monopoly, Americans have been told that competition in telecommunications would pr
A few months ago, on Twitter, where it seems all the interesting stuff happens these days, I shared a vintage Haunted Mansion photo I found especially beautiful. It's from 1972 and I can't remember wh
Ultrasonic cleaners work by sending high frequency sound waves through a liquid in some sort of basin. The sound waves cause cavitation bubbles to form on anything you put in the basin, and those bubb
One German genius has engineered a faster, smarter board game. * Photo: Baerbel Schmidt * In 1991, Klaus Teuber was well on his way to becoming one of the planet's hottest board game designers. Teuber
Illustration by Tom Bachtell Brothers and sisters: Before we open our hymnals and sing the many grim verses of “Now Cometh the Hard Part,” the quadrennial post-Election Day dirge, the congregation is
Behind the Wheel | 2012 Tesla Model S One Big Step for Tesla, One Giant Leap for E.V.’s REALITY SHOW Tesla’s second electric model is the stylish Model S, with an E.P.A.-rated range of up to 265 miles
Leif Parsons The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype
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