Cbasedlifeform

I bought it in paperback as well, and read and loved it immediately. I then gave it to a young programmer I met in Sapporo, who was (at the time) working with BeOS.

I have the text version (the proper one, I suppose!) on my laptop as I type.

I was with Simple from the start and generally liked the app and the customer support (based in Portland IIRC) was very helpful and friendly.

My problem was that I had a large check to deposit and before they cleared it they insist I not only specify the source of the funds but also what I was going to use the monies for! I understand they need to ask the former (per IRS regulations and "Suspicious Activity Reporting") but the latter is frankly NOTFB and no other bank has asked me that question. I told them as such and closed the account.

My iPhone 5s (still my favourite iPhone design) died a couple of years ago (well, the battery did) and since then I use an iPod touch for apps and a cheap (£30 IIRC) dual-SIM little Nokia for telephony. The latter keeps its charge for days and I don't worry about losing it.

I confess as a news junkie I enjoy twitter, youtube, podcasts and reddit etc on my iPod but as it is wifi-only of course there are built in constraints in its use. I also have taken to going out without iPod or phone after work hours... very liberating and almost revolutionary! Nice to have an untracked-feeling if nothing else.

Note that apart from privacy issues and technical problems (Puerto Rico blackout, anybody?) numerous studies indicate that people spend less money when using cash instead of credit cards. That's one reason for the big push by the banks, shops, restaurants, and media to "go cashless".

Singapore

My last smartphone was an iPhone 5S (which IMO is the nicest of all iPhone designs). The battery eventually died... I still think about reviving it. In any case I then got a cheap (30 quid IIRC) dual-sim little Nokia which takes a French and a UK sim card (pay as you go) and quite cheap for regular calls. Works like a charm, the battery lasts for days, and I don't worry if I lose it.

Separately I have an iPod touch which gives me some control over smartphone addictive behaviour as it only has wifi. And it has the headphone jack :) I absolutely refuse to buy a device without one.

I used to joke with friends about "smartphone zombies" in the streets but now it is no longer a joke. It's genuinely scary to be on a train or subway and see everyone glued to their phone without looking up. Mothers and kids each staring at screens instead of interacting.

I was a big Steve Jobs fan when he was alive, but now wonder if the iPhone (and its competition) are destroying society the way automobiles destroyed much of the physical world.

The article mentioned how Brown rented out the Kip's Bay cinema in NY to try to get distribution. That is where I in fact saw it as a small boy with my sister and parents. I never surfed myself but relatives in California did and I always remembered the line about "the dirty Wedge" somewhere near LA. Fond memories... I'll have to see it again.

Strangely (I think) this doesn't mention the Sinclair calculators, one of which I purchased in the mid-Seventies and still have in a box somewhere. It was minimalist but gorgeous. I'd like to dig it out now and carry it around... would be v hipster.

It's long ago but mine might have been the Sinclair Cambridge Scientific: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cambridge_scienific.h...

What hath god wrought!

Ditto that. I listen to a variety of podcasts (politics, comedy, tech) and it is the same four or five adverts. Harry's probably most of all.

As for Blue Apron itself, I recently discovered the pleasures of cooking and for me it is almost a therapy (and I listen to podcasts while I cook, in fact :) but I have a bit more free time than many people. I could appreciate the convenience of the delivery and the recipes but as others have noted the amount of packaging waste is absurd. And once people start cooking they'll quickly realise how easy (and tasty) it can be.

They claim that some of that money goes to "digital promotion", but that still seems like a hefty sum of money for a pretty bog standard web site.

Thanks for following up on this. I was (and remain) outraged by Rice's appointment and dropped Dropbox. Maybe some enterprising startup should create a "Droppedbox" alternative. :)

From the article:

In light of this story, Facebook deserves to lose every one of its users. It is completely unacceptable that by using a given platform to share one’s personal life with others one is suddenly, and without consent, subjected to such a highly manipulative experiment.

The entire chain of command that approved this experiment, worthy of Dr. Josef Mengele, should be sacked, and at the same time a rigorous internal audit carried out to discover whether other such experiments have been undertaken.

Hear, hear!

I have been involved in small clinical trials involving 50 subjects or so and it is a huge amount of (necessary) work to get proper approval. That Facebook somehow thinks they can "study" (by intentionally seeking to manipulate users' moods!) 700,000 people without proper informed consent being sought boggles the mind.

Somehow a rather more interesting analysis than those I've read on various Apple blogs, some of which seem to think this Beats deal would make great sense. Macrumors quoted someone as saying how the Beats pair 'has a lock on fashion and culture' or something like that -- well, one kind of fashion and one kind of culture. Based on the video in this piece I'm not sure it's really the image Apple wants to project. We'll see, but just the thought that Apple is considering this deal makes me glad that I'm no longer a shareholder. :)

Thanks for this clear, useful, expert opinion. I've heard disparaging things about the Beats headphones and good (I suppose) to have them confirmed. I was shopping for headphones for as a gift and the store chap (who seemed quite knowledgeable) assured me that Beats were way overpriced. I got some Sennheisers at a lower price and they were amazing.

What's interesting to me (as a very frequent traveller) is that I have routinely seen completely full 747-size planes board in 10-15 minutes in Japan. This has much to do with the culture I suspect, plus smaller size humans, and less tendancy to take bigger bags. Still, it's impressive.

How to win friends and influence people… NOT.

Someday the Americans (including the NSA, CIA, White House etc) will finally wake up and realise they have pissed off their remaining friends in the world. I suppose their partners-in-surveillance (GCHQ, Mossad etc) will still hang around.

As it happens I was just looking at DB alternatives that would be more secure. The news that they have hired Condi the war criminal Rice to join their board is the clincher. Bye bye DB.

That's one of the creepiest adverts I've ever seen.

LOL :)

GCHQ (and NSA) know what you did last summer. And spring, winter, and fall.

Does anyone know how much of the total BTC are still held within Mt Gox? If MG does indeed implode or go bankrupt, what happens to the BTC it still holds? I feel sorry for those who trusted MG with their BTC, but the writing was on the wall a while ago.

Yves Smith's conclusion:

What is stunning is all the exchanges among top executives. The filing quotes numerous e-mails among Jobs, Sergey Brin, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, and other Silicon Valley heavy-hitters that talk openly about the agreement and various threats when a member to an agreement falls out of line. By contrast, in the AMD case above, the parties to the lysine cartel were very careful to hold meetings where they’d discuss price fixing overseas, where that action was not criminal. The brazenness is remarkable.

Nostalghia is one of my favourite films ever. The scene with the shadow of the rain on the villa walls… poetry in motion.

Does anyone believe what this man says anymore? Just askin'.

This is from a rather dubious (Fox 'News') source originally, but as it appeared on Zero Hedge it will get a fair amount of views. I guess it is a tossup between Fox's 'reporting' and the incompetence of the ObamaCare web site programmers. A tough call.

About bloody time, is my immediate reaction. And Diane Feinstein should resign in shame. But I'd be more impressed with MS, Google, Apple et al if they had told the NSA initially to go Cheney themselves.

Who could've predicted…?

I am not remotely qualified to judge this, alas. Can someone please indicate how valid this is?

Aren't normal people thrown in jail for years for copyright theft these days, e.g. some kid with a few dozen pirated CDs?

BTW Datatables are fab and the developer deserves lots of credit.

Unbloodybelievable. Or perhaps not, given that it is a .gov IT project.

Deadline after deadline was missed. The biggest contractor, CGI Federal, was awarded its $94 million contract in December 2011. But the government was so slow in issuing specifications that the firm did not start writing software code until this spring, according to people familiar with the process. As late as the last week of September, officials were still changing features of the Web site, HealthCare.gov, and debating whether consumers should be required to register and create password-protected accounts before they could shop for health plans.