Posts

Stephen O’Grady has written one of his patented Q & A pieces about Google Gears. Here’s his summary of the Google Gears’ guts: Gisting this down, you essentially have a local web server (which one, does anyone know?) that serves cached content out of a SQLite database, with a threading mechanism that ensures that abnormally strenuous tasks - say, downloading and caching several thousand email messages - doesn’t bring your browser down while it waits. It’s pretty straightforward, actually. ...

What does Steve Ballmer have to say about Microsoft’s early employees, the ones that built the juggernaut that has made him one of the world’s richest men? Scott Rosenberg reports: Mossberg: “What, it was small but ossified?” Ballmer: “The people we had weren’t as good — they just weren’t pushing as much.” Mossberg: “Like Paul Allen?” Ballmer: “Paul was good. Bill was good. Four out of 30 were good — and believe me, the rest are gone.” ...

If only I were making this up (via FP Passport): “I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country,” the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola. A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to “stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world.” “I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this,” Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. “But I don’t want to go that way.” ...

The sports world is abuzz with the news that some folks with big money (including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban) are planning on launching a new professional football league to compete with the NFL. I’m wondering whether they’ll institute any rule changes to make the league a real alternative to the NFL and college football. The rules of football are ripe for innovation. One problem with the NFL is that the optimal strategies for success are pretty well understood. I’d love to see a league come into existence with rules that diverge enough from the NFL rules to foster real innovation in football tactics. It would also help the league compete for talent by creating jobs for college football players who don’t fit into the NFL mold for their position for whatever reason. ...

Yesterday, Last.fm announced that they are being acquired by CBS. That was fun while it lasted.

You know how I keep telling developers they need to learn JavaScript? It’s true now more than ever.

Guess what term the Nazis used as a euphemism for torture? (via Jason)

Palm has released a laptop that’s just a smartphone accessory. Is there going to be a market for a product this bizarre?

I’ll be attending DCampSouth in Raleigh on Saturday. It’s a local unconference covering user experience and design. If you’re going as well, be sure to find me and say hello.

High energy prices and resulting increases in the demand for corn are hurting the profits of steakhouses. We should all be eating grass fed beef anyway.