It’s Global Ignite Week, with more than 50 Ignite events taking place all over the world. The second Ignite Raleigh was held tonight, and there were lots of entertaining and informative speakers. If you get a chance, you should definitely attend your own local Ignite event if you can. I was one of the speakers at the previous Ignite Raleigh, last August, and wrote up the experience. If you’re going to be speaking at Ignite, it’s probably worth checking out: ...
Other than a few sleazy actors like Intellectual Ventures there’s an understanding in the innovative side of the tech business that you don’t file aggressive patent lawsuits. You write a lot of patents, you file defensive lawsuits and countersuits, but in general you don’t use your patent portfolio as a big club to try to destroy competitors. Apple’s taking a big crap on that detente. Nelson Minar on Apple’s patent lawsuit against Android handset maker HTC. ...
Jono from Mozilla makes a great point that most people (including me) have completely overlooked when it comes to the Web – most people don’t really understand URLs: So what this mess teaches us is that there are lots of people out there who don’t know how to read a URL. The URL in the location bar, if they notice it at all, must appear to them as nothing but a bunch of computer gibberish. ...
John Gruber on the name of Windows Phone 7 Series: The bigger naming question: Why name it “Windows” anything? If Microsoft is going for a clean break, why not a new non-“Windows” name? I think it shows just how perverse Microsoft’s obsession with “Windows” is. There’s no good way to leverage their Windows PC OS monopoly to extend it to mobile, other than the name, so they’re sticking with it. It doesn’t even make literal sense. The whole point of the “Windows” name is that it was for a system whose UI revolved around the concept of on-screen windows. There are no windows in the Windows Phone 7 interface. ...
You already know what I think about Roger Ebert’s writing. Turns out he is inspiring great writing from other people as well. Don’t miss Will Leitch’s Roger Ebert story. It’s great, and twisty, and I won’t spoil it.
I’ve always been impressed with the stable of bloggers The Atlantic has amassed. There are some who I actively avoid, but it’s an impressive group overall. The latest redesign shows that whoever was in charge really doesn’t understand what’s good about a good blog. Take a look at this post from Ta-Nehisi Coates explaining to readers just what happened. Coates used to have a blog that had his posts listed in reverse chronological order, just like this one. Now he’s got what amounts to a category page on the Culture channel. I think that multi-author blogs are kind of iffy anyway, and diluting the pure voice of Coates (or any other blogger) in this way is very likely to kill their readership entirely. ...
Patrick Mueller has some patent-related tips for software developers and people who make stuff in general. He was asked to testify in a patent infringement case because the defense attorneys found a paper he wrote published on the Web, and thought it would help their case. His tips are simple enough: Document the crap out of the things that you make. Put your documentation on the web, and make sure search engines can find it 20 years from now. Be sure to click through to read about his experience as a fact witness. ...
Earlier this week Tim Bray explained why he’s given up on software patents and today we learn that Facebook has patented the activity stream, which was not their idea in the first place. Of course the patent examiners wouldn’t know that, further illustrating the fact that the patent office shouldn’t be in that business and that nearly all progress in software is iterative. We don’t need patents.
Andrew Leonard on a Salmon farming disaster in Chile: Who could have predicted that the mass forced farming of an exotic fish to please the Wal-Mart low-price palate would result in a horrific virus-borne plague of anemia? I don’t eat farmed salmon if I can help it.
Turns out the same skills that make a person a keen observer of movies or theater are also useful for observing the real world. Here’s Roger Ebert in The gathering storm: Sometimes in the noise of the news there will be a single item that pops out with clarity. That happened when I heard about Tracy, California, which is charging $300 every time the fire department answers an emergency call that doesn’t involve a fire. ...