Ulysse Sabbagh

Strong and insightful column by Keith Teare, on the slow demise of desktop Internet traffic and the rise of mobile traffic and how it is an important and urgent issue to monetize the latter:

There is a new law emerging in cyberspace. As desktop traffic growth declines, and mobile adoption explodes, predatory marketers need to monetize mobile traffic or die trying.

As this law takes hold, bad behavior is replacing smart long-term product thinking. The result is an explosion of unnatural acts of engagement. Facebook allows users to escape its filters (designed to give a good experience) by paying to force their Facebook posts in front of their friends — $7 a time and you’re golden. Twitter sends constant reminders about “what you missed” on its service. Google Plus has notification defaults set to a level that results in constant stream of inane emails.

And

7. Intimacy and long-term relationships are a forgotten goal.

The essence of good behavior is to start by helping the user achieve a goal. The essence of a mobile device is that it is intimate. Unlike a screen on the wall, where an ad can be irritating, but understandable; or a screen on your desk where a well placed and content-targeted ad can be even helpful; a mobile ad is almost always an intrusion due to the behavior it interrupts being mostly personal and intimate. Of course this is compounded by the real estate it steals from the small screen. The short-term revenue win from displaying an ad is offset by the long-term relationship damage done between the user and the publisher showing the ad. The sense of being a “target” rather than a person is a growing experience, as our sensibilities are increasingly offended.

Spot on. 

According to the Aviation Safety Network, an independent database in the Netherlands, there were 23 fatal airliner accidents during 2012, with some 475 people killed as a result. That compares with a ten-year average of 34 accidents and 773 fatalities—making 2012 the safest year for air travel since 1945.

For that, passengers can thank the expertise that goes into the assembly, equipment and inspection of aircraft produced by the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer. Western-built jets and turbo-prop planes account for around 95% and 80% of global passenger fleets respectively. Of last year’s 23 fatal accidents, only three involved Western-built jets.

Apart from better instruments, more rigorous maintenance and improved training, there are other reasons for this huge improvement in aviation safety. One is the voluntary reporting arrangement that encourages flight crew and maintenance staff to pass along, without fear of recrimination, details of mistakes that could affect a plane’s safety.

That last bit is disturbing. Does it mean that before, people were afraid of reporting mistakes that could so harshly cost lives? 

According to the Aviation Safety Network, an independent database in the Netherlands, there were 23 fatal airliner accidents during 2012, with some 475 people killed as a result. That compares with a ten-year average of 34 accidents and 773 fatalities—making 2012 the safest year for air travel since 1945.

For that, passengers can thank the expertise that goes into the assembly, equipment and inspection of aircraft produced by the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer. Western-built jets and turbo-prop planes account for around 95% and 80% of global passenger fleets respectively. Of last year’s 23 fatal accidents, only three involved Western-built jets.

Apart from better instruments, more rigorous maintenance and improved training, there are other reasons for this huge improvement in aviation safety. One is the voluntary reporting arrangement that encourages flight crew and maintenance staff to pass along, without fear of recrimination, details of mistakes that could affect a plane’s safety.

That last bit is disturbing. Does it mean that before, people were afraid of reporting mistakes that could so harshly cost lives? 

vpbiden:

The Greatest F-Bombs of American Politics (pictured: Vice President Nelson Rockefeller gives protestors at a 1976 rally the middle finger)

• “Go fuck yourself” - Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), in the White House lobby before a meeting with President Obama and congressional party leaders on the fiscal cliff. The story leaked after Boehner bragged about the incident to House Republicans
• “Fuck yourself” - Vice President Dick Cheney to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), after Leahy publicly questioned Cheney’s ties to the Halliburton oil company
• “Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room” - Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) to Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) during closed-door negotiations on immigration reform in 2007.
• “This is a big fucking deal” - Vice President Joe Biden, whispering in President Barack Obama’s ear after introducing him before a speech on healthcare reform

• “I don’t give a fucking damn!” - then- Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, after he told an aide to get off the plane in the midst of an argument, and the aide pointed out that they were over the ocean
• “Y’all talkin’ about Iraq? Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out” -President George W. Bush, walking into a meeting with his national security advisors
• “This is a fucking coup d’état!” -President Bill Clinton to Vice President Al Gore after the Monica Lewinsky story first broke
• “This is important. Don’t fuck it up” -Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor to President Clinton, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair before an appearance with Clinton during the Lewinsky Scandal
• “I’m fucking good enough. I’m fucking smart enough, and goddamn it, people fear me” -Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, pumping himself up in front of the mirror before a speech
• “I don’t need Bush’s tax cut. I’ve never worked a fucking day in my life” -Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island) making a self-deprecating joke during a democratic fundraiser
• “Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did” -Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), explaining his Iraq War vote to Rolling Stone magazine in December 2003
• “John is substantively more sure-footed than he is politically adept. My plea to John is: ‘John, I don’t want to hear you explain another fucking thing. Be declarative.’ And he’ll say to me, ‘Well, I’ll say it and explain it.’ I say, ‘Don’t explain it! Say it! Question and answer, period.” -then Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware), on longtime friend John Kerry in 2004
• “This is a fucking valuable thing…I’ve got this thing and its fucking golden, and I’m just not giving it up for fucking nothing” -Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, during a wiretapped phone call in which he tried to sell Barack Obama’s former Senate seat
• “Well, this is obviously a fuck up” -President John F. Kennedy, after reading an outrageous article in the Washington Post
• “Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good” -President Lyndon B. Johnson, to Greek ambassador Alexandros Matsos after he objected to the U.S. plans for Cyprus
• “Fuck you!” -Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut) after a speech at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
• “Listen, I’m a fucking steamroller, and I’ll roll over you and anybody else” -New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, to Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco

The 100 best lists of all time

The 100 best lists of all time

www.newyorker.com/online/bl…

96. The World Rock Paper Scissors player’s responsibility code

23. The grocery list

1. The Periodic Table of Elements

The Sun’s luminosity has increased by 10 percent, causing Earth’s surface temperatures to reach an average of 47°C. The atmosphere will become a “moist greenhouse”, resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. Pockets of water may still be present at the poles, allowing abodes for simple life.

Timeline of the far future - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A very cool Wikipedia article. 

The Sun’s luminosity has increased by 10 percent, causing Earth’s surface temperatures to reach an average of 47°C. The atmosphere will become a “moist greenhouse”, resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. Pockets of water may still be present at the poles, allowing abodes for simple life.

Cold or wet weather does not cause a cold, but nobody seems to want to accept this. The is common cold is caused by a virus. These viruses are everywhere and it is difficult to avoid them. When you are exposed to someone who has a cold, you are more likely to get ill yourself, so be careful about close contact and definitely wash your hands. Not getting enough sleep or eating poorly can also reduce your resistance to infection. Remember that antibiotics won’t fight your everyday cold. Antibiotics work only against bacteria. To take care of a cold, rest, eat well, and a little chicken soup couldn’t hurt.

But!

But if that’s true, why do people contract a cold more often in the Winter? Doctors don’t have a certain answer, but according to the New York Times there are a few working theories. Because colds are spread by transferring the virus from one person to another, you need to be in contact with other people. People spend more time indoors during the Winter, and so you often find yourselves 1) around them, and 2) in an enclosed space. If one person gets sick in a household, office, or wherever, there’s a good chance that virus will spread. As you should any time of year, keep your distance from the contagious.

Great list on LifeHacker.

Cold or wet weather does not cause a cold, but nobody seems to want to accept this. The is common cold is caused by a virus. These viruses are everywhere and it is difficult to avoid them. When you are exposed to someone who has a cold, you are more likely to get ill yourself, so be careful about close contact and definitely wash your hands. Not getting enough sleep or eating poorly can also reduce your resistance to infection. Remember that antibiotics won’t fight your everyday cold. Antibiotics work only against bacteria. To take care of a cold, rest, eat well, and a little chicken soup couldn’t hurt.

But!

But if that’s true, why do people contract a cold more often in the Winter? Doctors don’t have a certain answer, but according to the New York Times there are a few working theories. Because colds are spread by transferring the virus from one person to another, you need to be in contact with other people. People spend more time indoors during the Winter, and so you often find yourselves 1) around them, and 2) in an enclosed space. If one person gets sick in a household, office, or wherever, there’s a good chance that virus will spread. As you should any time of year, keep your distance from the contagious.

Great list on LifeHacker.

Ars Technica writer Matt Ford published a very interesting piece on programming that everyone — I do mean it — can follow and understand. It basically explains how computers work and it explains that very well. 

At their base, even though they run much of the world, computers are one thing: stupid. A computer knows nothing. Its brain is little more than a large collection of on/off switches. The fact that you can play video games, browse the Internet, and pump gas at a gas station is thanks to the programs the computers have been given by a human. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the basic concepts of computer programming: how a person teaches a computer something and how the ideas encapsulated in the program go from something we can understand to something a computer understands.

First, it needs to be said that programming is not some black art, something arcane that only the learned few may ever attempt. It is a method of communication whereby a person tells a computer what, exactly, they want it to do. Computers are picky and stupid, but they will indeed do exactly as they are told. Therefore, each program you write should be like an elegant recipe that anyone—including a computer—can follow. Ideally, each step in a program should be clearly described and, if it is complicated, broken down into smaller steps to remove all doubt about what is to happen.

A long yet fascinating story on Dr. Ralph Steinman, posthumous Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine and how he hacked his body to try and cure his cancer.

In the spring of 2007, Steinman, a 64-year-old senior physician and research immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, had come home from a ski trip with a bad case of diarrhea, and a few days later he showed up for work with yellow eyes and yellow skin — symptoms of a cancerous mass the size of a kiwi that was growing on the head of his pancreas. Soon he learned that the disease had made its way into nearby lymph nodes. Among patients with his condition, 80 percent are dead within the first year; another 90 percent die the year after that. When he told his children about the tumor over Skype, he said, “Don’t Google it.”

But for a man who had spent his life in the laboratory, who brought copies of The New England Journal of Medicine on hiking trips to Vermont and always made sure that family vacations overlapped with scientific symposia, there was only one way to react to such an awful diagnosis — as a scientist. The outlook for pancreatic cancer is so poor, and the established treatments so useless, that any patient who has the disease might as well shoot the moon with new, untested therapies. For Steinman, the prognosis offered the opportunity to run one last experiment.

A long yet fascinating story on Dr. Ralph Steinman, posthumous Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine and how he hacked his body to try and cure his cancer.

In the spring of 2007, Steinman, a 64-year-old senior physician and research immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, had come home from a ski trip with a bad case of diarrhea, and a few days later he showed up for work with yellow eyes and yellow skin — symptoms of a cancerous mass the size of a kiwi that was growing on the head of his pancreas. Soon he learned that the disease had made its way into nearby lymph nodes. Among patients with his condition, 80 percent are dead within the first year; another 90 percent die the year after that. When he told his children about the tumor over Skype, he said, “Don’t Google it.”

But for a man who had spent his life in the laboratory, who brought copies of The New England Journal of Medicine on hiking trips to Vermont and always made sure that family vacations overlapped with scientific symposia, there was only one way to react to such an awful diagnosis — as a scientist. The outlook for pancreatic cancer is so poor, and the established treatments so useless, that any patient who has the disease might as well shoot the moon with new, untested therapies. For Steinman, the prognosis offered the opportunity to run one last experiment.

Is it better to walk or run in the rain? 

Is it better to walk or run in the rain? 

The lengthy, predominantly male queues outside Apple shops on launch days suggest that, contrary to received wisdom, not all men hate shopping. Yet the impression that they do periodically prompts retailers to try and re-invent the activity to appeal to the more retail-reluctant half of the population. The latest such ploy is a high-tech clothing chain called Hointer, which opened its first branch in Seattle last month selling jeans. Hointer has no over-solicitous sales assistants, no confusing piles of clothes and no endless lines at the tills. Instead, only one of each style of jeans is displayed on the shop floor. Shoppers use a smartphone app to scan items they wish to try on, and choose a size and colour.

The app sends a message over the internet to a robotic system in the stock room. This locates a pair in the correct size and uses tensioned cables to drop it into a basket in one of the shop’s six large dressing rooms. When Babbage tried it, the whole process took less than the time to walk to the fitting room, around 30 seconds. If the jeans fit, customers can simply put them in a bag, swipe their credit card through a reader and walk out the door without ever interacting with another person.

… will be like buying clothes online but in real life. 

The lengthy, predominantly male queues outside Apple shops on launch days suggest that, contrary to received wisdom, not all men hate shopping. Yet the impression that they do periodically prompts retailers to try and re-invent the activity to appeal to the more retail-reluctant half of the population. The latest such ploy is a high-tech clothing chain called Hointer, which opened its first branch in Seattle last month selling jeans. Hointer has no over-solicitous sales assistants, no confusing piles of clothes and no endless lines at the tills. Instead, only one of each style of jeans is displayed on the shop floor. Shoppers use a smartphone app to scan items they wish to try on, and choose a size and colour.

The app sends a message over the internet to a robotic system in the stock room. This locates a pair in the correct size and uses tensioned cables to drop it into a basket in one of the shop’s six large dressing rooms. When Babbage tried it, the whole process took less than the time to walk to the fitting room, around 30 seconds. If the jeans fit, customers can simply put them in a bag, swipe their credit card through a reader and walk out the door without ever interacting with another person.

… will be like buying clothes online but in real life. 

Quora aims to allow anyone to easily share their knowledge and in the process to dramatically increase the total amount of knowledge available to the world. As we grow, we will be able to provide larger and larger audiences to writers, cover more and more topics, and have greater and greater impact on the world. We hope to become an internet-scale Library of Alexandria, a place where hundreds of millions of people go to learn about anything and share everything they know. To do that we are going to have to expand. Today Quora is largely questions and answers, but that is not the ideal format for all knowledge. Other formats will gradually be added as we scale up.

This is what Adam d'Angelo, CEO of Quora had to say about his company’s future. 

Quora is moving away from focusing solely on Q&A. Wild guess: big redesign in the first half of 2013, bigger emphasis on Quora Boards, (d'Angelo created one that he calls his blog) arguably the best feature of the service.