Instagram, Twitter and the recent mess
Recently, Instagram denied Twitter the function to display Instagram photos directly in people’s Twitter feeds. This took the blogosphere (does that even exist anymore?) by storm and everyone started to be angry.
As Michael Arrington points out in a recent TechCrunch post, Instagram is officially in the “it’s our data” club.
He starts off by explaining what happened (in layman terms):
Mostly people are saying it’s ok that Instagram is screwing us by removing our ability to properly share our pictures on Twitter. Because Twitter screwed Instagram multiple times in the recent past.
Twitter, of course, only screwed Instagram because Instagram screwed Twitter right before Twitter screwed them. Because Instagram decided that they’d rather be acquired by Facebook instead of Twitter.
Screw that, thought Twitter. We used to love Instagram, particularly during the time while we were trying to buy Instagram. But then we didn’t buy them and so, obviously, we now hate Instagram. We’re gonna screw them and bad.
And concludes:
See that? They thought about doing the right thing, which may have even gathered so much long-term user loyalty that they could be sitting on a hundred year brand. And in the middle of thinking all those noble thoughts about doing right by users they just slapped themselves back down to earth and did what they always do.
Seize all assets within reach, and tell the sheeple users that they were sadly forced to do this to protect the data, which is their data now, and PS thank you very much for transferring all that data you made to us. High five! Then go home and pour yourself a double Macallan, neat, and tell yourself again how much you are helping the world become a better place.
You win at long-term if you’re nice to your users. Could this be the start of a downhill motion for Instagram?
Instagram, Twitter and the recent mess
Recently, Instagram denied Twitter the function to display Instagram photos directly in people’s Twitter feeds. This took the blogosphere (does that even exist anymore?) by storm and everyone started to be angry.
As Michael Arrington points out in a recent TechCrunch post, Instagram is officially in the “it’s our data” club.
He starts off by explaining what happened (in layman terms):
Mostly people are saying it’s ok that Instagram is screwing us by removing our ability to properly share our pictures on Twitter. Because Twitter screwed Instagram multiple times in the recent past.
Twitter, of course, only screwed Instagram because Instagram screwed Twitter right before Twitter screwed them. Because Instagram decided that they’d rather be acquired by Facebook instead of Twitter.
Screw that, thought Twitter. We used to love Instagram, particularly during the time while we were trying to buy Instagram. But then we didn’t buy them and so, obviously, we now hate Instagram. We’re gonna screw them and bad.
And concludes:
See that? They thought about doing the right thing, which may have even gathered so much long-term user loyalty that they could be sitting on a hundred year brand. And in the middle of thinking all those noble thoughts about doing right by users they just slapped themselves back down to earth and did what they always do.
Seize all assets within reach, and tell the sheeple users that they were sadly forced to do this to protect the data, which is their data now, and PS thank you very much for transferring all that data you made to us. High five! Then go home and pour yourself a double Macallan, neat, and tell yourself again how much you are helping the world become a better place.
You win at long-term if you’re nice to your users. Could this be the start of a downhill motion for Instagram?
The end of pasta
Genius title for an insightful article published on the Daily Beast:
But if humans want to keep eating pasta, we will have to take much more aggressive action against global warming. Pasta is made from wheat, and a large, growing body of scientific studies and real-world observations suggest that wheat will be hit especially hard as temperatures rise and storms and drought intensify in the years ahead.
Shit just got real.
Data?
By 2050, scientists project, the world’s leading wheat belts—the U.S. and Canadian Midwest, northern China, India, Russia, and Australia—on average will experience, every other year, a hotter summer than the hottest summer now on record. Wheat production in that period could decline between 23 and 27 percent, reports the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), unless swift action is taken to limit temperature rise and develop crop varieties that can tolerate a hotter world.
The end of pasta
Genius title for an insightful article published on the Daily Beast:
But if humans want to keep eating pasta, we will have to take much more aggressive action against global warming. Pasta is made from wheat, and a large, growing body of scientific studies and real-world observations suggest that wheat will be hit especially hard as temperatures rise and storms and drought intensify in the years ahead.
Shit just got real.
Data?
By 2050, scientists project, the world’s leading wheat belts—the U.S. and Canadian Midwest, northern China, India, Russia, and Australia—on average will experience, every other year, a hotter summer than the hottest summer now on record. Wheat production in that period could decline between 23 and 27 percent, reports the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), unless swift action is taken to limit temperature rise and develop crop varieties that can tolerate a hotter world.
Roger Ebert on media coverage of school shootings
Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, wrote a review for Gus Van Sant’s Elephant in 2003. He gave an interview and he asked if he thought violent films influenced psychopathic killers to go into schools and shoot people. Ebert said he didn’t think so:
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
It’s not video games either, let us be clear.
Roger Ebert on media coverage of school shootings
Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, wrote a review for Gus Van Sant’s Elephant in 2003. He gave an interview and he asked if he thought violent films influenced psychopathic killers to go into schools and shoot people. Ebert said he didn’t think so:
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
It’s not video games either, let us be clear.
Picturescue: recover photos and videos from iPhone backups
Picturescue: recover photos and videos from iPhone backups
How many times have I lost photos and videos because for some obscure reason, Apple didn’t make a good job to sync them back to my Mac? Too many times. Here’s the one app that you need (this is not a sponsor post, it’s just a really useful app.)
Picturescue: recover photos and videos from iPhone backups
How many times have I lost photos and videos because for some obscure reason, Apple didn’t make a good job to sync them back to my Mac? Too many times. Here’s the one app that you need (this is not a sponsor post, it’s just a really useful app.)
Why the anti-corruption movement is the new human rights movement
For the last two years, people have taken to the streets to protest against corruption – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. And rallies occurred all around the world (Tunisia in 2010, Russia in 2011, India, China…).
There are striking similarities between these protests, which still need to be unified and the human rights movement.
Anne Applebaum, writing for Slate:
Still in its infancy, the international anti-corruption movement has the potential to enhance and augment human-rights rhetoric enormously. Both rely on arguments about justice, fairness, and the rule of law. Though it probably won’t be long before someone finds a way to cast “anti-corruption” as another form of Western imperialism, for the moment the movement’s other strength is its universalism: Its arguments and tactics work in democracies as well as dictatorships.
Make sure to read this article published in The Economist. An excerpt:
The anti-graft laws of national governments are making progress too. America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Britain’s Bribery Act impose potentially savage penalties on firms that do business by sleazy means. That includes having weak in-house anti-corruption policies. The results are mixed. At a conference earlier this month in Prague organised by the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, Thomas Firestone of the Moscow office of Baker & McKenzie, a law firm, said foreign managers trying to penalise bribery with dismissal face tough Russian laws that hamper such firings. Perversely, the most corrupt employees can thus gain hefty severance payments. Such clashes between local and international laws abound.
Why the anti-corruption movement is the new human rights movement
For the last two years, people have taken to the streets to protest against corruption – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. And rallies occurred all around the world (Tunisia in 2010, Russia in 2011, India, China…).
There are striking similarities between these protests, which still need to be unified and the human rights movement.
Anne Applebaum, writing for Slate:
Still in its infancy, the international anti-corruption movement has the potential to enhance and augment human-rights rhetoric enormously. Both rely on arguments about justice, fairness, and the rule of law. Though it probably won’t be long before someone finds a way to cast “anti-corruption” as another form of Western imperialism, for the moment the movement’s other strength is its universalism: Its arguments and tactics work in democracies as well as dictatorships.
Make sure to read this article published in The Economist. An excerpt:
The anti-graft laws of national governments are making progress too. America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Britain’s Bribery Act impose potentially savage penalties on firms that do business by sleazy means. That includes having weak in-house anti-corruption policies. The results are mixed. At a conference earlier this month in Prague organised by the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, Thomas Firestone of the Moscow office of Baker & McKenzie, a law firm, said foreign managers trying to penalise bribery with dismissal face tough Russian laws that hamper such firings. Perversely, the most corrupt employees can thus gain hefty severance payments. Such clashes between local and international laws abound.
There will not be any hegemonic power,” the 166-page report says. “Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.
China will replace the United States before 2030 as the most powerful economy in the world. This is the result of a study led by US-based National Intelligence Council. An upside is that the United States will be energy independent.
There will not be any hegemonic power,” the 166-page report says. “Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.
The history of London's Valley; Silicon Roundabout
The history of London’s Valley; Silicon Roundabout
GigaOM has a nice timeline of the events that led to the creation of the name Silicon Roundabout.
23 July 2008: I’m chatting in the office with (probably) Russell Davies, Ben Terrett and Matt Jones. We’re talking about the neighborhoods our friends work in in other cities, and I jokingly suggest that Old Street has become Silicon Roundabout. It feels very British, slightly awkward and a bit silly. I put it on Twitter.
The history of London’s Valley; Silicon Roundabout
GigaOM has a nice timeline of the events that led to the creation of the name Silicon Roundabout.
23 July 2008: I’m chatting in the office with (probably) Russell Davies, Ben Terrett and Matt Jones. We’re talking about the neighborhoods our friends work in in other cities, and I jokingly suggest that Old Street has become Silicon Roundabout. It feels very British, slightly awkward and a bit silly. I put it on Twitter.
The average age at which people reach the lowest point of happiness in their lives in various countries.
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The average age at which people reach the lowest point of happiness in their lives in various countries.
Miles Davis’s Quintet (including Herbie Hancock) playing live for about 1 hour and 15 minutes in Stockholm on the 31st of October 1967.
Great stuff.
Miles Davis’s Quintet (including Herbie Hancock) playing live for about 1 hour and 15 minutes in Stockholm on the 31st of October 1967.
Great stuff.