Ulysse Sabbagh

What I’m interested in, instead, are suggestions that the unveiling of the iPhone 5 might provide a significant boost to the U.S. economy, adding measurably to economic growth over the next quarter or two.

Do you find this plausible? If so, I have news for you: you are, whether you know it or not, a Keynesian — and you have implicitly accepted the case that the government should spend more, not less, in a depressed economy.

A strong argument for Keynesian stimulus. More spending is healthy. 

What I’m interested in, instead, are suggestions that the unveiling of the iPhone 5 might provide a significant boost to the U.S. economy, adding measurably to economic growth over the next quarter or two.

Do you find this plausible? If so, I have news for you: you are, whether you know it or not, a Keynesian — and you have implicitly accepted the case that the government should spend more, not less, in a depressed economy.

1. Design for beneficial feedback loops
   Beneficial feedback is the opposite of virality. A virus spreads but is harmful, something which is beneficial spreads precisely because it is valuable. Don’t design things to get more users, design things where the more use the more value and therefore the more users. Focus on the product and the business will come.

Principles of invisible web design by David Galbraith

1. Design for beneficial feedback loops
Beneficial feedback is the opposite of virality. A virus spreads but is harmful, something which is beneficial spreads precisely because it is valuable. Don’t design things to get more users, design things where the more use the more value and therefore the more users. Focus on the product and the business will come.

The Obama reelection team made an app, called “Obama for America”. This app can show you the party affiliation of your neighbours, their name, sex and age and their exact address. 

Here is an excerpt from an in-depth feature for the Financial Times called Inside Obama’s HQ: 

The sprawling, open-plan Chicago headquarters of the Obama campaign, and their small huddles of twentysomethings hunched around computer screens, look like an internet start-up for a reason. The traditional trappings of US presidential elections are still important stages from which to sway voters, from the razzle-dazzle of the conventions to the hard slog of daily rallies on the hustings and the endless rounds of fundraising dinners. But in the 21st century, campaigns can use technology to micro-target voters like never before.

“Big data are the story of this election – the whole political media ecology has changed,” says Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, who has advised numerous politicians on the use of technology. “The Obama campaign won’t admit to their real level of sophistication, because they have no reason to.”

They’re not kidding anymore with the kind of information they have in their hands. They won’t let it escape without careful observation. 

The Obama reelection team made an app, called “Obama for America”. This app can show you the party affiliation of your neighbours, their name, sex and age and their exact address. 

Here is an excerpt from an in-depth feature for the Financial Times called Inside Obama’s HQ: 

The sprawling, open-plan Chicago headquarters of the Obama campaign, and their small huddles of twentysomethings hunched around computer screens, look like an internet start-up for a reason. The traditional trappings of US presidential elections are still important stages from which to sway voters, from the razzle-dazzle of the conventions to the hard slog of daily rallies on the hustings and the endless rounds of fundraising dinners. But in the 21st century, campaigns can use technology to micro-target voters like never before.

“Big data are the story of this election – the whole political media ecology has changed,” says Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, who has advised numerous politicians on the use of technology. “The Obama campaign won’t admit to their real level of sophistication, because they have no reason to.”

They’re not kidding anymore with the kind of information they have in their hands. They won’t let it escape without careful observation. 

The A6, unlike its predecessors the A5 and A4, isn’t simply a rebranded ARM design with minor tweaks. Instead, as Anand Shimpi of AnandTech discovered, it’s Apple’s own creation, based on an ARM blueprint — which it also licensed in addition to specific generic processors — but bearing much more of Apple’s own direct input. In other words, Apple is finally emerging as a chipmaker in its own right, and this could have a huge impact on device performance and consumer-facing features in its smartphones and tablets going forward.

Since Apple can now build its own chips, it will focus on the most important thing: power saving. ARM was probably trying to make the best mobile chips anyway but Apple knows battery life is the single most important aspect of the iPhone. 

The A6, unlike its predecessors the A5 and A4, isn’t simply a rebranded ARM design with minor tweaks. Instead, as Anand Shimpi of AnandTech discovered, it’s Apple’s own creation, based on an ARM blueprint — which it also licensed in addition to specific generic processors — but bearing much more of Apple’s own direct input. In other words, Apple is finally emerging as a chipmaker in its own right, and this could have a huge impact on device performance and consumer-facing features in its smartphones and tablets going forward.

Since Apple can now build its own chips, it will focus on the most important thing: power saving. ARM was probably trying to make the best mobile chips anyway but Apple knows battery life is the single most important aspect of the iPhone. 

Jess Hill is the Middle East reporter for the Global Mail, an online newspaper offering comprehensive and nicely written features on diverse matters. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

She wrote Blame the Sheikhs for the Global Mail, about the recent worsening of the social unrest that is shaking the Middle East up. Here are some interesting quotes:

Many mainstream Muslims in the Middle East are angry about the film. But by and large, they are not the ones attending violent demonstrations. So far, the vast majority of demonstrators have issued from two groups: a small, violent fringe among the region’s Salafists, and opportunistic young men looking for an excuse to fight the police. In Egypt, a call for a million-man march on Friday, September 14, fell flat — less than 2,000 turned up, and around 350 of those tried to attack the embassy. In a country of more than 82 million, where tens of thousands regularly turn out to protest, that’s a pretty lame turnout.

In her article, she condemns Saudia Arabia as the main exporter of extremist ideology in the arab world:

This leads us to the elephant in the room. The country doing by far the most to promote extremist beliefs and ideas across the Middle East (and beyond) is one of America’s closest allies. Over the past 30 years, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $70 billion exporting the Wahhabi doctrine around the world, through schools, publishing houses and satellite television channels. Had it not been for the Saudi-backed Sheikh Khaled Abdallah, it’s highly likely that the film The Innocence of the Muslims would have remained an unwatched piece of trashy propaganda. But when Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti denounced attacks on diplomats and embassies as un-Islamic, he had nothing to say about the Saudi-backed sheikh and channel that provoked the attacks in the first place.

Jess Hill is the Middle East reporter for the Global Mail, an online newspaper offering comprehensive and nicely written features on diverse matters. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

She wrote Blame the Sheikhs for the Global Mail, about the recent worsening of the social unrest that is shaking the Middle East up. Here are some interesting quotes:

Many mainstream Muslims in the Middle East are angry about the film. But by and large, they are not the ones attending violent demonstrations. So far, the vast majority of demonstrators have issued from two groups: a small, violent fringe among the region’s Salafists, and opportunistic young men looking for an excuse to fight the police. In Egypt, a call for a million-man march on Friday, September 14, fell flat — less than 2,000 turned up, and around 350 of those tried to attack the embassy. In a country of more than 82 million, where tens of thousands regularly turn out to protest, that’s a pretty lame turnout.

In her article, she condemns Saudia Arabia as the main exporter of extremist ideology in the arab world:

This leads us to the elephant in the room. The country doing by far the most to promote extremist beliefs and ideas across the Middle East (and beyond) is one of America’s closest allies. Over the past 30 years, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $70 billion exporting the Wahhabi doctrine around the world, through schools, publishing houses and satellite television channels. Had it not been for the Saudi-backed Sheikh Khaled Abdallah, it’s highly likely that the film The Innocence of the Muslims would have remained an unwatched piece of trashy propaganda. But when Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti denounced attacks on diplomats and embassies as un-Islamic, he had nothing to say about the Saudi-backed sheikh and channel that provoked the attacks in the first place.

Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein explain their art in a 1966 film. 

Read more at Open Culture.

vimeo.com/27373410

Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein explain their art in a 1966 film. 

Read more at Open Culture.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on search, talking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2012:

But you know search is interesting. It’s going in an interesting direction. The legacy around search is you get these search engines like Google and Bing and what Yahoo was doing before. You basically type in keywords and the search engine runs some magic to tell you what it thinks the answer is that matches your keywords. But I think search engines are really evolving to give you a set of answers, not just ‘type in something and show me some relevant stuff’, but ‘I have this specific question, answer this question for me’.

When you think about it from that perspective, Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have. What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last six months and Liked? Or which of my friends or friends of friends work at a company that I’m interested in working at because I want to talk to them about what it’s going to be like to work there? These are questions that you could potentially do at Facebook if we built out this system that you couldn’t do anywhere else. And at some point we’ll do it. We have a team working on search.

This is why Google has built Google+ and is praying for people to share their information on Google. If Facebook plays it well, the word “search” will not only make Google come to mind when you think about it, and that’s the most important thing. 

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on search, talking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2012:

But you know search is interesting. It’s going in an interesting direction. The legacy around search is you get these search engines like Google and Bing and what Yahoo was doing before. You basically type in keywords and the search engine runs some magic to tell you what it thinks the answer is that matches your keywords. But I think search engines are really evolving to give you a set of answers, not just ‘type in something and show me some relevant stuff’, but ‘I have this specific question, answer this question for me’.

When you think about it from that perspective, Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have. What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last six months and Liked? Or which of my friends or friends of friends work at a company that I’m interested in working at because I want to talk to them about what it’s going to be like to work there? These are questions that you could potentially do at Facebook if we built out this system that you couldn’t do anywhere else. And at some point we’ll do it. We have a team working on search.

This is why Google has built Google+ and is praying for people to share their information on Google. If Facebook plays it well, the word “search” will not only make Google come to mind when you think about it, and that’s the most important thing. 

Hello world, again!

Warston starts anew once more, with a new design that won’t be temporary. I chose it so it would be clean, easy to look at, simple enough so the focus is on the content only. 

We’re getting back to the basics here. Warston is not meant to replace a full-blown newspaper in your daily reading. It’s a news blog with articles, links, images and videos about technology and innovation in general, current and major national or international events and some selected bits from the web’s inner world. 

Let’s be honest, the selection of news is purely personal. But as I pick and publish here, I will try my best to provide noteworthy news. That’s the deal.  

Warston wouldn’t be complete without contributions from talented young writers. So expect some nice and smooth features from time to time. 

Here is Twitter for a stream of the blog and interesting pieces from the French press. 

I hope you enjoy it,

Ulysse. 

Hello world, again!

Warston starts anew once more, with a new design that won’t be temporary. I chose it so it would be clean, easy to look at, simple enough so the focus is on the content only. 

We’re getting back to the basics here. Warston is not meant to replace a full-blown newspaper in your daily reading. It’s a news blog with articles, links, images and videos about technology and innovation in general, current and major national or international events and some selected bits from the web’s inner world. 

Let’s be honest, the selection of news is purely personal. But as I pick and publish here, I will try my best to provide noteworthy news. That’s the deal.  

Warston wouldn’t be complete without contributions from talented young writers. So expect some nice and smooth features from time to time. 

Here is Twitter for a stream of the blog and interesting pieces from the French press. 

I hope you enjoy it,

Ulysse.