Thomas Jefferson on congressional corruption and bloat

Thomas Jefferson on congressional corruption and bloat

“That a system had there been contrived for deluging the states with paper money instead of gold silver, for withdrawing our citizens from the pursuits of commerce, manufactures, buildings, other branches of useful industry, to occupy themselves their capitals in a species of gambling, destructive of morality, which had introduced it’s poison into the government itself. That it was a fact, as certainly known as that he I were then conversing, that particular members of the legislature, while those laws…

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The Szilard Dilemma

The Szilard Dilemma

Given recent events, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about metadata. The “Patriot”* act, signed in the hazy, fear-driven months after 9/11 was a piece of legislation that was so broad that even one of the authors now says the hoovering of telephone metadata was never the intent of the law. Law, like any type of contract, is a funny thing. It’s not so much what you say, it’s what you don’t say that matters. I was concerned about the potential…

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What’s the deal with OWA for iOS?

What’s the deal with OWA for iOS?

Earlier in July, Microsoft announced OWA for iPad and OWA for iPhone. Available only for Office 365 subscribers for now (available for Exchange 2013 at an undisclosed point in the future), OWA for iOS originally left me a bit confused. You see, at a glance, there’s really nothing that OWA for iOS does that you can’t do with the built in mail app on iOS. The one benefit I arrived at upfront was that with Exchange’s autodiscover, configuration for novice…

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Nimblstand – the laptop deconstructed

Nimblstand – the laptop deconstructed

During 2012, I used my iPad as the primary device for writing most of the time  on the road. I also used a new stand with it, which proved quite useful when both writing with it on my lap and while on planes to and from conferences. For the longest time, I regularly had to answer the question, “Where can I get one?” – only to wind up disappointing them since I had a prototype and you couldn’t buy it yet.  I…

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Make stuff that just works, or go home.

Make stuff that just works, or go home.

“This is what customers pay us for–to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.” – Steve Jobs The job of the the software developer and the hardware engineer is to make experiences. They deliver these experiences for…

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Friction-free commerce? Hold on to your wallet.

Friction-free commerce? Hold on to your wallet.

I’ll admit it. I have a problem. It’s an iTunes problem. Apple doesn’t think I have a problem, they’re quite happy with me. My wife has the same problem, but it’s with Amazon, not Apple. You see, online commerce has been pushing us all farther and farther down the road of “frictionless commerce”, where we can buy things without dealing with the pesky nuisance of actual cash. I’ve recently started contemplating how frictionless online commerce works, and I’ve begun referring…

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The iWatch – boom or bust?

The iWatch – boom or bust?

In my wife’s family, there is a term used to describe how many people can comfortably work in a kitchen at the same time. The measurement is described in “butts”, as in “this is a one-butt kitchen”, or the common, but not very helpful “1.5 butt kitchen”. Most American kitchens aren’t more than 2 butts. But I digress. I bring this up for the following reason. There is a certain level of utility that you can exploit in a kitchen as it…

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What’s the deal with Facebook advertising?

What’s the deal with Facebook advertising?

For a site that has been tracking my life for years, Facebook’s advertising is horrible. Not just weak, not just bad, but horrible. During the last presidential campaign, I started to realize how bad Facebook’s advertising was, when (as a pretty outspoken liberal) it offered me a Mitt Romney ad every single time I logged on. But take a look below. You really couldn’t get more broken in terms of targeted advertising: Where to begin? Let’s just look at each: I…

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Content, not the chrome. Apps, not the phone.

Content, not the chrome. Apps, not the phone.

Ahead of WWDC 2013, many people were still expecting Apple to add live tiles, and possibly widgets to iOS 7. I didn’t expect either, and as a result wasn’t terribly disappointed to see them not included (that might be an understatement on my part). At first glance, live tiles may seem like a no-brainer in any operating system. Tiles that provide you information from within an app… How could this go wrong? Here’s the problems that I have with live…

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