Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Why has Facebook's stock market flotation been such a disaster?
Why has Facebook's stock market flotation been such a disaster? | Technology | The Observer
While it may be brand brain washing in favor of google (I am undeniably, if cautiously, enamored with it) I definitely feel it has something which Facebook doesn't. While both are emblematic of the current internet era, google seems to represent new things done brilliantly, whereas Facebook more a transplanting of old habits, albeit also brilliantly (as evidenced by achieving such domination and reach with what was actually not a very unique product). While both raise serious privacy concerns, I personally have more trust in Google as using even if sometimes near abusing) my data as a means to a win-win end, for both user and advertiser, where as with Facebook there is more suspicion. Search is linked to purchase and services in a way that "friendship" is not, which is why I can see our bond with google pragmatically surviving commercialization , whereas I could see the relationship with Facebook becoming more and more acrimonious . We collaborate with google, but we become friends with Facebook, and while we can accept partners maximizing our arrangement for their own ends as long as not in conflict with our own, there is more an emotional reaction to similar behavior by friends. Perhaps the old maxim still holds true : don't go into businesses with friends, since money will tear you apart.
Though that said, it may be that I am also blinded to the power Google is gaining, and even though I like and even largely trust its current direction, what of the future? As private company what are the changes that could occur under different leaders, owners and even government of its home country (out foreign subsidiaries)? We can't ever pretend we don't know the risks of outsourcing our private data, but even still, it is just too useful and enjoyable to.give up. For the moment, I'm still feeling lucky...
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
The legacy of the April Jones case | David Wilson | Comment is free | The Guardian
The legacy of the April Jones case | David Wilson | Comment is free | The Guardian
On average since the early 1970s, only six children per year have been abducted and murdered by strangers, and while that is still six children too many, this sad statistic is put into perspective when we remember that two children a week are murdered within the home.
On average since the early 1970s, only six children per year have been abducted and murdered by strangers, and while that is still six children too many, this sad statistic is put into perspective when we remember that two children a week are murdered within the home.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The wisdom of psychopaths, book review
The Wisdom of Psychopaths by Kevin Dutton – review | Books | The Observer
Dutton's book at any rate supports the idea that to thrive a society needs its share of psychopaths – about 10%. It not only shows the value of the emotionally detached mind in bomb disposal but also the uses of the psychopath's ability to intuit anxiety as demonstrated by, for example, customs officials. Along the way his analysis tends to reinforce the idea that the chemistry of megalomania which characterises the psychopathic criminal mind is a close cousin to the set of traits often best rewarded by capitalism. Dutton draws on a 2005 study that compared the profiles of business leaders with those of hospitalised criminals to reveal that a number of psychopathic attributes were arguably more common in the boardroom than the padded cell: notably superficial charm, egocentricity, independence and restricted focus. The key difference was that the MBAs and CEOs were encouraged to exhibit these qualities in social rather than antisocial contexts.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
How travel limits our minds | Julian Baggini
How travel limits our minds | Comment is free | The Guardian
- planes simply transport you from one anonymous, homogenous edgeland to another, between airports virtually identical in their black and yellow signage and multinational franchises. It's the difference between travel ? a movement between places in which the journey is part of the experience ? and transit, the utilitarian linking of here and there, in which the destination becomes all that matters and the transfer simply something to put up with.
- Consumer culture has made us too accustomed to getting only what we want, no more and no less. Experiences are atomised into their component parts, the extraneous excised in an attempt to maximise the impact of the parts we prefer, with no thought to how their context changes them. But if you only ever get what you know you already want, serendipity is denied and the richness of experience is reduced to the button-pushing delivery of crude hits of fun, excitement, novelty or reassurance, often consumed in the private bubble of home or headphone.
- It might be objected that "slow travel" is just an indulgence of the time and cash-rich. But you actually gain holiday time when travelling is an integral part of the experience, because you lose none to mere transit
- "If we find poetry in the service station and motel, if we are drawn to the airport or train carriage, it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world.? : ? Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel
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