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Archive for July, 2010

Simon Funk’s online novel After Life depicts (among other plot

July 27th, 2010 in QuoteVault.org |

„Simon Funk's online novel After Life depicts (among other plot points) the planned extermination of biological Homo sapiens – not by marching robot armies, but by artificial children that are much cuter and sweeter and more fun to raise than real children.

[…]

"In the end," Simon Funk wrote, "the human species was simply marketed out of existence.""

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ars technica on why Apple won’t buy AMD

July 27th, 2010 in QuoteVault.org |

Via arstechnica.com

„Acquisitions are about enabling growth in a hot new market, and not about sustaining revenue in a mature one."

ars technica on why Apple won't buy AMD

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Paul Graham on Addiction

July 27th, 2010 in QuoteVault.org |

Via paulgraham.com

„But if I'm right about the acceleration of addictiveness, then this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. We'll increasingly be defined by what we say no to."

Paul Graham on Addiction

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Forecasting: One button. No more, no less.

July 16th, 2010 in Technology, iPhone |

One of my friends recently linked to this impressive quote from Paul Graham of Y-Combinator fame, writing in 2006:

If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.
(footnote 14 of Chapter 5 (p. 228), Hackers and Painters)

It reminded me a, at least as I see it, equally impressive forecast by Fake Steve Jobs (née Dan Lyons). Back in 2006, in one of his parodical pieces, he contemplated what Steve Jobs might want that mythical iPhone to be like, and wrote:

So as soon as I got back to the Jobs Pod I sent out an email to the iPhone team: We’re back to square one. Starting over. Tabula rasa. Throwing out everything we’ve done so far and making a new phone that just makes phone calls. Small, white, gorgeous, as few buttons as possible. Our designers tell me we need at least 12 buttons so we can have all the numbers plus * and # symbols. I’m telling them to go back and do it over. I want one button. No more, no less.

Keep in mind, this was in 2006. Back then there was no iPhone, and nobody knew if Apple intended to ever build one. Even more, when people thought what this mythical unicorn could be like, they came up with this, this, this, or that.

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