The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Comments from Readers of ‘The Verge’

    I don’t have comments here, but there is an interesting thread of comments going on in *The Verge* forums on a post someone made [agreeing with my post](https://brooksreview.net/2011/12/failure/) about *The Verge*. I wouldn’t normally link to this type of thing here as I find it a bit too “me” centric.

    However, I find some of the comments to be very interesting. A couple even say that they basically like *The Verge* for the very reasons that I dislike it — that’s something I certainly can understand.

    One thing to be careful of is the “fanboy” slinging and using words like “objective”. I don’t know that I can articulate why I dislike those words as well as [John Gruber did on the latest episode of The Talk Show.](http://5by5.tv/talkshow/71)

    I’d just say that fanboy is an unneccessary term and objective news coverage *can* contain opinion.

  • ‘It Feels Like Trust’

    Randy Murray on buying goods at the Apple Store without interacting with an employee:
    >I’m sure they have all of the technology necessary to make sure that people aren’t walking out of the store without paying, but I couldn’t see any of that. There was no one checking for receipts at the door. No one eyed me suspiciously when I put the adapter in my pocket. I just scanned it and walked out. That’s not what happens at Best Buy or even Costco.

    I have yet to try it — mostly because the idea seems so foreign to me — but Murray makes some great observations about the larger scale impact this type of trust has.

  • The Other Side of the Coin

    Christina Warren offers some good thoughts on why many of the larger sites “temper” their opinions in product reviews. I can see where she is coming from, but — and this is something I didn’t specifically mention — a larger problem is a general lack of solid, strong, op-ed articles and opinions on what are essentially re-written press releases.

    I’m not just saying we need more opinion in tech reviews — I’m saying we need more opinion in writing period. There’s always a spot for the “unbaised” opinion-less news reporting, but that spot only needs a few people to fill it and that spot is just reporting.

  • Modifying Your Footnote CSS

    Not all advice I give is perfect, or so Dr. Drang found out.

    A lot of blogs that use footnotes don’t correct for a line-height issue in thier CSS — leading to footnoted lines having a greater top margin and thus looking bad. I forget who told me this, but I did not figure it out myself — so thanks to that person.

    Drang implemented my fix and found that it didn’t play well with iOS, so he has a modified fix. For what its worth, I haven’t seen the issues that he has on iOS — but it his fix does appear to work.

  • Two Senators Get ‘It’… Maybe

    In a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz from Sen. Herb Kohl the panel’s chairman, and Mike Lee, the ranking member they urge an anti-trust probe of Google. That’s par for the course and really not that interesting — what’s more interesting is this statement near the end of the letter:

    >Rather, our interest is to enure robust competition in this vital market. We recognize that the Internet is fast evolving and subject to rapid technological change. We are motivated by a strong desire to protect the Internet’s openness, competitiveness, and capacity for innovation.

    Apparently these Senators are not aware that we have [much bigger problems than Google](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act). ((One would think that SOPA is more damanging than Google.))

  • The Marco Arment Amazon Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 Comparison Tablet

    I am glad I didn’t read this until this morning, because now I started off the day by laughing.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Trollhunter

    All joking aside: this was my favorite movie of the year. It is a mockumentary based in Norway about a man that hunts Trolls for a living. It is a very well done movie and I enjoyed the crap out of it. The movie is in Norwegian, which I don’t speak, so do be prepared to flip on subtitles — still worth it.

    This would also make a great last minute gift for someone awesome.

    **Update:** Movie also on [Amazon](http://d.pr/9fvn) streaming and Netflix streaming I am told.

  • Create a .Com Button for Your Mac

    Michael Schechter wanted to help me out when I wished upon a star for a `.com` button on my Mac like we get in iOS. He created the button (of sorts) two ways, one with Keyboard Maestro and another with TextExpander. I’d further modify the Keybaord Maestro version by putting it in a group that makes it only work in Safari — that’s one of the best abilities of Keyboard Maestro.

  • Limited Edition JAMBOX

    Looks great ((I really mean that. The coloring is the only reason I am linking to this — I like it that much.)) and $50 go towards charity: water.

  • AT&T Ends Bid to Add Network Capacity Through T-Mobile USA Purchase

    AT&T:
    >To reflect the break-up considerations due Deutsche Telekom, AT&T will recognize a pretax accounting charge of $4 billion in the 4th quarter of 2011. Additionally, AT&T will enter a mutually beneficial roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom.

    I think I heard all of Bellevue, WA cheering just a moment ago. ((What a huge win for T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom. I still contend that this is actually *not* a good thing for consumers in the end. Typically I would argue that not consolidating is better for consumers, but in this case I really think AT&T could have susbstantially improved its network if it had acquired T-Mobile.))

  • The Parable of RIM

    A great take on where RIM really went wrong by Horace Dediu:
    >But RIM did nothing. Almost nothing. They were the healthiest competitor. They felt no pain from iPhone’s entry.

    This is really worth the read.

  • North Korea’s Economic Backwardness in One Picture

    You have to wonder what — if anything — will change with the passing of Kim Jong-il.

  • Prince Alwaleed Invests $300M in Twitter

    Mourad Haroutunian and Jonathan Browning report:

    >[…]Halawani said in a telephone interview, adding that Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding bought the shares from founding shareholders. “I expect Twitter does not need further funding before going public.”

    and

    >In a separate interview with Al Arabiya, Halawani said Twitter will probably hold an IPO in two years.

    So we can then safely assume that Twitter loses about $150 million a year… right?

  • Apple Moves Forward With TV Plans

    Over 1200 words from *The Wall Street Journal* that doesn’t further expound upon anything you could read at any Apple related blog about Apple’s plans for TV. What you do get is plenty of “people familiar with the matter” statements that then go on to say: “Apple’s plans are vague.”

    *No shit.*

    Jessica E. Vascellaro and Sam Schechner:

    >When the company plans to start selling such a device and whether it would receive traditional broadcast or cable signals remains unclear, said these people, who say Apple may change its plans.

    What a wealth of information.

  • Undocumented Nest Incompatibility With Single-Stage Wiring

    Marco Arment commenting about the Nest thermostat:

    >The problem arises when the Nest needs to charge itself and neither the heat nor air conditioning has turned on in a while, like on a mild day. Without a C circuit to take power from, it can only charge itself from running the system.

    >So it pulses the R-W heat circuit in short bursts to get power.

    Marco doesn’t think that is good for his boiler — and he is right because that’s not good. Best way to think of it: starting up your car and turning it back off, then repeating. Battery wear down on your car aside — cycling a heating system or your car’s engine that often is not optimal.

    This isn’t likely something that will directly cause a problem, but it is putting unneeded wear and strain on your heating system — no way I would allow this.

  • The Homeland Security Snow-Cone Machine

    Kevin Underhill:
    >Still, it is something special when a homeland-security grant is used to buy a snow-cone machine. 

    You need to read this entire post because the ridiculousness of the statements to justify this are hard to believe.

  • Amazon Kindle Fire redirects all Android Market requests to Amazon App Store

    Dieter Bohn:
    >So if you want to install Android apps on the Kindle Fire that aren’t included in the Amazon App Store, you have two options: hunting down the apk file and sideloading via your computer or rooting the device entirely. If you want to browse the Android Market on the web from a stock Kindle Fire, you’re basically out of luck.

    Interesting, I wonder if this will have any anti-competitive repercussions. I see the logic in doing this — the device doesn’t support these apps so Amazon is trying to help you — but I can think of at least three better ways to implement this “feature” that wouldn’t force you to the Amazon store.

  • ‘Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works’

    Joshua Kopstein:
    >But the chilling takeaway of this whole debacle was the irrefutable air of anti-intellectualism; that inescapable absurdity that we have members of Congress voting on a technical bill who do not posses any technical knowledge on the subject and do not find it imperative to recognize those who do.

  • Textmate 2 Tips

    *Subscribed.*

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 38: Skinny Jeans

    Shawn and I talk about the Galaxy Nexus and what flavor ice cream sandwich it really is.

    Thanks to our awesome sponsor: [Instacast](http://affiliate.vemedio.com/itunes/app/420368235/bbsponsor).