Strange Bedfellows: Why an Apple/Google collaboration has been so difficult to make happen.

You can see how easy it is, then, to gin up a strategy whereby each company plays to its strength. Google handles the back end and Apple the front end.... [However,] Apple isn't going to be satisfied making clever little interfaces to a world of information provided -- and owned -- by Google. Schmidt (and Carr) see that Apple doesn't have the supercomputer, but Jobs just as firmly believes that Google doesn't know how to run the supercomputer it has, and besides, he can rent a supercomputer anytime he wants one, so there.

Hmm, didn't I say something to this effect back in September? Well, at least the first part (Carr's thesis) and, to some extent, the second (Cringley's). Cringely's analysis is spot-on (and much more colorful). (via Daring Fireball)

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What the Fuck: Why We Curse

Great fucking essay by Steven Pinker in The New Republic.

Fucking brilliant. (via Daring Fireball)

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AT&T To Drop Early Termination Fees

This is a huge step in the right direction. Should be only a matter of time before the other carriers follow suit. (Note, last time I checked, Sprint already did not require a contract extension if you upgrade your existing plan; downgrades on the other hand, or switching to a different plan -- gotcha!)

Starting next month, customers who change a wireless calling plan will no longer be required to extend their current contact with AT&T or sign a new contract.

Customers who terminate a contact early will no longer have to pay a flat early termination fee. The fee will be lowered during the term of the contact. The early termination policy, however, will go into effect early next year and will apple to new and renewing customers who sign a one or a two-year contract.

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Time Machine

Time Machine is one of the most visually prominent new features demonstrated in Mac OS X Leopard, even if the core idea of backups is as old -- or perhaps older -- than the concept of having any data worthy of being restored. Here's a look at what's new and different about Apple's approach with Time Machine, why backups are a problem to be solved, and how well Leopard's new Time Machine actually works in practice.

I didn't have a lot if respect for Time Machine as a useful or innovative feature until I read this explanation. Now I'm pretty psyched about it. Time to find a new large capacity external hard drive to plug into my Airport Extreme.

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Fun hobby of the day: Twitter-tracking dirty words

Because ingenious ideas like this can't go unshared, here's what you do:

Step 1: Sign up for Twitter and link it to one of your instant messaging accounts.
Step 2: Read this.
Step 3: Set Twitter to track a dozen of the dirtiest, nastiest words you can think of.
Step 4: Soak in the glorious river of humanity.

Absolutely hilarious. And a great peek into human social discourse. This should win some kind of "Best Use of Twitter" award. (originally (?) from Marc Andreesen via Kurzy)

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The Vista nerd rage feedback loop

The last time I heard somebody say, "I'm thinking about installing Vista, but I hear it's awful," the response was, "No, it's really not that bad." And the last person I know who upgraded said verbatim, "Vista isn't as terrible as I'd suspected."

[via Daring Fireball] Wow. That's a scathing endorsement. Is Vista really as bad as the press it's getting or as good as "not terrible"?

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Silicon Alley Insider: Supply and Demand Applies to Concert Tickets, But Not to iPhones

I love to see hypocrisy in action, as called out by Gruber:

Peter Kafka, at Silicon Alley Insider, claims the “obvious solution” to Hannah Montana ticket scalping — wherein $67 tickets are being re-sold for upwards of $250 — is to raise the initial selling prices of the tickets, so that the money die-hard fans are willing to pay goes to the artist and concert promoter, rather than to the scalper, and then to reduce the prices after the initial high-priced demand passes.

Good advice, I say. And, of course, it’s exactly what Apple did with the iPhone. Except Silicon Alley Insider didn’t see it that way with the iPhone, writing “To us, this move suggests the phone is not selling as well as Apple had hoped,” and “[The real issue] is Apple’s obvious misjudgment of the market for a flagship product.”

To which I would add Kafka's own sarcastic coverage of the iPhone pricing, "Apple's $11 Billion iPhone Blunder Explained: It's Intentional!"

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