“But if the best that gold can do over time is to match the increase in stock prices, while delivering enormous extra volatility along the way, then gold is not a particularly attractive asset from an investment perspective, especially since it pays not a penny of income and in fact costs money to store. And …
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
It’s iPad Not wePad
“The iPad is an intensely personal device. In its design intent it is, truly, much more like a ‘big iPhone’ than a ‘small laptop’. The iPad isn’t something you pass around. It’s not really designed to be a ‘resource’ that many people take advantage of. It’s designed to be owned, configured to your taste, invested …
Top 9 Nouns for a Group of Animals
an apocalypse of snakes a pot of water buffalos a tower of giraffes a boil of hawks a sneak of weasels a cabinet of yaks a smack of jellyfish a cream of turkeys a bale of turtles Culled from Wikipedia’s List of Animal Names
Comfortable
“Attention-seeking is something we often do when we’re uncomfortable, though – when we need to remind the world we’re still there. And the strongest feeling I get from my recently-acquired Kindle is that it’s comfortable in the world.’” – Tom Armitage
Garrick’s Top 4 Favorite Tech Gadgets
In the ‘machine shop’ in the basement – I don’t have many tools. Even fewer of any quality. Even so, there are 2 screwdrivers that I’ve had for decades . These 2 screwdrivers have never let me down – whatever I ask of them. My accumulation of computer gadgets is similar. Despite the volume of …
De-silo-fy
“But mainly I want them, and every other silo out there, to realize that the pendulum has now swung full distance in the silo’d direction — and that it’s going to swing back in the direction of open and distributed everything. And there’s plenty of money to be made there too.” – Doc Searls “The …
Market Crop Circles
Remember the May 6, 2010 Flash Crash – that caused the Dow to drop 1000 points in manner of seconds (and almost immediately completely rebound)? It was caused by a high-frequency trading bot. The Atlantic has an enjoyable write-up on the these bots – turns out – we don’t know what the hell they’re trying …
App Store Declared Unfit for Free
To summarize: The App Store terms apply to GPLed software in the App Store. Those terms force strict Usage Rules on customers that prohibit many activities that are allowed under the GPL. Those restrictions are not allowed under GPLv2 section 6. Again, if any of you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them. …
Uncool
“These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves….Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It’s the people that matter, not the venue” – Douglas Rushkoff
Or Hacking
“They call this ‘content’. But it’s not, really — it’s filler. And by a more common-sense definition, it’s spam.” – Marco Armet