With the news that PGP is one of the things that is still tough for the NSA, now is a great time to donate to GnuPG, which I just did.
Yesterday’s post was a bit of a downer, so here io9 lists The Most Futuristic Predictions That Came True In 2014, including technologically-assisted telepathy, 3d printing in space, laser weapons, and landing a robot on a comet.
This article on the amazing rise of bacon was one of my favorite articles I read last year. About bacon.
For the best explanation of what’s going on with capital markets now it might be best to look to Venture Capital in the 1980s.
SPIEGEL: One of the reasons Snowden didn’t approach the New York Times was that the paper had refused to publish the initial research about the NSA’s bulk collection in 2004. The story was only published almost a year later. Was it a mistake to have held back on that reporting?
This interview with Chief New York Times Editor Dean Baquet is remarkable both for its frank, direct questions and its frank, direct answers. I got to meet with Dean a few months ago and it really struck me how excellent he and the other editorial and product folks inside of the NYT are.
Yo’s Law: “in the 21st century tech industry, satire and reality are not merely indistinguishable but actually interchangeable.”
From Jon Evans’ This Industry Is Still Completely Ridiculous, a hilarious article with a conclusion (the ridiculous stuff is worth it) I agree with.
Seattle’s decision to throw the ball at the goal line with 20 seconds to go in last night’s Super Bowl was a costly one. But in the long run, it won’t be nearly as costly to the rest of the United States as the National Football League (NFL) itself.
Every year, the NFL rakes in around $9.5 billion in revenue. Its commissioner, Roger Goodell, meanwhile, has an annual salary of $44 million. And while those numbers might make sense for any big business, the NFL isn’t a business – not technically, at least.
According to the Public Law 89-800, it’s a 501(c)6 tax-exempt nonprofit. That’s right, a nonprofit. In other words, the NFL, one of the most lucrative organizations in all of sports, is subsidized by you and me the taxpayers.
From The Real NFL Scandal. If you’re curious, here’s a list of other notable 501(c)(6) organizations.
FiveThirtyEight says People Working From Home In A Snowstorm May Be Producing More Than You Are, on the productivity of working from home.
I enjoyed this Ars Technica look at USB 3.1 and Type-C, which is probably the cable/connection change people will notice the most over the next few years. (As I look with despair on my dozens of USB devices and cables.) I also dug their retrospective, A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it. Remember serial ports?
Ben Dwyer on why writing code is like solving a Rubik’s cube.
Great piece by Jonathan Libov on text-based messaging interfaces for everything in the future, it’s like the command line has come alive again.
It’s been a long road, but the WordPress mobile apps are finally making some major strides. WordPress iOS version 4.8 includes a visual editor so you won’t see code anymore when blogging on the go. (For anyone curious at home, WordPress originally shipped with WYSIWYG in version 2.0, and it was highly controversial at the time.)
Meyer Sound Constellation
The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center has an awesome ambient sound system that sounds acoustic and full from every point in the 500-seat room.. Hat tip: Niall.
Om Malik on the decline of cameras as gadgets, Standalone camera: Shot (Dead) By iPhone.
Scott Berkun asks Why Isn’t Remote Work More Popular?
Josh Kopelman on why raising a Series A is harder than ever, and how startups can adapt to survive the changing investment landscape. Fantastic essay, relevant for every company raising money at any stage.
The New Yorker has a great overview as Richard Stallman’s GNU Manifesto Turns Thirty.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
John Perry Barlow’s classic A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
The CEO of Automattic worked with the co-founder of WordPress directly, mediated by the head of the WordPress Foundation. Matt Mullenweg said the meetings were very productive.
As inside-baseball WordPress-focused April Fools go, this one is pretty funny: WordPress to be bundled in Jetpack with mission to power 50% of the web.