Casual Friday: I Have Too Many Tabs Open, So Pardon Me While I Dump Some Here
The original plan was to tell you one of two stories:
- One about a cat who suffered a fairly giant digestive meltdown in the middle of the night about a year ago that concluded in him spinning wildy under our bed while, um, emitting, um, stuff, like the foulest balloon from hell you can imagine. Or…
- How we managed to mess up a Jeep at Drummond Island, MI when said Jeep was basically bulletproof, with bulletproof being defined as ‘the vehicle you’d want when the zombie apocalypse starts.’
But both of those ideas will have to wait (this is either good or bad, depending), because I literally have 49 tabs open in Google Chrome and my machine is lumbering under the load. That means I have to share some stuff I find interesting with you, or I will never close the tabs. It’s the way I work. Sorry to use you as my internet meta notebook.
(I’m not really sorry.)
Here we go. Save keep these tabs open on your machine so you can use them for 4th of July fodder next weekend.
First, Barnes & Noble is giving up on making Nook hardware. Apparently, people on the internet are surprised by this. I saw this happening a few years ago, mainly because hardware margins are so slim, losses have been steadily mounting, and B&N is facing a relentless Amazon while trying to make sense of still having brick and mortar stores. Smart move on B&N’s part, but I have serious, serious concerns about the Nook’s future. That’s why when you buy a device like an e-reader, you’re not buying a device – you’re buying an ecosystem. Choose wisely.
Instagram introduced video, which effectively ruined Instagram. All I can say is thank goodness you can turn off autoplay, or I might seriously bail from Instagram. This should be a cautionary tale to companies who think they need to offer a feature because a competitor does (in this case, Twitter’s Vine video offering). When the new feature undermines the very idea of what your product is in the first place, you can do more harm than good. Unfortunately, this lesson is most clear retroactively, which means you have to screw up in order to realize you screwed up. Messy.
Android accounts for 92% of mobile malware, and malicious apps on Android have increased 614% – that’s right, 614%, no decimal in there. Open always wins, right? Who needs curation?
Maybe this will make tic-tac-toe less boring.
Want to be part of a social experiment? Try Call In The Night, a service that calls you sometime after 2 AM eastern time, connects you to another random person who also was just awakened, and records the call for a podcast. Heck, it might even be good for your sleep, because there are some who argue that human sleep is naturally polyphasic.
This xkcd comic, entitled The Pace of Modern Life, is amazing. You should check it out. Read it. Really read it.
Chuck Skoda’s A Week with iOS 7 is one of the best iOS 7 impression pieces I’ve read, especially the ending. (Self-plug: if you missed our own iOS 7 writeup, check it out here.)
Finally, 27 volunteers teamed up at the Seattle Public Library to make the world’s longest book domino chain. The 2,131 book trail is a world record. Here’s what it looks like.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
