Are The Police (and people in general) Seriously This Ignorant?

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In an article written by Sanjay Bhatt, for The Seattle Times:

One guy rooting for the smaller institutions is Tom Behan, a Vietnam veteran and retired marketing executive in Seattle whose daughter lost her home to a bank foreclosure during the recession. Since early October, Behan has protested six days a week during the lunch hour outside Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other bank branches in Seattle, holding a sign encouraging passers-by to join a credit union. (He's a BECU member.) After one bank told the police he was trespassing, he armed himself with a copy of the city code on trespassing and right-of-way maps from the city, county and local archives. "I had to prove to the Seattle Police Department that the sidewalk was public and did not belong to the bank," said Behan, 66, who has a pacemaker. "I don't have a hell of a lot of stamina, but I have a lot of animosity against the banks." I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Why Siri Can’t Find Abortion Clinics & How It’s Not An Apple Conspiracy

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Danny Sullivan, writing on Search Engine Land:

“I’m standing in front of a Planned Parenthood,” the CNN reporter says, “And Siri can’t find it when I search for abortion clinic.” No, it can’t. It’s not because Apple is pro-life. It’s because Planned Parenthood doesn’t call itself an abortion clinic. Really disappointed in MoveOn.org and other Democratic organizations bad mouthing Apple. I have a feeling 50% of the people doing it know it's a straw man and they're just using it as an opportunity to push their political agenda, and 50% of those people really are clueless idiots. Either way, they just lost a supporter.

Apple Shipped More iPads Last Quarter Than Dell Did PCs

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Daniel Eran Dilger, writing for AppleInsider:

In the last calendar quarter, Apple shipped 11.1 million iPads, which not only expanded the computing market with less need for DRAM, but also held back sales of conventional PCs. Apple actually sold more iPads than rival Dell sold in all its PCs together (10.6 million). Sales of the iPad replaced conventional laptops at a variety of companies and schools at a time when the demand for generic PCs has matured in the US. Gartner had originally projected that Q3 PCs would achieve 5.1 percent growth globally, but reported that shipments only grew by 3.2 percent in the fall quarter. PC sales have been in doldrums since 2008; in the winter quarter of that year, Windows sales dropped by 8 percent rather than growing by 10 percent as Microsoft had expected. Sales remained down during 2009's global financial crisis and then Apple released the iPad in 2010. Apple has since sold 40 million iPads, and may sell another 20 million during this winter quarter, according to Forrester Research.

Quote of the Day: Isaac Asimov

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This quote was first pointed out by John Gruber over on Daring Fireball. Isaac Asimov:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”. This is the fundamental problem with our country/culture at the moment. I don't know how to fix it, other than to quote a Rob Lowe's character, Sam Seaborn said: "Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense." I just don't see us ever getting to the place where Education gets as much attention as the Pentagon...

Study Shows Fox News Viewers Less Informed on Major Stories

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From John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

[Not a joke](http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/21/fairleigh_dickinson_publicmind_poll_shows_fox_news_viewers_less_informed_on_major_news_stories.html)

Study shows that Fox News viewers are less informed on major stories than people who neither watch news shows nor read newspapers regularly. From the article, written by Josh Voorhees on Slate: According to a new poll (PDF) from Fairleigh Dickinson University, if you watch Fox News you are significantly less likely to know the correct answer to that question than if you mostly avoid news shows and newspapers all together. After controlling for factors like partisanship, education, and other demographic factors, the pollsters found that Fox New viewers were 18 points less likely to know that the revolt was successful than their non-active news consuming counterparts. Fox News viewers were also 6 points less likely to know that the Syrian uprising has yet to succeed.

Stamped

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Stamped App Logo John Gruber at Daring Fireball writes:: "New social network/recommendation engine, which like Instagram, is debuting with but a single interface: a native iPhone app. The premise is simple and ambitious: you “stamp” things that you enjoy and recommend. There aren’t different types of stamps. There’s no rating from 0-5 or anything like that. Just stamped. What kind of things can you stamp? All sorts of things: restaurants, places, books, movies, music." "Stylish, distinctive, nice-branded UI, too"

Stamped describes itself as:

Stamped is a new way to recommend only what you like best—restaurants, books, movies, music and more. No noise, no strangers, just the things you and your friends love. Read their entire introductory blog post.