IT Director for a non-profit in Washington, DC. Man About Internet.
Jason Kottke, at Kottke.org has an excellent post that will catch you up on this important story:
By now, you've likely heard of Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked secret documents to the press regarding that agency's electronic surveillance activities. From Glenn Greenwald's excellent coverage for The Guardian, here are a few of the most interesting passages from interviews with Snowden.
Cable Sasser, at Panic Blog writes:
"I hear that your deal with AOL fell through. Any interest in throwing in with us at Apple?
Best, Steve The perfect story to read on WWDC Eve.
Amanda Blum, at her blog writes:
Adria didn’t win. I’m not sure she’s employable as a Dev Evangelist, which has been her role. Those who know her in the way I do believe she’ll use this as a platform, but I hope instead she learns from it. This wasn’t about feminism, and she shouldn’t be allowed to sit her perch on the issue. This was about the way humans relate to each other. Either way, the past 24 hours must have been terrifying for her and for that, I’m sad. Having mostly ignored this story for a few days, I just caught up on it today. After reading Amanda Blum's post on the subject, I find myself in 100% agreement with her.
John Cook, at Gawker writes:
This is a story, of course, that those decent and wise stewards generally want told—even if it requires the publications of the odd embarrassing "insider" detail—which is why Woodward has been able to waltz in and out of every administration since Carter with impunity. The trade-off—access in exchange for an implicit pledge to judge his subjects by the polite rules of Washington—has essentially defined Woodward's journalism. Even when it came to Nixon, his bete noir, Woodward was willing to bow to his head and submit a list of pre-screened questions in exchange for an interview (it never happened). But the spell has broken. The Obama White House has, it appears, been as receptive to Woodward's bargain as its predecessors were, but for some reason he's gone off the grid and begun firing wildly and without provocation. Who knows why. The changes to our politics over the last five years have obviously been hard on him. It's more difficult to tell stories about good men working out their honest differences when one half of the equation has foresworn compromise and committed itself to total political warfare. The comfortable subroutines of his brain have gone haywire, and he's kicking out garbage. But the simplest explanation for this episode is that he wants people to buy his book about how the president is an effete asshole who's in over his head. How would one go about marketing a book like that, I wonder? During the entirety of the Bush Administration, Woodward made 11 appearances on Fox News Channel. Last year, he showed up 10 times. This year, he's been on three times so far. Guess where he's going to be tonight. This just in, Bob Woodward is a hack (and this isn't news if you'd been paying attention for the past 13 years). The general consensus amongst the White House Press Corps seems to be in agreement. Credit for the title of this post goes to @delrayser.
This made me smile. Olivier Knox of Yahoo News:
[W]hile Kerry seemed a bit rusty, his opening remarks at a joint press conference with the French foreign minister sounded pretty solid to this native speaker... And he poured on the charm to please his audience. “We’ve just finished one of those wonderful French lunches that have never ceased drawing Americans to Paris for centuries,” he said, seemingly reading from notes or prepared remarks. And he also joked about anti-French sentiment in the United States. “And now I’ll speak in English because otherwise they won’t let me return home.” Kerry’s gesture thrilled the French, who appreciate it when visiting dignitaries make an effort to speak their hosts’ language.
Having been invited to an Oscar viewing party tonight with a bunch of like-minded Twitter users, I was a little perplexed because I haven't seen any of the major films nominated this year. In my old age of thirty, I rarely go to the movies anymore, choosing to watch them on my home theater when they appear on iTunes for HD purchase. Thankfully, Nate Silver came through for me. Nate Silver, at FiveThirtyEight writes:
Twice before, in 2009 and 2011, I sought to predict the Academy Award winners in six major categories based on a mix of statistical factors. My track record? Nine correct picks in 12 tries, for a 75 percent success rate. Not bad, but also not good enough to suggest that there is any magic formula for this. So this year, I have sought to simplify the method, making the link to the FiveThirtyEight election forecasts more explicit. This approach won’t be foolproof either, but it should make the philosophy behind the method more apparent. The Oscars, in which the voting franchise is limited to the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are not exactly a democratic process. But they provide for plenty of parallels to political campaigns. In Nate Silver we trust. I will be blatantly stealing his predictions when filling out my Oscar Bingo Card tonight. You bet against Nate Silver at your peril.
Marco Arment, at Marco.org writes:
I hastily built a basic site while I was waiting for the app to be approved. I only needed it to do two things: send people to the App Store, and show something at the sharing URLs for each article. Since The Magazine had no ads, and people could only subscribe in the app, I figured there was no reason to show full article text on the site — it could only lose money and dilute the value of subscribing. That was the biggest mistake I’ve made with The Magazine to date. The short of it is that if you subscribe to The Magazine on your iPad, you can now read articles via the website too. Non-subscribers can read one article per month, for free, as many times as they wish as well as share it. Any further articles read require a subscription to view. You can also save your free articles to Instapaper for reading later. Check it out.