xkcd: Online Communities 2

in , , , ,

xkcd has updated their map of online communities

Caption: Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.

The Impeccable Timing Of The Verizon iPhone Rumors

in , ,

MG Siegler, for AOL/Techcrunch:

This past July, rumors were swirling that Apple would have to recall the iPhone 4 due to its antenna. When Apple called a surprise press conference, these rumors only intensified. But one day before the event, there was the WSJ again with the story that Apple would not be recalling the device. Again, this seemed to be all about setting expectations. The next day, did Apple recall the device? Nope. But no one panicked because everyone knew they weren’t going to.

If you go back to last year, on June 19, Apple had their most successful product launch ever (at the time) with the iPhone 3GS. That night, after the stock market had closed, WSJ broke the news that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had undergone a liver transplant months earlier while on his medical leave of absence. The timing of such a scoop was curious at best — and there’s no denying that the timing was advantageous to Apple. Jobs was said to be fine, and returning to work shortly.

What did all of those stories have in common? Each was authored or co-authored by WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane. And guess who co-authored today’s Verizon iPhone story as well? Yep.

Any Domains That End in .ly Are In Danger

in , ,

From Ben Metcalfe:

The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

I would like to warn current and future owners of .ly domains of a concerning incident regarding the deletion of one of our prime domains ‘vb.ly’ by NIC.ly (the domain registry and controlling body for the Libyan domain space ‘.ly’).

In short:

The domain was seized by the Libyan domain registry for reasons which seemed to be kept obscure until we escalated the issue. We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.

This is deeply concerning for everyone, but especially .ly domain owners, because it sets a precedent that all websites running on a .ly domain must comply with Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law in order to maintain their domains. This is especially concerning for anyone running a url shortener or hosting user-generated content on a .ly domain.

You may also not know that since June 2010 .ly domains less than 4 characters long may no longer be registered by anyone who isn’t in Libya – which suggests there is tension around foreign owned, high-value, short .ly domains.

Sucks for Bit.ly

The Evolution of Geek

in , ,

Benjamin Stein made a great post about the evolution of geeks and their choice in technological tools and how they, as early adopters, affect mainstream adoption AND how this evolution has changed somewhat in the past few years.

But then something strange happened. Nerds switched to Apple laptops. Then lots of people switched to Apple laptops. But the nerds didn’t move on. My nerdiest programmer friends use the same MacBook model as my wife.

Marco Arment responded to Benjamin's post, referring to a post he had written several years back:

Part of my own transition was what I called grown-up computing five years ago, after a year of “adult” life:

Grown-up computing is, put simply, the way I use computers and my attitude toward them now that I’m out of college and settling into the 9-to-5 world. It differs greatly from “young computing”.

[…]

The last thing I want to do is figure out why some program isn’t working or reinstall my operating system. I see these as zero-gain activities: generally, I learn nothing new, I don’t enjoy myself, I’m not being entertained or enriched, and my effort only results in maintaining the status quo.

I’d rather get a computer that didn’t require any maintenance and simply allowed me to do productive work. I’d like to have something to show for all of my clicking and typing instead of simply making information balloons go away. I’d rather write an article for this site than type my serial number again. I’d rather search the internet for interesting or entertaining information to read instead of looking for the solution to an obscure problem for which I only have a useless generic error message. I just want things to work.

It’s likely that most geeks that Ben and I know are in or near our age group, and are probably “computing adults” in a similar sense: they’d rather use computers and related technology to accomplish a goal greater than just messing around with their computers.

But what if this effect, on a larger and less age-specific scale, is the bigger trend that Ben’s seeing?

What if most geeks today really are just buying Macs instead of building their own overclocked Windows PCs from Newegg parts?

What if PC gaming really is on a decline because only a very small slice of the population is willing to pay $500 for a giant, hot, loud video card and endure the Great PC Gaming Pain-in-the-Ass Trifecta of drivers, patches, and copy protection, leaving almost every gamer to just stick with game consoles for a fraction of the cost and hassle?

And what if a big slice of even the most hardcore geeks have abandoned their netbooks for iPads because they just work so much better most of the time?

Even geeks (like us) have their limits of reasonability. At some point, we often decide that what we’ve been doing or what we think we should enjoy just isn’t worthwhile.

Marco largely put down on pixel what I was thinking in my head.