A Statement From Louis C.K. (December 13, 2011)

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Louis C.K., writing on his website:

It's been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it's going. I've been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there's power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn't expect when I started this was that people would not only take part in this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be important to them. It's been amazing to see people in large numbers advocating this idea. So I think it's only fair that you get to know the results. Also, it's just really cool and fun and I'm dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends, and that wasn't nearly enough. So here it is. Spoiler alert: it worked. Also, Mike Rundle makes a very good observation:

My Problem With Polls That Say Congress Has 9% Approval

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Congress is not a person. The country, as a whole, does not vote for a person by the name of "Congress". My parents vote for their congressman in southern Virginia. My wife and I vote for our congressman in Alexandria, VA. I think, mostly, that my congressman has done an okay job. Given that I will be faced between the choice of him and a Republican, I will vote for him again. My parents dislike their congressman (because he's a Republican) and will vote against him. He will probably be reelected, though, because most other people in their district vote Republican. My point is that these polls are asking the wrong question. Most people like their own Congressional Representative (that's how he/she got elected) but dislike everyone else's. Unfortunately, I don't get to vote for or against any other Congressional Rep other than my own. These shallow headlines that proclaim, "HEY LOOK HOW MUCH PEOPLE HATE CONGRESS" also don't clarify that those poll numbers are likely to have zero major impact on the next Congressional election. Instead, the issues that directly (whether real or perceived) affected each district will be what the voters use to base their votes on. When you see headlines that proclaim how low Congress's approval rating has dropped, stop to ask yourself if you think your own representative is likely to get re-elected or not. I'm willing to bet that for the most of you, they will.

The New Twitter (R.I.P Tweetie)

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Twitter launched its new design today. Yes, they only just launched a redesign back in September. This is not the New Twitter, but the New New Twitter. Many people do not like the new redesign, which has been rolled out across their entire client ecosystem: their website, their iPhone & Android apps, Tweetdeck, the web version of Tweetdeck, their mobile website… everything. John Gruber, writing on Daring Fireball, wrote an excellent point-by-point critique of the new changes. Now, that being said, like John I too have quit using the iPhone Twitter client and primarily use Tweetbot on my iPhone. Also, due to Tweetbot not having an iPad app, I use Twitterrific on my iPad. Still though, John's article is worth reading and accurately sums up the problems with the new design. From Gruber's article:

What also worries me is that these changes suggest not only a difference in opinion regarding how a Twitter client should work, but also regarding just what the point is of Twitter as a service. The Twitter service I signed up for is one where people tweet 140-character posts, you follow those people whose tweets you tend to enjoy, and that’s it. The Twitter service this new UI presents is about a whole lot more — mass-market spoonfed “trending topics” and sponsored content. It’s trying to make Twitter work for people who don’t see the appeal of what Twitter was supposed to be. It all makes sense if you think of the label under the “#” tab as reading “Dickbar” instead of “Discover”. Twitter 4.0 for iPhone lacks the surprise, delight, and attention to detail of a deserving successor to Tweetie, offering instead a least common denominator experience that no one deserves. Read the rest.

Romney Spent $100,000 In Taxpayer Money To Conceal Digital Records

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Alex Seitz-Wald writes on ThinkProgress:

Then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spent almost $100,000 in taxpayer funds to replace computers when he left office “as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret,” Reuters reports. ThinkProgress has previously noted, Romney led an obfuscation campaign that state officials described as “unheard of.” Staffers deleted emails, purchased official hard drives, and otherwise obliterating digital records of Romney’s time in office. … Now, according to Reuters, Romney used state funds to carry out this political activity:

The cleanup of records by Romney’s staff before his term ended included spending $205,000 for a three-year lease on new computers for the governor’s office, according to official documents and state officials. In signing the lease, Romney aides broke an earlier three-year lease that provided the same number of computers for about half the cost – $108,000. Lease documents obtained by Reuters under the state’s freedom of information law indicate that the broken lease still had 18 months to run. As a result of the change in leases, the cost to the state for computers in the governor’s office was an additional $97,000.

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.