Rare Photographs Of The Titanic

Jason Kottke, at Kottke.org has posted a wonderful piece on old photographs from the Titantic, before it sank. I love seeing old photos such as these, especially of historic places or events, before the event itself took place. So much of the time we think about the event itself, but not what the place, object, person or setting was like prior to this famous historic event happening. Jason writes:

I was under the impression that not many photographs of the Titanic existed...especially those taken on the ship. But amateur photographer Francis Browne was aboard the Titanic from Southampton to Cobh, Ireland and captured many images of the ship's interior, exterior, and voyage. The photos were widely known in the aftermath of the sinking but have been little seen since then. Make sure you check out Jason's post, as there is an additional gem at the bottom showing a screenshot of twitter displaying the ignorance and/or naivety of today's youth.

Jobs’s Biographer to Page: What Part of “I’m Going to Destroy Android” Didn’t You Understand?

John Paczkowski, at AllThingsD:

During a lecture Wednesday evening at the U.K.’s Royal Institution, Isaacson took issue with Page’s remarks, stressing that Jobs was hardly kidding around when he threatened to destroy Android, which he lambasted as a stolen product. “[Apple's iOS] is almost copied verbatim by Android,” Isaacson said as reported by Macworld UK. “And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated [Steve]. It wasn’t a matter of money. He said: ‘You can’t pay me off, I’m here to destroy you.’” The actual quote, verbatim, from Jobs to Isaacson was this: “Our lawsuit is saying, ‘Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.’ Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google’s products — Android, Google Docs — are shit.” John Packzowski sums up: That’s a rant uttered for show? A little anecdote to give Apple employees an “obvious competitor … to rally around”? Hardly. If you want to talk about things that are for show, Larry, here’s a good one: Don’t be evil.

How To Install Instagram On Your Android Phone In 23 Easy Steps

Sarah Pavis, at Buzzfeed:

Step 3. Try to download Instagram from the Google Play app. Find that it is compatible with anything at or above 2.2 (Froyo, 2 major releases behind current). If you have an older Android phone like the HTC Nexus One (not to be confused with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus or the HTC One) that has limited internal memory then odds are you many not have enough internal storage space available because the Instagram app is 16MB (which is large for an Android app). Comically sad.

Calling Radicalism by Its Name

An editorial, at The New York Times:

President Obama’s fruitless three-year search for compromise with the Republicans ended in a thunderclap of a speech on Tuesday, as he denounced the party and its presidential candidates for cruelty and extremism. He accused his opponents of imposing on the country a “radical vision” that “is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity.” More of this please.

Young People In The Recession: The War Against Youth

Stephen Marche, at Esquire:

David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter, had the guts to acknowledge that the Tea Party's combination of expensive entitlement programs and tax cuts is something entirely different from a traditional political program: "This isn't conservatism: It's a going-out-of-business sale for the Baby Boom generation." The economic motive is growing ever more naked, and has nothing to do with any principle that could be articulated by Goldwater or Reagan, or indeed with any principle at all. The political imperative is to preserve the economic cloak of unreality that the Boomers have wrapped themselves in. If you read nothing else this week, please read this article. I apologize in advance at how much it will depress you but hopefully it will make you angry.

Why Won’t TV Sports Blackouts Just Die Already?

Gedeon Maheux asks on his site, Gedblog, Why Won’t TV Sports Blackouts Just Die Already?:> "Since they were first televised in the late 60′s and 70′s, sports such as baseball and football have been subject to broadcast blackout restrictions. Originally designed to get people up off the couch, sell tickets and into the home team’s stadiums, blackouts were designed to help ensure a healthy bottom line for both league owners and those with a stake in local television markets. Stadiums cost millions of dollars to build and back in the day blackouts made sense, but not any longer. In today’s age of interconnectivity, smart phones, place-shifted broadcasts and on-demand programming, fans are fed up with the NFL & MLB’s blackouts." I wholeheartedly agree.

It's Easy To Steal A Bike In NYC

Casey Neistat tries to steal his own bike in several locations around NYC and finds out that it wasn't hard. He even does this right in front of a police station:

I recently spent a couple of days conducting a bike theft experiment, which I first tried with my brother Van in 2005. I locked my own bike up and then proceeded to steal it, using brazen means -- like a giant crowbar -- in audacious locations, including directly in front of a police station. I wanted to find out whether onlookers or the cops would intervene. What you see here in my film are the results. I would guess that this may be easy to do in most large cities, what with out apathetic most pedestrians are to what is going on around them.

Rachel Gilmore's 100 MPH Fastball

Andy Ihnatko, at Andy's Ihnatko's Celestial Waste of Bandwidth. He writes about a topic I seldom care about, Opera, but makes me care about this story:

Kim, an elite professional, accelerates through every curve. She seems to have no limitations; every note she sings is a conscious choice and she’s in full control of her instrument throughout. And keep in mind that as impressive as this performance was, it was all in a day’s work for her. She would do it again and again and again throughout the show’s run. So. One night, Kim got sick and Rachele Gilmore was forced to make her Met stage debut on just three hours’ notice. You must read his article, and watch the two videos embedded within it.