Clay Shirky explains why we need the news environment to be chaotic.
On the difference, or lack thereof, between the new and ad biz (emphasis added):

So long as newspapers faced little competition for advertisers or readers, this was a distinction without a difference, but as papers are being sundered by the internet, we can see how tangled the system always was. Outside a relative handful of financial publications, there is no such thing as the news business. There is only the advertising business. The remarkable thing about the newspapers’ piece of that business isn’t that they could reliably generate profits without accomplishing much in the way of innovation–that could just as easily describe the local car dealership. The remarkable thing is that over the last couple of generations, those profits supported the fractional bit of those enterprises that covered the news.

On how the news got to be bundled the way it is:

The rationale for creating such a bundle went something like this: “We will print enough content to fill the hole left after we’ve sold the advertising space. We will include content proportional to the amount and intensity of reader interest, modified somewhat by editorial judgment. Overall, the value of the bundle will be more than the sum of its parts.”

And a fun experiment to do with an oldy timey printed news paper:

Buy a newspaper. Cut it up. Throw away the ads. Sort the remaining stories into piles. Now, describe the editorial logic holding those piles together.

via The Vimeo Blog

From The New York Times Diner’s Journal (via PSFK):

Sam Calagione, the founder and president of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, clearly enjoys adventurous brewing. But less exotic crafting has its appeal, too, as Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck’s “cinemagraphs” — photographs with movement on a loop — make clear. “My favorite days at Dogfish are the ones in which we are brewing a beer for the first time,” Mr. Calagione writes from Rehoboth Beach, Del. Instead of only describing the process or using “plain ol’ photos,” he invited the cinemagraphers, who are also his friends, to document a day of making strawberry beer: “Their amazing cinemagraphs have a mystical effect of bringing the viewer into the moment.”

Two of my favorite things – beer and animated GIFs.

Tangled Web Of Vice

So HP says Apple is not TouchPad’s target. So says Richard Kerris, HP’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, to The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple:

HP acknowledged Apple’s dominance in the tablet market, but said Apple wasn’t its target with the TouchPad.

“We think there’s a better opportunity for us to go after the enterprise space and those consumers that use PCs,” said Kerris. “This market is in its infancy and there is plenty of room for both of us to grow.”

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball agrees:

Smart. Reminds me of that Steve Jobs mantra from the late ’90s: “We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace the notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job.”

Bullshit.

HP is a company who’s senior Vice President and General Manager of the Palm Global Business Unit (formerly the CEO of Palm, replacing dipshit Ed Colligan) helped develop the iPod at Apple as a senior vice president. Apple’s influence at HP, through Rubenstein, can be seen all over HP’s product design, advertising and marketing. Rubenstein knows the important parts of Apple’s business to copy and he has.

HP even based the price points on TouchPad models with the iPad. I can’t find the link, but I believe it was Gruber who also pointed out even the name, TouchPad, contains the names of two of Apple’s most popular products.

As Sherlock Holmes said, “No, Watson, this was not done by accident, but by design.”

Aside from the part about not going after Apple, the other point of bullshit in Kerris’ statement was about the “better opportunity for us to go after the enterprise space and those consumers that use PCs”. If the iPad has proven anything, it’s people in the corporate space love the iPad.

HP is clearlying being smart about webOS. They’re focusing on what matters to people – the experience, the software, the Human Experience, but make no mistake, not only are they watching Apple’s every move, but Apple’s and HP’s target markets for tablets very much align.

A “high level RIM employee” shot off an open letter the co-CEO’s of RIM pleading for them to get their heads out of their asses (in so many words). Although the points this person makes I’ve read elsewhere and thought myself, it’s still sound advice:

Rather than constantly mocking iPhone and Android, we should encourage key decision makers across the board to use these products as their primary device for a week or so at a time — yes, on Exchange! This way we can understand why our users are switching and get inspiration as to how we can build our next-gen products even better! It’s incomprehensible that our top software engineers and executives aren’t using or deeply familiar with our competitor’s products.

I also enjoyed the comparison of RIM’s SDK to a “rundown 1990′s Ford Explorer”. Odd choice of vehicle, but it works. I would have picked something uglier, like a 90’s Buick Skylark. My coworker Victor suggested a 90’s Chevrolet Cavalier.

So yes, Google is now in the social networking game with their new Google+. Some people have written about how well-designed it is from a UI perspective. Others have bashed them and dismissed the project.
Here’s the deal. Google, as a company must do at some point, has to evolve. If they don’t they’ll end up like Alta Vista and all the other search engines from the 90’s. This doesn’t mean they’ll succeed or that you have to join their club.
The problem is, they’ll really not trying to evolve as much as they’re growing like a cancer.
Apple has changed their focus and now makes more profit off of iPads, iPhones and iPods than they do on desktops. They also have no problem killing their darlings in the name of innovation and progress.
Google won’t let go of search, search is their equivalent to Microsoft’s Windows/Office cash cow.

Missile Test weighs in on all the defense spending going on in the United States and also how we as US citizens are enjoying our ‘freedoms’:

Americans have less personal freedoms since the attacks on 9/11. We are watched, spied upon, patted down, forced to peel down layers of clothing, etc. Thousands are humiliated everyday, forced to prove their innocence in a country whose due process laws are among the standard-bearers for the rights of the accused throughout the world. But now, all of us, some on a daily basis, but at least all during the course of a year, are forced to show they harbor no ill will towards the building/plane/sporting event they are about to enter, by showing that there are no malicious materials on their person or in their possession. We are a nation of the accused, pouring more than half a trillion of our dollars every year into a system that uses that cash to blow things up overseas and overreact to the threat of terrorism at home.

In light of New York’s legalizing of same sex marriages, Chris Rock’s thoughts from his 2004 act seem appropriate:

People always say that we can’t have gay marriage because marriage is a sacred institution, that happens in the church. It’s sacred… no it’s not! Marriage ain’t sacred! Not in America! Not in the country that watches “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?” or “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” or “Who Wants to Marry a Midget?” Get the fuck outta here! Gay people have a right to be miserable as everybody else! Michael Jackson got married, how fuckin’ sacred is that shit?

—Chris Rock