Forbes contributor Mark Fidelman says Microsoft will overtake Apple in 3 years.
And that, my friends, is the comedy to start your weekend.

Sipho Mabona is raising funds so he can make a life-size origami elephant. (out of one, huge, single sheet of paper, obviously).
I’ve loved and done origami since I was a kid, therefor I think this is a worthy cause.

via The Verge

By H Concept (via The Verge)

John Gruber is confused:

I still don’t get what Medium is. These new features certainly look pretty, but they make me more confused than ever regarding what Medium, as a whole, is.
Just read Ev Williams’ blurb at the bottom of his Medium page:
I make systems that encourage typing and thinking (Blogger, Twitter, Medium).
Medium is a blogging platform in my eyes (Blogger ‘2.0’). Yeah, I know their goal is to redefine what a magazine is, and I think becoming blog-like is part of it. There’s also a lot of semantical things happening. People saying the same thing with different words.

—from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Red-Headed League’

If anything is true in this world, it’s that there’s a market for anything. Anything.
Take this recently-funded Kickstarter project, Ever, Jane, “a virtual world that allows people to role-play in Regency Period England.” The goal was $100,000, they hit $109,563.
Judy L. Tyrer, the creator, explains in her video the players need more to do in the game than “just gossip.”:

“So we’ve planned a series of mini-games: Dinner parties, balls, estate management [!], landscaping [!!], sewing, embroidering, card games, farming, hunting, fishing…”
This sounds like the most boring game ever conceived. I’m not hating on this project by any means—ok, I am—I’m just in shock. I love video games, I’ve never been a fan of MMORPGs. I probably shouldn’t knock it until I try it.
According to the FAQ, Ms. Tyrer is keeping the ‘legal distinctions’ between men and women consistent with the time period. The FAQ also mentions the game, “will provide historically accurate racial diversity.” I guess if we have video games glorifying stealing cars, we can have a game where the white people are the ruling class, women are inferior and you can diving into mini-games of embroidering.
If we’re making video game worlds based on classic literature, can I request an MMORPG of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road? A game where I can speed across the country, get loaded with my writer friends, go to parties, meet girls, run from the law, hang out in Greenwich Village and sleep on peoples’ couches?
Update: It looks like someone has made one of the most boring games ever, Waiting In Line 3D

via Yimmy’s Yayo

via Behance

Great piece in the NYTimes on the benefits of exposing children to art:

FOR many education advocates, the arts are a panacea: They supposedly increase test scores, generate social responsibility and turn around failing schools. Most of the supporting evidence, though, does little more than establish correlations between exposure to the arts and certain outcomes. Research that demonstrates a causal relationship has been virtually nonexistent.

A few years ago, however, we had a rare opportunity to explore such relationships when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Ark. Through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able to determine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes.

Students who, by lottery, were selected to visit the museum on a field trip demonstrated stronger critical thinking skills, displayed higher levels of social tolerance, exhibited greater historical empathy and developed a taste for art museums and cultural institutions.
It’s unfortunate art programs are usually the first to get axed when there’s budget cuts in schools.
via Co.Exist

via YIMMY’S YAYO

BGR: Even Android users want iPads instead of Android tablets

The iPad was a top Black Friday seller, even among Android users. According to a report by InfoScout, about 40% of Black Friday iPad purchases were by Android users. These numbers are certainly good news for Apple. They suggest that Android users are not particularly loyal to their platform and are willing to try out iOS, at least on the tablet. While Amazon, Microsoft and Google tout their tablets, the iPad continues to be the most used device by a long shot, with 84.3% usage.
None of the reports about the discrepancy between Android devices sold and Android devices used surprise me based on what I see in the “real” world. Every time I travel, I always see a majority of iPads and iPhones to a minority of Android tablets and phones.
I’ll admit to seeing more Samsung Galaxy phones than I used to, but the Android tablets must be hiding, because I don’t see them.

David Streitfeld at the NYTimes on e-books keeping the conventions of their print ancestors:

Some functions of physical books that seem to have no digital place are nevertheless being retained. An author’s autograph on a cherished title looked as if it would become a relic. But Apple just applied for a patent to embed autographs in electronic titles. Publishers still commission covers for e-books even though their function — to catch the roving eye in a crowded store — no longer exists.

What makes all this activity particularly striking is what is not happening. Some features may be getting a second life online, but efforts to reimagine the core experience of the book have stumbled. Dozens of publishing start-ups tried harnessing social reading apps or multimedia, but few caught on.
Early television imitated radio when it first came out and the first automobiles imitated the conventions of horse carriages (the word ‘car’ is short for ‘carriage’).
Give it some time, e-books will find their voice too.