Apple is not the next anything because the role it aspires to transcends anything imaginable by Microsoft, ever. Google is the next Microsoft, so Google is seen by Ballmer as the immediate threat — the one he has a hope in hell of actually doing something about.

via I, Cringely

Some really good points from Cringely. In summary, it’s not for the technology, it is to block Google from buying Skype.

Were Google to buy Skype they’d convert those 663 million Skype subscriptions to Google Voice and Gmail and in a swoop make parts of Yahoo and MSN irrelevant.

The best stories are told many times over. Every time we say it, we get subtle feedback. Do they nod at the right places? Do they laugh at the right jokes? We adjust the story each time to make it a little better. More meaningful silence here. Change of pace there.

To write the story, is to get it spot on. Every single word of it, every pause, and punctuation right, just that once.

It’s not just that the brightest at Microsoft or Nokia or Google can’t make an upgrade stick. It’s that the upgrade is not universally beneficial to the value chain. To remedy this, licensors have to resort to contractual obligations to ensure upgrades, but enforcement is non-trivial and can lead to aggravated relationships.

via asymco.

Phone makers (Nokia, HTC) are interested in making their phones better with upgrades. Phone OS vendors are interested in getting their latest OS on most eligible devices possible.

Yet, the parties controlling these upgrades are phone carriers. Their interests lie in getting customers to buy into their next contract. Making the experience they have with their current phone better comes way down in that list.

Slight conflict of interest.

What’s upsetting is the number of people who have come to me with the idea of becoming miners: “I know nothing about software, but I can see there’s gold in them thar’ hills, and so I want to start up a company and make my million dollars! I’ve got an idea and everything, just tell me what magic incantation you did to get rich and I’ll be on my way.”

This doesn’t work. Your idea sucks. No, I’m not calling you stupid — my idea sucks, too. All ideas suck, because they are just ideas. They’re worth nothing.

via Call Me Fishmeal.: Success, and Farming vs. Mining.

via Finer Things in Mac.

via Inventing a Planet

via 37 Signals

via The Dilbert Blog

It would be better to write 5,000 words and edit them down into a 2,000-word article than to write 500 words and force more in an attempt to build it up.

Spot on.

I really hope universities stop using number of words as a constraint for papers and essays. When in university, most of the time, I used to write what I wanted to, then paraphrase it to bring it to the prescribed number of words. This is the exact opposite of what students should be learning. They should learn to express what they want to, in the most concise and non-bullshit way possible.