Manjoo: I Was Wrong—the iPhone 5 Is the Best Phone Ever Made
slate.comI’ll go even further: When I pick up the iPhone 5 and examine it closely, I find it difficult to believe that this device actually exists. The iPhone 5 does not feel like a product that was mass produced. In a strange way, it doesn’t feel like it was built at all.
Estimated reading time: 4 min
New Documents Reveal How Apple Really Invented the iPhone
slate.com“We're starting a new project,” he’d tell them. “It's so secret I can't even tell you what that project is. I can't tell you who you will work for.... What I can tell you is that if you accept this project … you will work nights, you will work weekends, probably for a number of years.”
Estimated reading time: 10 min
What happened when one of the world’s most unusual, and beloved, computer programmers disappeared.
slate.com_why was not just famous within the Ruby community, but one of its creators. He had contributed thousands of lines of code to Ruby’s open-source libraries. He wrote one of the most famous guides to Ruby
Estimated reading time: 1 min
Fox News Claims Solar Won't Work in America Because It's Not Sunny Like Germany
slate.comThanks to Fox News and its expert commentators, millions of Americans now understand the real, hidden reason why Germany's solar-energy industry is so much further along than ours. Turns out it has nothing to do with the fact that Germany's government has long supported the industry far more generously, with policies like feed-in tariffs that stimulate investment in green technologies. No, the real reason is much simpler, explained a trio of journalists on Fox & Friends: It's always sunny in Germany!
Estimated reading time: 2 min
A Prominent Blogger Spoke Out About Sexism in her Skeptic Community. Then Came the Rape Threats.
slate.comI’m a skeptic. Not the kind that believes the 9/11 attacks were the product of a grand Jewish conspiracy—we hate those guys. “Stop stealing the word ‘skeptic,’ ” we tell them, but they don’t listen to us because they assume we’re just part of the grand Jewish conspiracy too.
Estimated reading time: 9 min
The Contemptuous, Myopic, Evil Practice of Breaking Online Stories into Multiple Pages
slate.comPagination is one of the worst design and usability sins on the Web, the kind of obvious no-no that should have gone out with blinky text, dancing cat animations, and autoplaying music.
Estimated reading time: 7 min
My husband's other wife: She died, so I could find the man I love.
slate.comThe box contained wedding photos, honeymoon photos, and random snapshots of parties and birthdays. As I excavated, I could chart her illness by her hair—a cycle of dark waves, then wigs and scarves. After I'd looked at them all I closed the box and cried for her, and for my guilty awareness that her death allowed me, five years later, to marry the man I loved.
Estimated reading time: 6 min
The Mysterious, Mutant, Civilizing Power of Milk
slate.comIn an evolutionary eye-blink, 80 percent of Europeans became milk-drinkers; in some populations, the proportion is close to 100 percent. (Though globally, lactose intolerance is the norm; around two-thirds of humans cannot drink milk in adulthood.) The speed of this transformation is one of the weirder mysteries in the story of human evolution, more so because it's not clear why anybody needed the mutation to begin with. Through their cleverness, our lactose-intolerant forebears had already found a way to consume dairy without getting sick, irrespective of genetics
Estimated reading time: 7 min
YKK zippers: Why so many designers use them.
slate.comOne zipper gone wrong can render an entire garment unwearable. Thus consistent quality is a must for reputable fashion brands. For decades now, apparel makers who can’t afford to gamble on cut-rate fasteners have overwhelmingly turned to a single manufacturer. YKK, the Japanese zipper behemoth, makes roughly half of all the zippers on earth. More than 7 billion zippers each year. Those three capital letters are ubiquitous—no doubt you’ve seen them while zipping up your windbreaker or unzipping someone else’s jeans. How did YKK come to dominate this quirky corner of industry?
Estimated reading time: 1 min
Microsoft Word is cumbersome, inefficient, and obsolete. It’s time for it to die.
slate.comNowadays, I get the same feeling of dread when I open an email to see a Microsoft Word document attached. Time and effort are about to be wasted cleaning up someone's archaic habits. A Word file is the story-fax of the early 21st century: cumbersome, inefficient, and a relic of obsolete assumptions about technology. It's time to give up on Word.
Estimated reading time: 1 min
Don’t Watch Cable News and Shut Off Twitter—Breaking News Is Broken.
slate.comWhen you first hear about a big story in progress, run to your television. Make sure it’s securely turned off. Next, pull out your phone, delete your Twitter app, shut off your email, and perhaps cancel your service plan. Unplug your PC.
Estimated reading time: 4 min
The New iPad Mini Reveals That Tim Cook Has Outdone Steve Jobs
slate.comWith the exception of its pitiful new maps app, every one of Apple’s new products is the best in its class. That’s an incredible record—I can’t think of any other company in the world that’s doing so many new things so well.
Estimated reading time: 6 min
Amazon’s New Push for Same-Day Delivery Will Destroy Local Retail
slate.comBut now Amazon has a new game. Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon’s new goal is to get stuff to you immediately—as soon as a few hours after you hit Buy.
Estimated reading time: 1 min
Why Apple’s tablet competitors don’t stand a chance—and maybe never will.
slate.comImagine you run a large technology company not named Apple. Let’s say you’re Steve Ballmer, Michael Dell, Meg Whitman, Larry Page, or Intel’s Paul Otellini. How are you feeling today, a day after Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the new iPad? Are you discounting the device as just an incremental improvement, the same shiny tablet with a better screen and faster cellular access? Or is it possible you had trouble sleeping last night? Did you toss and turn, worrying that Apple’s new device represents a potential knockout punch, a move that will cement its place as the undisputed leader of the […]
Estimated reading time: 1 min
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