A car and a bicycle: John Gruber on Chrome OS – “The idea of a computer that does a lot less — leaving out even things you consider essential, because you can still do those things on your other, primary computer — is liberating. That’s the opportunity, and that’s the idea behind Chrome OS and Litl and even Android and iPhone OS.”
On The Shortness of Life: An Introduction to Seneca: Tim Ferriss presents a translation of Lucius Seneca’s letter – ‘It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.”
In defense of readers: “Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience. Much of our talk about web design revolves around a sense of movement: users are thought to be finding, searching, skimming, looking… [w]e concern ourselves with their travel and participation—how they move from page to page, who they talk to when they get there—but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still”.
Local Governments Offer Data to Miners: “A big pile of city crime reports is not all that useful. But what if you could combine that data with information on bars, sidewalks and subway stations to find the safest route home after a night out?” I can imagine several ways in which this sort of open government combined with mobile access could improve everyday urban life – even in India.