Archives for August 2011

HP’s plan

The WebOS saga continues, even after they made the big announcement.

Todd Bradley, Leader HP Personal Systems Group, August 30, 2011:

Tablet computing is a segment of the market that’s relevant, absolutely.

HP spokesman, August 31, 2011:

The speed at which it disappeared from inventory has been stunning. We have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand

Obviously, this is all part of the bigger picture and it fits right in HP’s one year plan:

Let’s say you were given a year to kill Hewlett-Packard. Here’s how you do it

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What are the odds …

… of a hurricane and an earthquake hitting Connecticut in the same week? Approximately 1:1,500,000. I liked these odds until last week.

Blow me Irene

Image lifted from lucaswinn.tumbler.com (NSFW)

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That day has come

Steve Jobs, August 24, 2011:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Damn!

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Resigned

John Gruber:

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

So true. History will judge Steve Jobs by Apple’s future success under Tim Cook as much as by the iconic products he released in Apple’s 35 years.

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Informații utile

Andrei Plesu:

România reuşeşte, de veacuri, să ilustreze spectaculos alternanţa, ba chiar simultaneitatea, unor afecte şi situaţii ireconciliabile: dramă şi băşcălie, rîs şi plîns, veselie şi tristeţe, vehemenţă şi toropeală, indignare şi conciliere. Ni se oferă zilnic, în ziare şi la televiziuni, numeroase exemple. Asistăm la interminabile dezbateri în care şi invitaţii, şi moderatorii deplîng catastrofe naţionale ireparabile printre glumiţe, replici „haioase“, piruete jucăuşe. Sîntem specialişti în hazul de necaz. Doliul de fond se arborează într-o atmosferă de bună-dispoziţie telegenică. Cei din platou, cînd bosumflaţi, cînd şmecheri, cînd apocaliptici, cînd zglobii, se simt bine. Cu alte cuvinte – cum spunea cineva –, situaţia e tragică, dar nu e serioasă…

 

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Bienvenue Québecois

Lauren Ober, Vermont’s Seven Days Blog:

On Aug. 8, Burlington City Council will consider a proposal sponsored by councilors Norm Blais and Paul Decelles that would, in effect, make the city a colony of our neighbor to the north, Québec. Or, I should say, nos voisins du Nord. The proposal rests on the premise that Burlington is ostensibly nothing more than a southern vacation destination for Québecois and damn it, we should act like it. To accommodate our francophone visitors, we should print menus in French, make sure merchants can make transactions in French and include French on our street signs. You know, because STOP is pretty tough to translate.

Actually, there’s a huge difference between Stop and Arrêt. In 20 years the francophones will demand that only French is used on the road signs. Just as they did in Quebec 20 years ago. The Anglophones should learn French if they want to live in Vermont.

Via No Dogs or Anglophones

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Sometime comments are futile

July 1, 2010:

It’s our first day together, but it’s already abundantly clear to everyone who’s been involved in bringing the two companies together that great things are in store. The combination of Palm’s trailblazing webOS and HP’s strength as the leading provider of everything from PCs, laptops, and printers to home electronics and enterprise systems promises an amazing roadmap of new tools for your mobile and web-connected future.

June 30, 2011:

Sexy user interface? I guess there’s more to TouchPad than just raising the productivity bar. Some of the “wow” features that drew praise from reviewers: Beats Audio, Touch to Share, Adobe Flash Player support, and apps like the free Box.net, which includes 50 gigabytes of cloud storage at no cost.

August 18, 2011:

HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

 

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Motorola sued by shareholder

MG Siegler:

But what’s crazy is that it’s from a Motorola shareholder who claims that the company did not get the best price possible.

Um. Was he holding out for $100 billion? Maybe an even trillion? Who the fuck was going to pay more than the insane amount Google just laid down for a dog with fleas?

Via ParisLemon

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Bachmann wishes Elvis a happy birthday

On the anniversary of his death. Running for president gives you the opportunity to look stupid in front of large crowds.

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Rope-A-Dope

MG Siegler:

This all begs the question: over the past two years, would you have gained more knowledge by reading Lyons, or by having your head up your own ass?

Tough call, indeed.

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