Students at the University of Sheffield have donated four tonnes of goods to city charities. As...
page
Why Recent Graduates Should Join Code for America
page
Sympathy for the dodgy salesmen of Australian politics
page
Babel Rising
page
T.C. Boyle: Incorporating Environmentalism in Art
page
The Stone Roses confirm all planned shows to go ahead after Ian Brown calls Reni a 'c**t' onstage
The Really Big Apple

Recently it was announced that Steve Jobs had an FBI file that detailed his personality, how he ran his company and the possibility that he would be appointed to George Bush Sr.' s government.

What is more interesting about Apple at the moment is the $100bn in cash reserves it's accrued and what it might use them for.

End world hunger?

Take over other companies?

Pay its suicidal employees more?

Whatever it chooses, we should really stop focussing on Jobs' genius and start thinking about how the wealth his genius created can be spent for good.

 


Share |
blog comments powered by Disqus

Tags

 

Related Articles

The pointless battle against binge drinking
5 may  |  By Stephen Myles

Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

Fake Steve Jobs at Web 2.0 Expo
27 apr  |  The Fake Steve Jobs aka Dan Lyons from Forbes gives a speech at the recent Web 2.0 expo about the insanity of Twitter, Facebook and other geek favourites. . . read more
Predictions for Champions League 2011
28 may  |  By Sean Maguire

Alright here we go, something to put a few bob on - based on a football ball fan that fell a bit off the wagon until Messi showed up. Javier Hernandez, or Chicharito as he's known in his native Mexico, will link up with Rooney and score late in the first half. 

It will turn dirty and someone will get sent off around the 60th minute.

Messi will be unstoppable but won't score, Iniesta will put a goal in at the 83rd minute setting the game up to extra time.

Messi will then break the hearts of the Man U faithful at the 113th minute. 

Come on prove me wrong.

What do you reckon? Any better predictions? Let's see who's got the oracle sense, tell us and remember...Disqus!

  . . read more

Apple Unveils The iRack
13 may  |  Steve Jobs announces another iProduct to add to Apple's growing iRange. Well, Mad TV's version of Steve Jobs does anyway. . . read more
Technology Adoption Lifecycle - From Brett Morgan
24 mar  |  Technology has an adoption lifecycle. Firstly there is the bleeding edgers who adopt a technology because it's there, then there is the early adopters who adopt a technology because it is useful, then there are the late adopters who do it because all of their friends have.

Each of these groups have different acceptance levels for product design failures. Bleeding edgers expect bad interface design, in fact working out what the technology can do is what motivates bleeding edgers. Bleeding edgers get excited by difficult to use technology. It's solving a puzzle.

The early adopters expect a working product. They expect that the technology be internally consistent, and won't hurt them too much when the play around with it. If it is difficult to use, early adopters will whinge, and if unfixed, will eventually walk away.

Late adopters don't accept any design failures at all. Any sign of instability, or inconsistency, and they are gone. It's no accident that twitter's mainstream explosion happened once twitter sorted out their scaling issues. One fail whale is enough to make a late adopter leave and never come back.

The interesting thing to me is that these three stages in the life cycle are usually carried out by different groups. The bleeding edge work is carried out by home tinkerers, working on their own time. The early adoption phase by engineering and R&D teams. And the last cycle? That's when the designers come in.

Take home computers, for instance. The first cycle was home built kit computers, starting with the home brew computer club, and ending with the C64. The next cycle was the IBM PC revolution, when the home computer moved from tinkerers to suited engineers, with MS at the helm. The next wave, the one we are currently in, is the designers from Cuppertino redesigning everything.

So it is with great interest that I watch as Google proves itself incapable of holding onto design talent. Google are the next Microsoft. So, the question is, who is the next Apple?

Click here to read more from Brett Morgan  . . read more

The New Green iPod
11 nov  |  "This is the product that you, our users, asked for, and which all of us at Apple wanted to make." The MacWorld keynote speech that Greenpeace wish Apple boss Steve Jobs had made.  . . read more
Heads up in the iCloud
3 jun  |  By Don Reilly

It's official, we're only 4 days away from Apple's iCloud release; a new service that will allow you to store and stream gigabytes of songs online for a nominal fee.

This could be a game changer, with the announcement that the four big record companies have signed on and that they'll be getting 70% of the profits. 

For the psychotic fans of Apple this will surely be a happy day - they can finally link their Macbook Pro with their iTunes account to buy songs to play on their iPod and now to store on their iCloud. 

Yet there must be a point where we ask ourselves whether this is putting too much in the hands of too few and whether it will be good for the music.

Will more money be invested in new talent?

Will there be a space for independent artists?

Will it inspire new creation or proliferation of old faces?

iM not buying it...yet.

What are your initial thoughts of iCloud? Is this a service that is desperately needed or a distraction for a dying industry? Tell us and remember...Disqus!  . . read more

Answers - From 'The Outsider'
5 aug  |  Australian PM John Howard plans to use the Yahoo Answers website to engage with the Australian voters in the run up to the Federal election. This, despite his recent disastrous flirtations with YouTube.

He comments, "It will help maintain a direct line with the Australian public and can only foster greater interest in the democratic process." But he is going to select only a handful of questions from the thousands Yahoo anticipates will be asked.

What kind of democracy is that? Certainly not open or deliberative. More like the manicured manipulative democracy which is the hallmark of his Government. Ya booh, Yahoo for falling for that one. . . read more

Phoney Abbott
18 may  | 

By Kara Jensen-Mackinnon

There’s a well-known phrase that goes something like – we know that not all liars are politicians, but all politicians are liars.  And after Tony Abbott’s career changing faux pas in an interview with Kerry O’Brian on the 7:30 Report, we can’t help laugh at his proverb proving performance. 

He said: “Most of us know when we’re talking to people or when we’re listening to people, I think we know when we can put absolute weight on what’s being said and when it’s just the give and take of standard conversation.”

We all know that politicians often candy-coat the truth, but which citizen votes for a man who outwardly admitted to lying?  If Tony is elected as leader, how many of his policies on health care, education, immigration, the environment were carefully prepared and scripted or just said on the fly? 

He’ll probably release a statement saying something along the lines of: he’s an honest man for admitting to lying.  I just hope that stapled to the back of that statement is a spreadsheet with all his policies that were false, so we as a voting public know where we stand.

 . . read more
Pope goes the weasel- by Neil Day
10 apr  |  On Friday it was reported on the BBC that a significant change of tone was emnating from the Vatican- one which suggested that priests accused of sex scandals should surrender themselves to the authorities.

This change of tone, and if it is matched in practice, could be monumental. 

No longer is the Church attempting to portray those that ask for priests to appear before the courts as trying to smear their reputation. No longer is there the suggestion that Church law is flawless or even that only God can judge a man of cloth.

If this can be mirrored in a public and open case for the Pope then the Catholic Church might have a chance for survival.  . . read more

blogs   100words
student
student
 
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -- Ronald Reagan (1986)