Dan Abelon:

One of the most exciting trends of the early 21st century has been the explosion of hacker culture around the world. By hackers, I don’t mean people who pose security threats to computer networks. I’m referring simply to people who use technology to create useful products. For a number of reasons, the next few decades will see more hackers added to the global population than at any time in history.

What’s exciting, too, is the mindset, and that it’s becoming increasingly prevalent. The mindset is that the world is something to look at curiously, experiment with, move things around and see how they work together, and build better stuff. It doesn’t have to stay in the technology industry. It applies anywhere, and we’re all better off if there are a lot of people looking around, asking how something could be better, and then trying to make it better.

The administration would like things both ways on healthcare reform:

There are other complications. Mr. Verrilli’s argument that the penalty is not a tax for purposes of the 1867 law is in potential tension with one he will make on Tuesday, that the mandate was authorized not only by Congress’s power under the commerce clause but also by its power to levy taxes.

Mr. Verrilli argues that the name that Congress gave the payment required for violating the mandate in the health care law —a penalty, not a tax — matters for purposes of the 1867 law but is irrelevant in connection with the constitutional taxing power, where “it is the practical operation of the provision, not its label, that controls.”

Today the mandate is a penalty. Tomorrow it is a tax. Other words which mean the same thing: the mandate is whatever we want it to be, so as we get the result we desire.

Todd Alcott:

The studio executive we went to see was a very nice, very kind, very intelligent young woman.  I pitched to her not one movie but three, I pitched to her for over an hour, laying out a tapestry, a world of intrigue, action, spectacle and personal development.

The studio exec was fascinated and very impressed, and then, at the end of the pitch, said “That’s really great, Todd, you really nailed it, it’s perfect.  I’m just wondering — is there some way to make the protagonist a boy?”

I didn’t enjoy Hunger Games—I thought it was a rather shallow film with limited character development—but I do hope its success shows that there’s no reason women can’t play the lead in large science-fiction or action movies.

China is increasing repression of Tibetans once again:

Communist Party leaders have also introduced a “monastic management” plan to more directly control religious life. As part of the plan, 21,000 party officials have been sent to Tibetan communities with the goal of “befriending” monks — and creating dossiers on each of them. Compliant clergy members are rewarded with health care benefits, pensions and television sets; the recalcitrant are sometimes expelled from their monasteries.

At some temples, monks and nuns have been forced to publicly denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader whose name is often invoked by self-immolators. The freedom of movement that allowed monks to study at distant monasteries across Tibet and four adjacent provinces has been curtailed.

Protests have increased, and there have been 29 self-immolations—where someone sets themselves on fire as a form of protest—in the past year, seven in the last month.

Matthew Panzarino:

The iPad has always been designed to disappear, to make you forget you’re using it.

Joshua Topolsky:

In some immediate way, this defense rings true. There are many documented cases of worker mistreatment and injuries in Foxconn factories. There have been reports of underage workers. There have been suicides. Some of the most important and honest revelations of these issues have come from Apple itself, which issues a supplier responsibilty statement every year detailing both the improvements and problems it’s having with international partners.

But until the radio broadcast Daisey took part in — and many of the follow-up interviews he gave — this problem was never discussed in a such a big, public way. Daisey’s lies inspired honest questions about the gadgets in our pockets. Did he betray the trust of the public and journalists by lying? The answer to this question is easy: Yes. But were the lies necessary?

Let me quote Jim Dalrymple, because his response to this is precisely right:

Bullshit.

Daisey’s argument wasn’t that there have been abuses at Foxconn. We know that, and we know it in large part because Apple has been uniquely forthright with detailing working conditions and abuses in their supply chain. No, that wasn’t what Daisey argued. What Daisey argued was that the abuses he claims he saw—underage workers, maimed workers—is commonplace, Apple knows about it, but does nothing to change it. That is a lie, a lie which mislead his audiences and This American Life’s listeners about the reality of the situation.

Topolsky thinks that’s okay because now more people are aware of abuses happening at Foxconn. What Topolsky neglects to consider is that those people, having listened to Daisey’s bullshit, are now even less well-informed now than they were before, if they took Daisey at his word. It may have created coverage for the issue, but it created misinformed, inaccurate coverage and understanding of the issue. There’s nothing defensible about Daisey’s actions, and it’s disappointing to see Topolsky throw his support behind him.

No. “Disappointing” is too weak a word. Jim had it right: it’s bullshit.

Cody Fink:

Where my eyes quickly got tired when reading on previous generation iPads, I found the Retina display helped me stay focused and interested in reading texts for much longer periods of time. Where I wasn’t too interested in reading long form articles on the iPad before (I mainly relegated that to the iPhone 4S at the kitchen table), I now consider the iPad to be a great e-book reader.

I think that overstates it a bit—the iPad 2′s screen was fine for reading—the new iPad’s screen really is better for reading. While I was never bothered reading on my original iPad’s screen, my eyes seem to relax more while reading on the Retina display, which makes reading for longer periods—an hour or so—more enjoyable.

Patrick Rhone tells the story of how they designed the cover for his new book, Enough:

In coming up with the cover for enough, the layout and design team (Randy, Aaron, and I) needed to strike a balance using the same methods, questions, and strategies that  I share in the book. We needed to come up with a cover that was minimal, communicative of the ideas within, yet compelling and readable even at very small thumbnail sizes. In other words, it was as much an example of the idea of enough as any other.

Beautiful work.

Jeff Atwood:

At the point where these simple, fixed function Post-PC era computing devices are not just “enough” computer for most folks, but also fundamentally innovating in computing as a whole … well, all I can say is bring on the post-PC era.

We’re living through an inflection point in computing, and it’s going to have huge effects on society as a whole. It truly is a special time to be around.

Nick Gillespie on the House GOP’s proposed budget:

Yet Ryan’s plan is weak tea. Here we are, years into a governmental deficit situation that shows no sign of ending. How is it that Ryan and the Republican leadership cannot even dream of balancing a budget over 10 years’ time? All of the discussion of reforming entitlements and the tax code and everything else is really great and necessary – I mean that sincerely – but when you cannot envision a way of reducing government spending after a decade-plus of an unrestrained spending binge, then you are not serious about cutting government. If Milton Friedman was right that spending is the proper measure of the government’s size and scope in everybody’s life, then the establishment GOP is signaling what we knew all along: They are simply an echo of the Democratic Party.

Neven Mrgan’s The Agony and The Ecstasy of The President:

I look at the faces of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson in my hands for what must be the ten-millionth time when the question pops into my head: who are these people? It’s like a virus in my head – a computer virus. I obsess over it. I stare at these unflinching, small pictures printed on squares of linen and I know I have to find out where they came from.

Brilliantly moving and gut-wrenching piece. I feel ready to sign a petition, really change things.

John Gruber on Mike Daisey:

Daisey impugned the integrity of Apple — and the journalism of ABC News — in order to work people up regarding problems that don’t exist. This only served to draw attention away from the labor, health, and environmental issues in Apple’s Asian supply chain that do exist.

He has hurt the true cause, not helped it.

Gruber nailed it. Daisey didn’t fudge the truth a bit to tell a bigger truth—he told lies which misrepresented the truth, told those lies outside of the theater, for the benefit of his own play.

There’s no question here. Daisey lied to the people who attended his performances and lied to everyone else who read about his experiences. He manipulated people, and—let’s be honest—he did so to benefit himself. What he did is terribly shameful.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry:

If you had asked an 11-year-old Jeff Bezos to let his imagination run wild and think of the stuff that he would most dream to have as an adult, he might have said:

• The world’s biggest bookstore! Maybe even a bookstore that can beam any book directly to your hand in an instant (and movies and music, too!).
• A giant sky computer that can imitate human intelligence.
• A spaceship.
• …And maybe even a robot army.

Of course any adult would have smiled slightly condescendingly, patted him on the head and helpfully explained that these things aren’t possible. 

So thank you, Jeff Bezos, for realizing your dreams and showing the impossible is, indeed, possible.

Kevin Craft:

The audience is supposed to take him and his work seriously. Part of the nostalgic hook of Mad Men goes beyond the look and feel of the 1960s; the show also transports us back to a time when irony wasn’t quite as rampant, when cultural messages, including advertisements, were to the point. Perhaps audiences accept Don’s genius because it’s comforting to revisit a time when irony wasn’t quite as common.

Only a few days until Sunday.

Big thanks to Smile Software for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed. TextExpander is one of those tools that can make anyone’s job easier. You can create snippets for common email replies you have to make, signatures, or anything else. It’s an honor having such a great company sponsor TightWind.

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