President Obama won a decisive victory last night. He won the popular vote by a thin margin, and he didn’t dominate the electoral college as he did in 2008, but there’s no doubt about it: it was decisive. The GOP only peeled off Indiana and North Carolina from
Garrett Jones: There’s some evidence that democracy itself makes people happier, but largely I see democracy as a means to an end. One among those ends is “reducing social conflict.” The electoral college, set forth in the U.S. Constitution, is a great tool for reducing social conflict across
Luigi Zingales explains (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/ohio_and_the_au.html) why the myth that Romney would have let GM liquidate is, well, a myth: When finally both GM and Chrysler went to bankruptcy, Romney would have extended the same lines of credit the Obama administration
After decriminalizing all drug use in 2001, Portugal’s drug abuse has dropped by half (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g9C6x99EnFVdFuXw_B8pvDRzLqcA?docId=CNG.e740b6d0077ba8c28f6d1dd931c6f679.5e1): The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early
The Verge’s Dieter Bohn has a terrific profile of Google Now (http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569684/google-now-android-4-2-knowledge-graph-neural-networks), which attempts to provide information you want before you ask for it. Google Now is one of the things Google’s
Matt Drance: If this was only about Forstall being a problem, though, Apple would replace him. They clearly aren’t: the same press release explicitly states a search is underway to replace Browett. Not only is this a profound increase in responsibility for all three of these top executives, it’
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is where iOS is going. Apple just released the sixth version of iOS, and after more than five years, iOS is significantly more powerful than when the iPhone shipped in 2007. Then, the iPhone had no GPS (or a location-finding
Federico Viticci: Jony Ive will provide “leadership” and “direction” for the Human Interface group within the company. This doesn’t mean Ive will be the one creating pixels behind the scenes. The way I see it, Ive has been chosen as someone who can guide – provide the general direction for
Apple announced a major management shake-up today: Scott Forstall is leaving the company, Jonathan Ive is now responsible for interface design across the company, and Eddy Cue’s Internet Software and Services group is now responsible for Siri and Maps. Oh, and Bob Mansfield will take charge of a
From Mathew Honan’s Surface review: The versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are, well, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I’ll admit to not trying anything complex with Excel during my testing period (or ever, for that matter) but they did everything I expected. Unlike apps that run in Metro
Today, Apple announced a retina 13-inch Macbook Pro, brand new iMac, updated Mac Mini, and, of course, the iPad Mini. That’s a lot to announce, and I think this was one of Apple’s best events in the last few years. Retina 13-inch Macbook Pro It’s
John Paczkowski reported today that Apple will announce a retina 13-inch Macbook Pro next week alongside the iPad Mini. Exciting news for sure (especially for me, because my current Mac—a 2009 13″ Macbook Pro—is testing my patience), but I wonder how a retina 13-inch Macbook Pro,