I'm stuck coding so I might as well blog...

And even coding is a distraction from creating a pitch deck.

And even creating the deck was a distraction from practicing a presentation.

Deeply nested yak shaving, you have been warned :)

This looks cool, need to learn more about it: mobile linking gets deeper.  I, too, have wondered about the difficulty of interaction between links and apps.  This is one thing - perhaps the main thing - which the web has going for it, and it is a big thing. 

Hehe this is awesome: Spanish comedy club uses facial recognition to charge customers on a per-laugh basis.  Good thing I didn't have to pay per-laugh while reading it.  What an inventive use of visual search :) 

Hurry!  Six mobile innovations retailers have time to adopt for the Holidays.  I notice visual search didn't make the list, but maybe it will take too much time.  Next year! 

This is pretty cool: new photo app protects your pics from screenshots.  A most intriguing plugging of "the analog hole", reminiscent of the Macrovision hack which was used to protect VCRs.  Will be interesting to see if this catches on... 

Dave Winer: the backs of receivers today suck.  Yes they do.  And it's because they're mired in old technology ... like ... RCA plugs (click through for a great picture of the back of a 1940s-era radio).  My 12-year-old Yamaha receiver is the oldest piece of electronics in my house, because there's nothing with current technology to which I can upgrade.  Every receiver should just be on your WiFi, accessing your media server, right? 

Eric Schmidt: Google's biggest search competitor is Amazon.  Not competitor, but search competitor.  How interesting.  Read the whole article, it's full of good stuff... 

Really?  Amazon to open New York retail store.  For picking stuff up though, not for picking stuff out.  Still, weird. 

After watching the League Division Series, I must agree: Baseball's strike zone expansion is out of control.  This is presently a weak spot in the game; human interest is all very exciting, but how lame is it when the announcer's report "so and so is a low strike umpire". 

Pretty thought-provoking, from Scott "Dilbert" Adams: ISIS Puzzle.  "In the long run, I think ISIS will be the best thing that happened to the Middle East because of what it does to the common psychology of who the "real" enemy is. And it comes when the problems in the Middle East seemed otherwise unsolvable. Is that a coincidence?"  I like, you think. 

The app that helped launch a revolution: FireChat.  When the revolution cannot be televised, Tweeted, or IM'ed, a decentralized phone-to-phone network steps in.  How fascinating. 

Last Thursday Apple held another announcement event, billing it "it's been way too long", but in the end it wasn't much of an event.  Cult of Mac posted a nice summary: The twelve biggest takeaways from Apple's iPad event.  My summary from the summaries is ... a bunch of expected upgrades.  Which doesn't mean they aren't cool, but they aren't significant, like the announcement of the Apple Watch a few weeks ago.  Perhaps the fact that most of the announced products had a version number tells the story.  Onward! 

I do agree the graphic shown at right is a cool summary of Apple's current product line.

On the long trip to Mars, virtual reality could help keep astronauts sane.  Well, yeah.  Of course if the spacecraft and sensors are good enough, no need to send people at all, just use virtual reality to let them experience the trip! 

Lockheed Martin announces a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion.  Excellent!  Given their gravitas, I doubt this is simple announceware to placate investors, there must be something real behind it.  More, faster! 

Meanwhile: The physics of why 'cold fusion' isn't real.  I'm reminded of that saying, when a scientist says something is possible, they're probably right, when they say it's impossible, they could be wrong.

Onward!