Here comes a rather grumpy filter pass, sorry.  Went sailing today; it was overcast, there was no wind, and it was a somewhat crappy experience.  Every day on the water is better than every other day, but this was not the best.  Blech.

Warren Buffet: Better than Raising the Minimum Wage.  "I may wish to have all jobs pay at least $15 an hour. But that minimum would almost certainly reduce employment in a major way, crushing many workers possessing only basic skills."  Well said, in fact, the entire article makes sense; read it! 

Apropos: this article by Philip Greenspun, commenting on a New York Times Editorial, which appears to be making a racial issue out of an economic imbalance.

Philip links this great interview of Milton Friedman: "A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills."  Another key point he makes: "The minimum wage destroys the best kind of training programs we've ever had: on-the-job training."

Hehe ... Carly Fiorina held a press conference outside Hillary Clinton's staged event (at which Clinton took no questions from the press, as has been her wont).  I find myself increasingly drawn to Fiorina. 

This is pretty interesting: high-rent blight in the West Village.  "Shuttered storefronts. Abandoned retail locations. Small businesses that fall like the House of Cards & Curiosities on Eighth Avenue. These are the signs of urban blight we usually associate with economic downturns or poor, forgotten neighborhoods. But these shuttered storefronts are in one of America's wealthiest neighborhoods; NYC's West Village."  Has to be a temporary instability between supply and demand, right? 

My pet theory: things are not as good generally as people think, based on media bias.  There will come a correction.

The Pebble Time is out, and has been getting quite positive reviews.  It's simpler and less ambitious than the Apple Watch and the Android Watches, but perhaps that's part of its charm.  I would consider it based on the always-on color screen and battery life.  It's also considerably thinner than the Apple and Google offerings... 

BTW yes, there is a Macintosh emulator out for it :)

Seems like this was only a matter of time: Google's URL shortener deep links directly into IOS and Android Apps.  Search *on* Mobile has been around for a while, but search *of* Mobile is still incredibly limited... 

This looks pretty amazing: Lenovo's projector phone beams a touchscreen onto any surface.  Such devices have been around for a while now, but they don't quite work.  Yet.  Maybe Lenovo have cracked the code. 

You probably know, Google I/O just took place; Google's annual developer conference, at which they announce cool new stuff.  Here you may find everything you need to know from the keynote. 

To me, the enhancements to Google Photos seem like the biggest deal: "Machine intelligence and ‘unlimited’ storage."  Right now the "machine intelligence" is being used for facial recognition, to track people, but we can imagine other kinds of things being tracked over time.  And maybe even Visual Search!

Whew.  Darwin's pink iguanas are all fine after Galapagos volcano eruption.  I was losing sleep over them, weren't you? 

Here we have the spectacularly colorful world of Panther Chameleons.  Yet another reason, if any were needed, for visiting Madagascar! 

Hmmm... well maybe it wasn't that grumpy after all.  Panther Chameleons can put a smile on anyone's face :)