ParisLemon

Lots of good pros and cons for working at Google, but you have to love his simple one-word con on the “corporate culture” side of things: “Google+”.

He elaborates a bit in a footnote:

I think Google+ is an effort that does not deserve the engineering minds at Google. This is mostly a personal bias. I see Google as solving legitimately difficult technological problems, not doing stupid things like cloning Facebook. Google, in my opinion, lost sight of what was important when they went down this rabbit hole.

Tipping is not alone in this feeling.

(via @dalmaer)

Admittedly, I haven’t been following the news about Windows 8 all that closely — I care because the dominant computer OS is getting a major overhaul, but I doubt I’ll end up using it much — but reading pieces like this one, my instinct is that Microsoft is in for a very rude awakening.

By most accounts I’ve read, the Metro elements of Windows 8 are good, but they clash badly with the legacy elements of the OS. Why is Microsoft insisting on both living side-by-side? “No compromises”, or something. 

Then when you consider that there’s a special version of the OS — with special rules — for ARM chips, things start to sound really complicated. It’s starting to sound like consumer poison, to be honest.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is apparently pulling out all stops in an attempt to get developers writing new Windows 8 apps. But most of the big players are’t biting.

One bullish player was highlighed by Bloomberg for their story today:

Mobile games maker Digital Chocolate Inc. also plans to have games available for Windows 8 at launch, said Chief Executive Officer Trip Hawkins, while declining to specify further.

In a bit of unfortunately timing for Bloomberg’s story, — and really for Microsoft — Hawkins resigned from Digital Chocolate three days ago as major layoffs loom.

Josh Constine:

If you hate accidental auto-sharing, you’re in luck. Now you have to be watching or reading something for at least 10 seconds before Facebook apps can auto-share the activity to your Timeline. 

A simple, good change. I’ve actually avoided clicking on things inside Facebook, worried that one would be a “landmine” — some bit of clickbait tied to Open Graph sharing. Why was I clicking on it in the first place? That’s another story…

To follow up on this quote, this whole story is fascinating.

Sari Zeidler:

New data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope proves, NASA says, that in 4 billion years the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide or pass each other by so closely that the gravitational force each exerts on the other will cause them to slow down to the point of merging. The merger will be completed 6 billion years from now.

And:

“The clear finding is, we are going to merge with Andromeda,” van der Marel said. “In the past, it was just a possibility, but now it is a known fact that this will happen.”

And:

There is a 9% chance that M-33, a satellite galaxy of Andromeda, will hit the Milky Way first in what van der Marel called a “one-two punch,” causing it to become a satellite of the new galaxy that is formed.

And:

When Andromeda gets here, the sun will likely be pushed out much farther into the universe. By that time though, Earth will have become too hot to be inhabited by humans anyway.

Our sun will not be directly hit when the initial collision happens in 4 billion years. But in 6 billion years, when the merger is complete, our sun will die.

The end.

(via @zamosta)

AT&T has updated their international travel data plans (following Verizon doing the same thing). On the surface, it’s a good move, the new packages are certainly a better bang-for-the-buck. But let’s be real: they’re still a colossal rip-off. 

120MB of data from $30 a month? 800MB for $120 a month? They’re basically begging anyone who travels internationally to unlock their phones.

Like SMS, this insanely profitable dream is eventually going to collapse on the carriers. They could be less greedy and offer international data plans at a still-healthy markup (call it a convenience fee) and everyone would be happy. Instead, they’re fleecing customers.

Certainly, the BGR iTV OS rumor makes these openings especially interesting.

Another wild card: a few Facebook-related sessions. No fire here yet, but an increasing amount of smoke…

Danny Sullivan:

Back when Google was an upstart search engine, one way it distinguished itself was to fight against a pay-to-play business model called “paid inclusion.” Indeed, paid inclusion was one of the original sins Google listed as part of its “Don’t Be Evil” creed. But these days, Google seems comfortable with paid inclusion, raising potential concerns for publishers and searchers alike.

“Evil” is fluid, it seems.

Ina Fried:

Google is believed to also be open to a deal, but the two sides appear very far apart in the kind of deal they envision. Sources close to Microsoft say the company is interested only in the kind of deal that would see the balance of licensing revenue headed in its direction.

So Google (now the official owner of Motorola) is going to cut a deal with Microsoft to pay them a portion of each Android handset sale? Yeah… Don’t see that happening. But it would be pretty humorous. 

Arik Hesseldahl:

Heins didn’t quantify the expected loss. Analysts had been forecasting a 42-cent per-share profit on a non-GAAP basis and operating profit of $264 million. This looks like a pretty serious turn for the worse and only adds to the complexity of the mess that Heins has to clean up.

That’s two in a row. One more quarter and you have a trend that they may not be able to pull out of.