Brandon's Mind ✍

H.P. Reports Lower First-Quarter Revenue and Profit

Meg Whitman, the company’s new chief, said that she would succeed. “I’ve done this a number of times in my career,” Ms. Whitman said during a call with Wall Street analysts. “It’s what great business leaders do.”

I need to remember this quote when she's fired next year.

And then, later in the article,

We have to meet a desire for security and customer delight in enterprise sales.

Security and customer delight rarely go hand-in-hand. I'm hard-pressed thinking HP will discover the secret sauce.

(Via NYTimes)

How to Make Us Grow, How to Make Us Shrink

Use a horizontal scrollbar to move from the largest to the smallest known objects.

Newt Gingrich and the Future of the Right

Gingrich is the first conservative presidential candidate to campaign on a package of traditional values from which he is exempting issues relating to personal sexual behavior. And there are reasons why this strategy worked on Jan. 21: The moral vision of the religious right is collapsing everywhere, including within its own ranks.

(Via NY Times)

Cain Endorses Gingrich for President

Herman Cain, who ended his presidential bid in early December, endorsed Newt Gingrich on Saturday night, three days before the crucial Florida primary.

Stupid is as stupid does.

(Via New York Times)

Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth - Blue Marble 2012

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Fascinating.

(Via Flickr)

Coming Soon from 37signals: Basecamp Next

The Basecamp business is booming.

But too much good news is a formula for complacency. And honestly, we have grown a bit complacent.

That’s about to end.

We’ve gone back to the basics and made them better, faster, clearer, easier, and smarter.

In early 2012, 37signals will introduce Basecamp Next and change the way people collaborate all over again.

Ballsy. Looking forward to it.

(Via 37signals)

RIM’s Balsillie and Lazaridis Step Aside

The company named Thorsten Heins, currently one of RIM’s two chief operating officers, as chief executive. He pledged during an interview on Sunday to follow the strategy Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis set in place.

Their strategy was pretty rock-solid, so it's a relief that nothing will change.

(Via NYTimes)

Students' Math Scores Jumped 20% with iPad Textbooks

In its test run, the "HMH Fuse" application helped more than 78 percent of students score "Proficient" or "Advanced" on the spring 2011 California Standards Test. That was significantly higher than the 59 percent of peers who used traditional textbooks.

I don't believe throwing technology at school will solve every problem, but this is promising.

(Via AppleInsider)

The Rise and Fall of Personal Computing

Amazing data. The adoption rate of tablet devices (iOS as well as Android) is nothing short of phenomenal.

(Via Asymco)

Independent Bookstores vs. Amazon: Buying Books Online is Better for Authors, Better for the Economy, and Better for You

Compared with online retailers, bookstores present a frustrating consumer experience. A physical store—whether it’s your favorite indie or the humongous Barnes & Noble at the mall—offers a relatively paltry selection, no customer reviews, no reliable way to find what you’re looking for, and a dubious recommendations engine. Amazon suggests books based on others you’ve read; your local store recommends what the employees like. If you don’t choose your movies based on what the guy at the box office recommends, why would you choose your books that way?

(Via Slate)

Moonrise Kingdom

The new Wes Anderson film with Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton.

Be still my beating heart.

The Charlotte Observer Newspaper

Davis is recovering from a herniated dick.

Ouch.

(Via The Charlotte Observer)

Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking

Let me be as clear as I can be: the iOS multitasking bar does not contain "a list of all running apps". It contains "a list of recently used apps". The user never has to manage background tasks on iOS.

Insightful. Bookmark this.

(Via Fraser Speirs)

For Multitaskers, 2012 May Be a Year of Revenge

The overall unemployment rate is 8.6 percent, but break down the number by educational attainment and the picture looks different. Those with college degrees are the lucky ones: the jobless rate for them is 4.4 percent. That compares with 8.8 percent for those with only a high school diploma and 13.2 percent for those with no diploma at all.

Consider, too, that less than 30 percent of the United States population age 25 or older has a bachelor’s degree or higher. Large groups of Americans will continue to be unemployed or underemployed unless more training and educational opportunities become available.

Interesting article. I was specifically stuck by the information above. Perhaps it's just because I live in NYC (where everyone seems to have at least a bachelor's degree) but to see that less than 30 percent of the above 25-year old population has a college degree is jaw dropping.

It confirms my belief that the only way to rebuild our country is to rebuild the schools.

(Via NYTimes Technology)

Christy Wyatt on How Motorola Plans to Stand Out From the Android Pack

We’ve focused over the past year in four key areas. They’ve moved a little bit away from what I’d call aesthetics and focused more on user experience and performance.

I don't understand why she thinks "aesthetics" and "user experience and performance" are mutually exclusive.

We’re not a content company, per se. We don’t have a music store or a video store or a book store. We’ve really never gone down that path, because we believe the consumer has many viable paths for buying content already.

So she's admitting that a single seamless enduser ecosystem isn't important? How is this different from other Android makers again?

Smart actions are essentially your device is monitoring its own performance behavior. If it starts to notice there are things it could be doing better, it will make a gentle suggestion to the user. Something like, “I notice that your battery is running low, if you wanted to dim the screen and turn off a certain network setting then you will get better battery performance.” And, if you are open to it, “Would you like your phone to continue making those kind of suggestions?”

Great, so the phone is constantly interrupting me to fix it when I'm trying to actually use it.

This sounds fan-freakin'-tastic, Christy. Let me know how this works out for ya.

(Via AllThingsD)

Verizon Wireless Will Not Institute Single Payment Fee

“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

According to @kenwalker, it has everything to do with last night's posting. I think he's right.

That being said, I still don't trust these guys. They'll find some way to charge that additional $2, I guarantee it.

(Via VerizonWireless)

Apple's Jonathan Ive Gets Knighthood in Honours List

"He has a very determined sense of getting things right."

Congrats, Jony.

(Via BBC)

Been listening to El Barrio on Spotify. This is the best Funk, Soul, Disco, Boogaloo I've ever heard...

Interested in reading excerpts from Ron Paul's past publications?  Just check out the @RP_Newsletter Twitterfeed.

KU Blasts Howard, 89-34

Tyshawn Taylor and Conner Teahan scored 13 points apiece, leading the Kansas men's basketball team to an 89-34 victory over Howard on Thursday night at Allen Fieldhouse.

(Via KUSports)