Andrew Munn, former Amazon engineer:
Work on much of the Fire software began in May 2011. The device launched in November. Six months is not enough time to design, build, and iterate on an OS design. Six months is just enough time to build a technically functional version.
Scathing.
Richard Branson:
The paper, published by Cato in April 2011, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.
I’m not a drug user, but there’s no denying the sheer mass of money that’s wasted every year at the municipal, provincial (or state) and federal levels on this pointless exercise. Portugal is simply a better country with less of a drug problem, fewer incidences of HIV and less theft as a result of their drug policy efforts.
Last week, I linked to a Monocle article commenting on the slightly lacking experience of shopping online. Mihalis Vitoroulis offered his take on Twitter:
I can’t imagine Mr. Porter is doing all that well compared to net-a-porter. It isn’t because the site sucks (it’s great), it’s just that buying menswear online was cool for about a year. And then everyone realized buying a blazer without trying it on first is stupid. Browsing through the sale and seeing a dozen shirts/coats I would buy in store but wouldn’t waste my time buying online only to return later.
Vito’s Twitter feed is protected, but I received permission to re-post these. A really smart take on the deficiencies of online stores.