Archive: December 16, 2014

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Tuesday,  12/16/14  10:52 PM

I'm pretty conflicted about the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report about the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques".  On the one hand, these people were animals, and many lives might have been saved.  On the other hand, any torture for any purpose seems reprehensible.  I guess if these prisoners were truly guilty and these techniques truly elicited information which could have prevented terrorist attacks, then I'm okay with it.  Big ifs, though.

I agree with Glenn Reynolds, who is unenthused that Jeb Bush is running for President.  I think he was a decent governor but I wish he wasn't named Bush.  I have the same issue with Hillary Clinton, minus the "decent governor" part. 

From McKinsey: Busting mobile shopping myths.  I pretty much disagree with all of this.  The premise is that mobile shoppers already know what they want from a mobile shopping experience.  But that experience keeps changing.  For example many mobile shoppers don't know that visual search could be part of their shopping experience.  If they knew, they would want it, but they don't.  Retailers and tech companies have to work together to devise the perfect solution. 

Six drivers of the $700B mobile internet.  Yeah that's a B.  Giving people what they already want is not on the list. 

And in China, Alibaba's Alipay now sees over half of its transactions from mobile devices.  A trend that is not likely to diminish. 

From Gerard Vanderleun: Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit.  "One pill makes you smaller, and one pill makes you tall, and the ones your Mother gives you, don't do anything at all...Excellent

Mindblower of the day week month from Paul Graham: How you know.  "Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why."

 

 
 

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