I didn’t understand Square when it first launched. Why would I want to use a credit card to sell a couch to my friend via my iPhone? Cash will do, or an IOU. And I don’t sell stuff to strangers enough to make it seem worthwhile.

Maybe they got the same feedback, because their new video makes more sense - it’s not a technology for the consumer, it’s for the small business sellers. I started to get it. 

And today at the local community markets I finally got it. The markets are full of micro businesses brewing artisan cider, hand crafting irresistible sweets, and growing organic veg. And you have to pay them all in cash, which is kind of ok, but I overhear a lot of “anyone know where an ATM is” and “I only have $10” comments.

If those vendors had an iPhone/Android with Square, all those problems go away. Plus they have an audit trail, the customer has a receipt, there’s less worry handling cash, etc.

They’re trying to muscle in on the small sellers who can’t afford the fees or complexity of the Big Credit Providers. Good luck to them - pity it’s another “US Only” invention.

Anyone want to buy a used couch?

Douglas Adams on the Internet, in 1999:

A couple of years or so ago I was a guest on Start The Week, and I was authoritatively informed by a very distinguished journalist that the whole Internet thing was just a silly fad like ham radio in the fifties, and that if I thought any different I was really a bit naïve. It is a very British trait - natural, perhaps, for a country which has lost an empire and found Mr Blobby - to be so suspicious of change.

But the change is real. I don’t think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn’t becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it’s very new to us. Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.

10+ years later his article is still spot on.

Beautifully done:

The library has no external dependencies, and all the glyphs, scores, beams, ties, etc. are positioned and rendered entirely in JavaScript

The Guardian:

Few other artists had taken the pop concert into quite such daring territory; its only serious precedent was David Bowie’s 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. There were 13 people on stage, 17 costume changes and 24 songs - primarily from her first two albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart - scattered over three distinctly theatrical acts. Her brother John declaimed poetry, Simon Drake performed illusions and magic tricks, and at the centre was a barefoot Bush, still only 20 years old.

Out today. Go buy it. Now.

Penny-Arcade

(back  story)

Daft Punk onomatopoeia

Marco Arment on his invaluable Instapaper app:

What Instapaper does, in both the website and the iPhone app, is a small, solid foundation under a massive collection of hacks and just-barely-working features to do things that you’re not supposed to be able to do. That’s why they need to be hacks.

Instapaper is so simple but so great, magically stripping out all guff on a web article to allow you to focus on the content, not the shouty ads. I’m surprised site developers haven’t come up with blocking strategies - Instapaper in combo with Reeder means I rarely read or even see content with the ad wrappers.

New album released June 14 - reserve your copy now!

In which the Internet eats itself.