A blog about life amidst technology.

Lionel Messi Never Dives

A great guest post by Nate Spears on Shawn​blanc​.net giv­ing an overview of the bat­tle for the great­est player in soc­cer going on right now:

But a lot of that would be a bit, er, inside foot­ball to the unini­ti­ated. So I’ve decided to focus on some­thing that’s hap­pen­ing on a more indi­vid­ual level. Right now two men play­ing in the Span­ish League (La Liga) are play­ing to a sus­tained level of indi­vid­ual bril­liance and one-​​up-​​manship that is unpar­al­leled in the his­tory of foot­ball, per­haps in the his­tory of sport.

The drama and inten­sity of foot­ball 1 is more inter­est­ing to me than what we see focused on in hockey and other sports here in Canada. It’s just the time zone dif­fer­ences that make it dif­fi­cult to keep tabs on what’s hap­pen­ing — I need a foot­ball friend to remind me of impor­tant games com­ing up.


  1. It’s called foot­ball every­where else in the world so that’s what I’m call­ing it. On the off chance I men­tion North Amer­i­can foot­ball I’ll make sure to point it out so you can know what I’m talk­ing about. 

The Story of Facebook Buying Instagram

Sys­trom down­plays the idea that this courtship was in any way remark­able. “I think every­one thinks that the acqui­si­tion was made in a dark room with Trent Reznor music play­ing. Do you know what I mean? Like there was some dra­matic thing,” he says, ref­er­enc­ing a scene from The Social Net­work. “And it turns out that some of the biggest deci­sions get made rel­a­tively quickly, with­out much fanfare.”

Kara Swisher at Van­ity Fair.

India Within Skate Video

Screen Shot 2013-04-26 at 11.33.53 AM

I remem­ber pulling off some of these moves back in the day…1

Direct link to video

Via One37​.net


  1. …where back in the day refers to the time I spent play­ing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on Playsta­tion. 

China Pays Users to Bash Apple

WeiboScreenshot-by-jonrussell_flickr

Yes­ter­day, CCTV, China’ state-​​run tele­vi­sion net­work, ran an expose on Apple, gen­er­at­ing to an out­cry against the com­pany on Weibo, a Chi­nese social media plat­form. News quickly broke, how­ever, that CCTV had paid celebri­ties to post anti-​​Apple remarks. A slip up on the part of Peter Ho, a Taiwanese-​​American movie star and spokesper­son for Sam­sung Galaxy, pro­vided a glimpse behind the scenes.

Crazy. Read the arti­cle on tealeaf​na​tion​.com.

Via Dar​ing​fire​ball​.net

Bono’s TEDtalk on Poverty

TEDtalk by Bono

Titled “The good news on poverty (Yes, there’s good news)”:

Direct link to video


Replete with rock puns and good news on the data about extreme poverty around the world.

Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building

Michael Jordon at 50

I value that,” he says. “I like rem­i­nisc­ing. I do it more now watch­ing bas­ket­ball than any­thing. Man, I wish I was play­ing right now. I would give up every­thing now to go back and play the game of basketball.”

ESPN pro­files Michael Jor­dan as he turns 50. Doesn’t sound like he’s a great dad, friend or boss — but at least he’s got money, right?

In case any­one in the inner cir­cle for­gets who’s in charge, they only have to recall the code names given to them by the pri­vate secu­rity team assigned to over­seas trips. Estee is Venom. George is But­ler. Yvette is Har­mony. Jor­dan is called Yah­weh — a Hebrew word for God.

And he’s obsessed with get­ting back to his play­ing weight:

He never says it, but it seems as though he’s play­ing the game in his head, using his rage for its intended pur­pose. He still knows how to play. He could shut down LeBron, if his body wouldn’t betray him, if he could hold off time, if he could get to 218.

Glory days well they’ll pass you by.