• An acquisition is always a failure
  > An acquisition, or an aqui-hire, is always a failure. Either the founders failed to achieve their goal, or – far likelier – they failed to dream big enough. The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders.
• Building the Great Libraries of the Internet with a DNS time machine by Ben Ward
  Ben proposes an alternative to archive.org: changing the fundamental nature of DNS. Regarding the boo-hooing of how hard companies have it maintaining unprofitable URLs, I think Ben hasn't considered the possibility of a handover to a cooperative of users—something that might yet happen with MySpace (at least there's a campaign to that effect; it will probably come to naught). As Ben rightly points on, domain names are leased, not bought, so the idea of handing them over to better caretakers isn't that crazy.
• Own your turf - Austin Kleon
  Prescient.
• The irregular musings of Lou Montulli: The reasoning behind Web Cookies
  A fascinating look at the history of cookies ...from the inventor of cookies.
• Laurent Eschenauer: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
  The litany of open standards that Google has been abandoning: RSS, XMPP, WebDav...
• government-service-design-manual/service-manual/making-software/progressive-enhancement.md at master · alphagov/government-service-design-manual · GitHub
  A nice description of progressive enhancement by Norm, as applied at Government Digital Services.
• Using icon fonts
  A handy walkthrough of using icon fonts. The examples here use the excellent IcoMoon service
• Is Android good yet?
  Joking aside, this is a useful resource for keeping track of the current spread of Android versions.
• Onword
  This is nice lightweight writing tool, kinda like Editorially without the collaboration. Just right for working on a blog posts. It authenticates with Twitter and *doesn't* ask for write permissions. Bravo!
• The $12 Gongkai Phone
  A fascinating analysis of a super-cheap phone from another world. > Welcome to the Galapagos of Chinese “open” source. I call it “gongkai” (公开). Gongkai is the transliteration of “open” as applied to “open source”. I feel it deserves a term of its own, as the phenomenon has grown beyond the so-called “shanzhai” (山寨) and is becoming a self-sustaining innovation ecosystem of its own. > Just as the Galapagos Islands is a unique biological ecosystem evolved in the absence of continental species, gongkai is a unique innovation ecosystem evolved with little western influence, thanks to political, language, and cultural isolation.

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