My favorite bits from Dr. Novella:

Every link in the earthing chain of argument is therefore wrong. It is little more than free associating with sciencey terms (i.e., making shit up).

• conversational
• lyrical
• fairly concise

Generally, press events are good for communicating new services, products, or events for the various constituencies a business may accommodate. Recently, Spotify held a press event to announce (drumroll, please): a partnership with Coca-Cola.

Now, in fairness, the rest of the world may very well identify the United States with apple pie, baseball, and Coke. And to the international community, such a partnership with Coke might merit a press event. Well, maybe.

But not here.

Coke may be an internationally recognized brand, but there is nothing new happening in the world of Coca-Cola soda. No new flavor. No new packaging. No new news.

So to the folks at Spotify, I offer this: Welcome to America. Welcome to the new carousel.

It’s Apple’s devotion to Simplicity that forms an unbreakable connection with its customers and inspires customers to evangelize to colleagues, friends, and family.

Create a unique, wonderful experience and your customers market for you.

Recently, Ze Frank used Kickstarter to fund a new project, this time called A Show.

Great work.

“There are no plans for any big Government database. No one is going to be looking through ordinary people’s emails or Facebook posts.

“Only suspected terrorists, paedophiles or serious criminals will be investigated.”

More growing pains in an information age. Slippery slope policy making. Here’s the counterpoint from Ben Franklin:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Like Sony in the 80′s, Braun, the company with which Rams was closely affiliated, served as a template for the Apple, Inc. of today.

Clocking in at just over 78 minutes, this is far more interesting than most content you’ll find on the television, including American Idol and Dancing With The Stars.

The challenge erupts when Glass, in a retraction on TAL’s website, indicates Daisey lied to him concerning the “journalism” of the reporting. Daisy replies:

“I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard. My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it’s not journalism. It’s theater.”

So in his passion to be heard, he’s willing to discredit reputable journalism.

Now that is theater.

“Ultimately it comes down to common sense. When you’re abusing the legal system by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of exemplary punishment, or lobbying for laws that would break the Internet if they passed, that’s ipso facto evidence you’re using a definition of property that doesn’t work.”

True. Property has a different context in the unreal estate of the Web.

As of this writing, Yahoo! has committed to suing Facebook over copyright infringement. Mark Cuban, an American business magnate and investor, has an interesting take on the development.

From my vantage point, there is no single greater enemy to innovation and creativity¹ than the woefully antiquated laws surrounding copyright and intellectual property.

1. Or you can replace ‘innovation and creativity’ with ‘species’. Before you laugh, consider: we’re tool makers who are not making greater strides, making better tools, for fear of legal reprisal. So much for opposable thumbs when they choose to pen laws that handcuff our future. Okay, now laugh.

“A Saudi court is considering whether or not they should allow a genie (or jinn) to give testimony in open court. (Actually this story is about a year old, but it [sic] just making its way to English-speaking news outlets, but the outcome of the case has not.)

The case involves accusations of corruption and bribery – a judge is accused of taking a bribe to let off a defendant in his court. In his defense the judge claims that he was possessed by a genie summoned by the defendant, who is a sorcerer (that’s right – the ‘devil made me do it’ defense).”

Amazing this sort of thing exists these days.