Interesting Links for 16-8-2011

[matgb]

Collected links from around the web

• China plans massive international high speed rail network, could go from Singapore to London
  How cool would this be? That China also expects international travel to be more and more common is indicative of movement in certain other areas as well. Would be great if it can happen, suspect logistics are going to be a headache though.
  (tags: transport china railways)
• Apple's Profit Share Among Top Mobile Phone Vendors Rises to 66% - iPhone clearly overpriced?
  Look at that change in fortunes-Nokia once taking a massive slice of smartphone sales profits, now making a loss on them and Apple clearly way out ahead.
  (tags: apple mobile-phones)
• Spatial Economics: why central London is short of retail space - I love learning this stuff
  I love this sort of thing, using the opening of a new fashion store to understand more about the dynamics of an environment.
  (tags: economics london shopping)
• 30% of passengers take longer routes as London's Tube map misrepresents distances between stations
  Follow up from the link the other day about the redesigned map, one of the reasons why changing might be a good idea.
  (tags: london maps london-underground tube-map)
• Andi Osho's dating experiment continues | she's still single. This is wrong.
  Still no luck in Edinburgh for Andi. She needs to tour the country and come to West Yorks.
  (tags: Andi-Osho comedy relationships)
• Android sales through roof, RIM & Nokia holding steady(!), iOS OK, WinPhone7 plummets
  Actual sales figures as well as market share. Nokia's Symbian, despite the announcement that it's being canned, still outselling iPhone's and only a small drop in total sales. Android through roof, Windows plummetting, Blackberry up in sales, down in %age, to be expected. Hell, Samsung's new Bada outselling MS. App devs and companies advertising apps need to look at actual figures before going large on advertining their iPhone apps. Silly hype believing marketers.
  (tags: mobile+phones android nokia)
• Google, Motorola, and a Patent War - Patents, create a tax on innovation. it’s a tax that Google has just paid heavily.
  More analysis of the Motorola purchase, even if it's defensive purchasing, it still stinks that so many stupid software patents exist for competing ideas, utterly ridiculous setup that discredits the whole IP system.
  (tags: google patents motorola mobile+phones)
• Yowsers, Adenauer proposed swapping West Berlin for parts of GDR
  To stop the wall, Adenauer proposed a teritory swap. I think that goes nearer the top of my list of counterfactuals that're worth thinking about.
  (tags: Germany Berlin history)
• Gorgeous planet art | Bad Astronomy on Duhrer's work, with some explanations
  Phil Plait goes into more detail on Fuhrer's images, worth a read
  (tags: astronomy planets solar-system)
• David Fuhrer's planets-gorgeous 3d rendering on the solar system, full size better
  Some absolutely stunning renderings of the planets, including some in scale to each other. Dodgy JS gallery makes seeing them in full size harder though, if you right click and 'view image' you should get the actual full size stuff, really worth it
  (tags: planets astronomy art solar-system)
• Google says "Hello Moto" in blatent patent trolling aquisition
  Ye gods, the patent wars continue.
  (tags: android google motorola mobile+phones)

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Comments

[birguslatro]

China's high-speed trains have come in for some criticism of late...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/07/chinas-high-speed-train-crash

Still, assuming they can up the safety level, Singapore to London via rail's a great idea. Anything to cut down on air-traffic.

[dewline]

Once mainland China and Russia (assuming the latter provides land for the route) both become multi-party, small-l liberal democracies, that will be a Good Thing.

Right now, though?

[birguslatro]

Hee. I'm very surprised to get a response to a comment I made a decade ago! Mat's resurfacing here is the cause, I presume? (A welcome one, mind you.)

'Right now, though?' Yeah. Not likely to happen now. Both the Chinese and Russian governments suck now in their own particular ways. China's decided to become more authoritarian and Russia's gone full-on mafia, and neither is likely to turn properly democratic any time soon. Though there could be a revolution in Russia that'd produce it...

[dewline]

Yeah, my timing in coming across and posting replies to things gets weird some days.