From Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory, on This American Life:

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

Incredible storytelling. You must listen to this. [Direct MP3 link.]

I’ve always been fascinated by airplane crashes. Unlike car accidents, which are often blamed on driver (and thus human) error, airplane crashes are universally considered engineering failures, so the investigations are comprehensive stories about mechanical engineering, user interfaces, design, and psychology. In the two years since Air France 447 crashed in the middle of the Atlantic, I have been eagerly awaiting the official reports from the crash investigation. After finding the flight data recorder recently, the reports were finally completed and the true story began to emerge. From Popular Science’s fascinating article on the crash:

We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they...

In Reuters:

Research In Motion posted a 27 percent drop in quarterly profit on Thursday and said it would ship between 11 million and 12 million BlackBerry smartphones in the weeks around Christmas, the first decline in years for that historically strong period.

Last year, RIM sold 14.1 million BlackBerries in Q4. This year, they expect to sell just 11-12 million. Year ago net income (profit) from Q3 (the quarter that just ended) was $911mm. This year? $667mm.

It’s the beginning of the end.

See: RIM’s Q3 2012 results (PDF).

Path’s CEO Dave Morin answers this question on Quora:

We are now in the Post-PC, Mobile era. In the PC era we would often ask: are you online or offline? In the Mobile era this is no longer the case. You are simple sleeping or awake. […] Third, users tell us that they love getting our notifications during the day, but at night they would prefer if the notifications were not streaming in. Sleep also provides utility by turning off notifications while you are asleep. – Dave Morin, CEO Path

Interesting.

From Brand New:

The defining signature of the system is the 13° angle. 13° represents HP’s spirit as a company, driven forward by ingenuity and optimism about the future and a belief in human progress. It also refers to the world of computing by recalling the forward slash used in programming. 13° exists within the brand identity, in the graphic language, product design and UI.
— Moving Brands

In 2021, I don’t think HP will be recognized by a single, 13° line. I think it will be dead. Until then, though, this new logo looks great.

Lorraine Luk at Dow Jones:

For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Acer posted a net loss of NT$1.1 billion as it adjusted European inventories in the face of weak demand. Acer shares are down 62% so far this year, compared with the benchmark index’s 22% decline. “The legacy of previous management reshuffle and operational restructuring is almost over. We will shift our strategy to improving profitability from pursuing market share blindly with cheap and unprofitable products,” Wang said.

Acer’s brand has been so tarnished by their “cheap and unprofitable products” that I don’t know how easy it will be to recover, even with a new executive team and a new internal philosophy. The company took Intel’s financial incentive bait to build “ultrabooks”– which are really just MacBook Airs that run Windows–and that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the company’s ability to think...

From Lucy Evans at Darwin’s Students:

In the world today, the majority of adults are lactose intolerant. In certain populations, however, the exact opposite is true. In this essay I will consider the evolutionary explanation for this. […] In conclusion, the evolution of lactose tolerance is a very good example of natural selection that has occurred in certain populations in different parts of the world in relatively recent times. Lactose tolerance is caused by an inherited mutation that causes lactase production to continue throughout adulthood.

I had always thought that lactose intolerance was a regression that evolved over thousands of years, but in fact lactose tolerance is an evolved progression and a clear example of evolutionary concepts in modern times. Fascinating.

I want to learn to cook. In my pursuit of the best of everything (see here), I have finally found the best cookbook money can buy: Modernist Cuisine. Not sure how I will be able to source liquid nitrogen, but I want to make this burger.

In other insane startup financing news, Fab.com just announced that it has raised a $40 million Series B lead by Andreessen Horowitz. The announcement blog post from Fab.com’s CEO Jason Goldberg was, strangely, posted on his personal blog (and read more like a political election success speech than a financing announcement):

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that […] after we re-launched Fab.com on June 9, 2011 as a design-lovers paradise, Fab.com has raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital, Baroda Ventures, SoftTech VC, and Ashton Kutcher - Guy Oseary and A-Grade Investments. This financing round came together because of our members, our team, and our investors.

Fab is an awesome design-centric store, and while it seems similar to Gilt Groupe, its brand and target audience is different. Unlike Gilt, which brands itself as a store to buy...