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You are being watched.

I just want to know how they got Van Damme into space.

Film School Rejects:

The “In Memoriam” segment (of the Oscar telecast) is always a must-watch portion of the show, even if its biggest draw isn’t always a desire to honor the deceased talents of Hollywood, it’s to see who leads off and ends the piece, who was left off, and who you totally forgot passed away this year.

But how does one actually land on the list? Not surprisingly, it involves a paper trail, voting, and plenty of hurt feelings.

As expected, the first requirement is “Be dead”.

code:deck:

code:deck is a standard playing card deck sporting a stylish modern design. Each individual card features a code excerpt describing it in one of many programming languages.

Ever heard someone described as a “card carrying geek”? Well now, you can be a card playing geek.

For my part, I have no clue how the code relates to the card it is on.

The Atlantic:

The time that ends up on your smartphone—and that synchronizes GPS, military operations, financial transactions, and internet communications—originates in a set of atomic clocks on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist for USNO’s Time Services, gives a video tour.

A little dry (and oddly shot/edited) but still an interesting overview of “the nation’s time keeping”.

Wired.com:

We need to consider the consequences of this latest batch of apps and tools that remind us to contact significant others, boost our willpower, provide us with moral guidance, and encourage us to be civil. Taken together, we’re observing the emergence of tech that doesn’t just augment our intellect and lives — but is now beginning to automate and outsource our humanity.

Leaving aside the juvenile frat boy “bro” word, the app they talk about (which I’m really hoping is a parody app) is offensive because being in an adult relationship means committing to it – not outsourcing it to some app.

Nikon Rumors:

Nikon published a new technical service advisory where they announced a free cleaning and free shutter replacement for all D600 owners, even those with expired warranty. You can send your camera even if you do not have a problem.

If you have an affected D600, go to the Nikon site and schedule your free service. If your D600 isn’t exhibiting any of the (sadly common) dust/oil issues (mine isn’t), hold off on scheduling the service until the first mad rush is over but make sure you definitely do it some time in the next three to six months.

There’s a bit of backstory here but all you really need to know is, when boys have unlimited funds, we will pull awesome pranks on our buddies. The best line in the video is when the friend says, “Travis was pretty rough on Jeff and Travis and I are friends so I was excited to help Jeff respond.” Ladies – that’s how men think. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the link.

Google’s Android head Sundar Pichai:

“We cannot guarantee that Android is designed to be safe… If I had a company dedicated to malware, I would also be addressing my attacks on Android.”

Those are the first true words to come out of Google in a long time.

Forbes has become the place to write if you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Such is the case with one of their latest articles, but Zach Epstein at BGR does a good job pointing out the mistakes and reality of the iPhone business.

This is the seventh year in a row.

The developers behind Castro shared some numbers after figuring out a great way to ask for App Store reviews.

Go and sign-up.

Arizona Governor Governor Jan Brewer on Wednesday vetoed a controversial bill that would have, in effect, legalized wide-ranging discrimination of homosexuals as an extension of religious freedom. Apple, along with a number of other major U.S. corporations, banded together to have the bill shot down.

Good.

Quartz:

At its height, almost three-quarters of American households bought and kept orange juice in their refrigerator. But shifting American eating habits—which stigmatize sugar and leave little time for breakfast—and surging juice prices have done significant damage to American demand.

As a kid, we never had orange juice for breakfast (too expensive) and the only time I ever drink it now is if I go to a diner for breakfast and then I crave it. When’s the last time you had a glass of OJ? For our non-North America readers – was/is orange juice ever a staple of your breakfast?

Fast Company:

Twenty years of wild parties, legendary product launches, and heated controversies: how an unlikely mix of “nerds, rock-and-roll hippie freaks, and business suits” grew into the tech world’s most-talked-about annual gathering.

It’s interesting to read where SXSW came from. Keep an eye on the buzz that surrounds various apps, startups, services and technologies that invariably rise out of the show each March.

Vice Australia:

A coal mine is currently burning the hell up in Australia. For obvious reasons fires in coal mines are especially problematic—the exposed coal face burns, just like coal should, and smoulders through the underground seam where it’s safely protected from any firefighting. if you find yourself in Australia, avoid Morwell. It’s just not a healthy town.

Brings to mind the (still – since 1962) burning coal mine in the now mostly abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Many magazines are going digital only, but “The Great Discontent” wants to take it’s magazine to print.

Clearly, this is not good for Avid.

Ben Bajarin:

Carriers own a cell tower that they upgrade to provide faster service and broader access. That’s about it. They used to have much more differentiation than they do today. Some had proprietary devices or solutions. Some were known for better quality or were the only ones available. Those days are long past in most cases. Pricing is a particularly strategy that T-Mobile and Sprint are trying to compete with, but they have simply embraced their “dumb pipe-ness” sooner than other carriers.

He’s right.

BlackBerry, once a must-have device for every business executive and government official because of its pioneering secure email service, has hemorrhaged market share to Apple Inc’s iPhone and rival devices running on Google Inc’s Android software.

Clearly BlackBerry doesn’t see competing with Apple will work, so it’s going after the low-end of the market to boost its sales.

SMS startup Nexmo is finally launching its voice service at Mobile World Congress. The new set of application programming interfaces basically allows any app developer to embed calling features into his apps and set up voice services in the cloud.

Watch this space.

Such a great rock band.

In short, Apple’s focus is the product and what’s best for the consumer. This is a great article with lots of insight from Steve Jobs.

And what you can see is that on the 16GB model of the Galaxy S5, half of the on-board storage is used up before the owner even turns on the phone.

That’s just awful.

As it turns out, this isn’t a native Windows Phone app — and it wasn’t made by Redfin. It was developed by Microsoft, by packaging up Redfin’s mobile website in the form of an installable app.

In fact, the existence of the Redfin app for Windows Phone was a surprise to Redfin.

So, Microsoft has gone from irrelevant to slimy and irrelevant.

The Verge:

Gravity is a major contender at the Academy Awards this year, carrying a muscular 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, for a sci-fi epic that really raised the bar. While it has stiff competition from the likes of American Hustle in terms of acting and direction, the award for Best Visual Effects (which doesn’t typically hold the same cachet) ought to be a lock.

I don’t think it’s a great movie (even though I enjoyed it immensely), I left the theatre wanting to buy the DVD just to see how the visual effects were accomplished.

Congrats to everyone at Mariner Software—24 years deserves recognition.

As Om Malik points out, Bitcoin wasn’t the first.

So Bad So Good:

One the final night of the Chinese New Year, the locals of Yanshui District in Tainan City, Taiwan put on a firework display that likes of which you’ve never seen before.

Several thousand bottle rockets are stacked together in a beehive formation and then simultaneously ignited all at once.

Everyone likes fireworks and bottle rockets but these folks are nuts.