Wirecutter:

Readers often want to know: Why don’t they ever seem to get our recommendation? In general, it’s a price vs. performance issue, and often they don’t measure up to their competition. But there are a lot of specific reasons, too. So, to better address the frequently asked questions of Beats by Dre, we thought we’d talk you through each model, what you might be looking for when you first consider it, and then why we’d put our hard-earned cash somewhere else.

Some great advice here about the various alternatives if you don’t want to buy Beats.

My favorite part of this story is a callout from an interview the Wall Street Journal did a week or two ago:

WSJ: So you wouldn’t move the Clippers to Seattle?

Ballmer: If I get interested in the Clippers, it would be for Los Angeles. I don’t work anymore, so I have more geographic flexibility than I did a year, year-and-a half ago. Moving them anywhere else would be value destructive.

Like a nagging, loose tooth, I can’t seem to stop paying attention to Steve Ballmer.

What’s your verse? How do you use Apple devices to improve your life, tell your story?

In the latest update to this campaign, Apple adds two pages to their “your verse” site, one focused on classical composer Esa-Pekka Salonen and the second on traveling writer Chérie King.

Fascinating stories, beautifully told. [Via 9to5mac]

Forbes:

Corporate M&A decisions are increasingly being driven by offshore tax policy. It’s hard to argue the business logic of using offshore income to acquire foreign companies versus bringing the money back into the U.S. for a domestic acquisition.

Following the rough tax math of a foreign acquisition, Apple’s $3.2 billion bid would really be more like $2 billion if the transaction could take place in Ireland. Considering the fact that Apple currently has approximately $54 billion in cash parked offshore, the benefits of doing a foreign acquisition over repatriating that cash back into the U.S. become even more apparent.

Interesting conjecture.

I find these hotels breathtaking. Most are embedded in some form of nature. There’s Switzerland’s Äscher Cliff hotel embedded in the side of a mountain, or the Hotel Kakslauttanen built under the ice in Finland.

Words don’t do these hotels justice. Fantastic pictures.

Have you ever visited any of these?

With that last post as a bit of a palate cleanser, consider this more of a main course.

And no, you don’t necessarily need to be a programmer to appreciate it. Delightful read.

This essay has been making its way around the net like wildfire the past few days. An interesting rant of the “we’re doomed” variety.

Here’s just one tiny bit:

Recently an anonymous hacker wrote a script that took over embedded Linux devices. These owned computers scanned the whole rest of the internet and created a survey that told us more than we’d ever known about the shape of the internet. The little hacked boxes reported their data back (a full 10 TBs) and quietly deactivated the hack. It was a sweet and useful example of someone who hacked the planet to shit. If that malware had actually been malicious, we would have been so fucked.

A good read for a Sunday.

At first blush, this might seem an unnecessary complication. In order to play Osmo games, you sit your iPad in a stand in portrait mode, then place a clip over the iPad camera that contains a small mirror. A tangram puzzle appears on the screen, and you slide blocks on the table in front of the iPad to complete the puzzle.

No big deal, right?

But there’s something more to this than simply reflecting puzzle pieces onto the screen. There’s a real interaction between the actions in the physical world and a model’s representation in the virtual world. Kinda, sorta, an augmented reality, but done very simply, cleanly, just perfect for a series of kids games.

The video below is a marketing piece, for sure, but it does a good job of getting the point across. I’m excited by the possibilities.

Bloomberg:

Apple, which on May 2 won $120 million of the $2.2 billion it sought, identified nine devices it wants barred in a May 23 filing with U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California.

Winning a ban may prove difficult for Apple because Koh, who also presided over the companies’ first U.S. trial in 2012, twice rejected the iPhone-maker’s request in that case, legal experts have said. This time around the jury also concluded that Apple infringed one of Samsung’s patents, though the Galaxy-maker hasn’t yet requested a ban of Apple products.

Apple’s bid “seems like a hard sell, given that it failed to achieve an injunction in the last trial with significant design patent infringement and similar feature patent infringement,” said Michael Risch, a law professor at Villanova University.

The chess match continues.

According to the industry on May 22, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics recently asked ingot and wafer makers to submit samples in an effort to adopt the sapphire cover glass. They reviewed it last year as well, but they were reluctant to use it because of high prices, but as global competitors recently announced plans to release new products with sapphire glass, they began to reconsider it in a hurry.

Sound familiar? It should.

Apple began to operate the sapphire glass manufacturing and processing plant in Arizona, US earlier than scheduled. It is known that Apple will apply the sapphire glass to the 10 million new products scheduled to be released in the second half.

Interesting to watch the costs rise as more manufacturers move to what is, essentially, a limited availability commodity.

Brett Howse from AnandTech takes you on an enlightening tour of the backup process/options. Reading this is like reading one of the camera reviews on DPReview.com. A lot of detail, can’t help but learn as you read.

Ever wanted to book your favorite band for a party and wondered what it would cost? Follow the link and wonder no more.

[Via Variety]

Wired:

On Sunday, Formula One fans will plunk themselves in front of their TVs to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. If you’re not planning on doing the same, you should be.

The Monaco Grand Prix is the greatest race in all of motorsport. It has everything: yachts, champagne, supermodels, royalty, parties, not to mention one of the world’s most historic racetracks that’s built to generate exciting moments.

Here’s why you should be watching when the green flag drops on Sunday at 7:30 AM EST.

I will respectfully disagree with my friend, Jordan Golson of Wired, when he says Monaco is the “greatest” race but it is fun to watch – especially as a companion race to Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.

Vox:

If you live in the United States or Canada and stay up late enough tonight, you might see something pretty cool: a brand-new, relatively big meteor shower.

Starting at around 2 a.m. EDT, the Earth will pass through a stream of rocks and dust emitted by a recently-discovered comet. This debris won’t pose any danger — because it will burn up as it enters our atmosphere — but it’s projected to produce somewhere between 100 and 400 meteors per hour.

For those of you lucky enough to be in an area where you can see this, I’d encourage you to grab a blanket, get outside to some place dark and enjoy the show.

Nik Fletcher:

The 10 hours in a metal tube between London and San Francisco provide for some great thinking space. The flights to and from WWDC last year as every year offered plenty of time to take stock of where things are, what could be, and on the way back what it all means. With all the focus on iOS 7’s new aesthetic, understandably the “iOS 7-only” mantra was top of everyone’s minds. But as I sat in sessions eagerly watching talks about all the new technologies on iOS, something bigger struck me. Something that’s taken almost a full year to fully analyse.

A long but interesting read from the point of view of a guy who really knows what he’s talking about.

A very extensive list from The Wirecutter.

My thanks to Mighty Deals for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. If you’re looking for a little logo inspiration, this Mighty Deal has your name on it! The ultimate Logo Mockup & Design Kit includes 70 retro logo templates, as well as 50+ photo-realistic logo mockups. These high-quality vector files, from Cruizine Design, are fully customizable and a snap to use. In no time at all, you can change up the color, size, shape or details and have yourself a professional logo, banner, sign or promotional piece for your latest project! And speaking of promotions, act now and you can save more than 75% off the regular price!

One of the best things I’ve ever done is move all of my writing to Markdown. If you don’t know it yet, learn. It’s quite easy to grasp.

I hate people that keep inviting me to play games on Facebook. STOP IT! This may be the best article on the Internet.

Amazon, under fire in much of the literary community for energetically discouraging customers from buying books from the publisher Hachette, has abruptly escalated the battle.

The retailer began refusing orders late Thursday for coming Hachette books, including J.K. Rowling’s new novel. The paperback edition of Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” — a book Amazon disliked so much it denounced it — is suddenly listed as “unavailable.”

You can see the photo captions by hovering.

[Via Michael Mulvey]

At least half of the designers knew HTML and CSS well but wanted a more visual way to get at it. Well, a new generation of visual responsive design tools has arrived. These responsive design tools are for anyone who understands HTML and CSS (or is willing to learn) and wants to visually design a responsive website — and have code to show for it.

It’s always good to at least know what’s on the horizon.

Microsoft explains what happened when they received a National Security letter from the FBI. Fascinating read.

[Via TechCrunch]

Newegg is notorious for standing their ground when it comes to patent trolls. Follow the link to read about their latest confrontation. Standing up to a patent troll is a risky move, since you have to lay out attorney fees and might not get them back and, even worse, you might lose in court. Most people settle rather than take that risk.

But if you have the resources to stand up to a troll, win, and force them to pay your attorney fees, that’s behavior-changing.

Privacy concerns (AKA, Facebook sticking their nose in all my business) is one of several reasons I walked away from the platform more than a year ago.

Facebook is worried that you will start sharing less – or maybe even move to more anonymous services – unless it helps you better manage your private information. On Thursday, the company announced that it would give a privacy checkup to every one of its 1.28 billion users worldwide.

Facebook, which is based in Menlo Park, California, will also change how it treats new users by initially setting their posts to be seen only by friends. Previously, those posts were accessible to anyone.

To me, this is a small step in the right direction. I think Facebook should also make it clear when it has access to any information on your device. For example, in my browser, if I close my Facebook window, does that terminate Facebook’s access? I believe it does not. If I log out first, does that do it? I find the lack of clarity in this regard troubling.

The change in default settings and the person-by-person review is a sharp reversal for Facebook, whose privacy settings are famously complicated. Some users may be shocked when they see just how widely their personal information has been shared.

For most of its 10-year history, Facebook has pushed and sometimes forced its users to share more information more publicly, drawing fire from customers, regulators and privacy advocates across the globe.

Is Facebook truly taking privacy more seriously?

This, on top of the 34,000 job cuts already announced. A great legacy in trouble.

The garage in which HP first started is considered to be the birthplace of Silicon Valley. If you ever find yourself in Palo Alto, make your way to 367 Addison Ave and take a look.

Who fucking knew there was such a thing.

Wired:

Airports are known for rules and regulations, a reputation that applies to the runways as well. Almost all airport designs are governed by regulations established by the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure pilots circling Toledo or Timbuktu remain properly oriented and deliver passengers and cargo safely.

Lauren O’Neil turns those strictures into art, with the help of Google Earth. The Brooklyn-based designer has made a meticulous study of airport runways and logged the results on a Tumblr called Holding Pattern. These views reveal beautiful compositions at airports that are nothing special at ground level.

You often see these signs and markings on and at airports. Interesting to read what they signify.