Sarah Goodyear, writing for The Atlantic Cities, contrasts cycling in the Netherlands with the adversarial environment of the U.S.:

Bicycling is such an integral part of life in the Netherlands, you might think that Dutch people are born knowing how to cycle.

They aren’t, of course. What’s kind of wonderful is the way that they learn.

The agency that funds my Ph.D. is based in Den Haag and I have been fortunate to visit the Netherlands several times. The cycling environment is every bit as delightful as Goodyear describes. Cyclists are treated to large and distinct bike lanes and traffic that doesn’t despise them. I wish the U.S. would follow suit.

Yesterday, famed children’s author, Maurice Sendak passed away. Perhaps best known for Where The Wild Things Are, Sendak appeared in January on The Colbert Report. Do yourself a favor and check out the videos (Part 1, Part 2).

I will leave you with an apt quote from the interview in which Sendak addresses e-books:

Fuck them is what I say, I hate those e-books. They can not be the future… they may well be… I will be dead, I won’t give a shit!

Have you ever wondered exactly how much water is on Earth? It turns out the water could form a sphere with a diameter of 860 miles and volume of 332,500,000 cubic miles. Check out the linked graphic from the USGS for a visual representation of how big that sphere would be relative to Earth.

David Sirota, writing for Salon.com, examines the beer market and uses the battle between macrobrews and microbrews as a proxy for the shifting price/value mentality of U.S. consumers:

Nowhere, though, is the battle between the low-price/quantity business model and the higher-price/quality business model more clear than in the world of beer. In the fevered battle between the macrobrew behemoths and the craftbrew insurgents, both sides are digging in for an epic confrontation.

There is no doubt that I fall into the craftbrew camp. After first visiting Germany in 2008 and making friends with East Coasters who have excellent taste in beer, I may now be considered a beer snob. Much in the same way that many view me as a technology snob given my affinity for Apple products.

To me, though, being a snob in this context just means that I have shifted my attitude toward the price versus quality proposition. I do not mind paying a higher price if the quality of the purchase is superior. Why should I settle for tasteless Budweiser when I can pay more for a DNR by Coop Ale Works - a beer with excellent taste and higher alcohol content? Similarly, I’d easily pay more for a Fat Tire from New Belgium Brewing over a Natural Light.

Just like with beer, I have shifted my attitude when considering value in general. No longer am I driven by the cheapest price possible. I want to pay people for great products that last. I don’t mind paying more¹ for an entry-level Mac than an entry-level PC because the experience - both in terms of usability and customer service - is worth the small premium. I don’t mind paying Dropbox more for extra storage space despite cheaper alternatives because I find the total experience worth the price. I don’t mind paying Pinboard for a service that I could get free elsewhere because I find it more reliable and know that I am the actual customer instead of advertisers.

I certainly understand personal economies and that there are practical limitations to affording quality. For instance, I do not drive a BMW because of limited expendable income. But like anything else, it is a game of balancing tradeoffs. I prefer to pay in a way that maximizes the value of my dollar instead of simply reducing the number of dollars spent per item. In fact, the price per quality metric often means we pay more in the long term for less expensive items. As an example, you will have to drink far more Bud Lights than DNRs if getting drunk is your endgame.

Does Sirota effectually tie the beer market to a shifting consumer mentality in the U.S. economy? I’m not convinced. With that said, I am certainly rooting for a craftbrew nation - a country where we stop selling our souls for free and cheap products and instead opt to maximize value and happiness while remaining within our means.

Bookshelf Porn, a personal project from Anthony Dever:

Porn for book lovers. A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.

This is where I find myself in a transitional generation. I appreciate the ease and space-saving simplicity of e-books, but still love the look and feel of physical books.

Liat Kornowski, The Atlantic, on how accessibility on the iPhone has impacted the blind community:

At first many blind people thought that the iPhone would never be accessible to them, with its flat glass screen. But the opposite has proved true.

Amazon never releases sales information regarding the Kindle family of e-readers. Undeterred, Paulo Santos, writing for Seeking Alpha, does the math to show that Kindle sales are tanking:

One of the most lauded things about Amazon.com’s (AMZN) latest quarter was how the gross margin rose to 23.95% of revenues, from 22.82% in the same quarter the year before. This made for 114 basis points (1.14%) of improvement, which on revenues of $13.2 billion meant an improvement of $150 million that flowed to the operating profit, helping it come in above expectations. I will show how this happened precisely because of a very negative development.

As a commenter suggests, Amazon stock was rewarded for increased Kindle sales last year - which hurt margins, and is now being rewarded for improved margins - only possible due to decreased sales of Kindle. Santos notes that any other company’s stock would be hammered for this news - a point I brought up earlier this year:

What is really perplexing is that Amazon’s stock is still much more expensive than Apple’s. The P/E ratio for Amazon (102.5) is far greater than Apple’s (12.9). It is beyond my understanding why a financial juggernaut like Apple is priced an order of magnitude cheaper than a company that can barely muster 1% profit.

I’ve been a long-time Kindle customer, but a business whose bottom line only improves with tanking sales doesn’t instill much confidence in the platform.

Matt Gemmell offers a list of his favorite productivity apps for iPad:

The oft-repeated fallacy that the iPad isn’t a tool for productivity and creation has no credibility whatsoever. Anyone trotting out that old chestnut is either labouring under some astonishingly wrong-headed preconceptions, or is making excuses for their own failings.

Gemmell’s choices match mine with one exception - I prefer iA Writer over Elements.

Following the news of Junior Seau’s suicide, here is a relevant article from Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier, writing for Grantland:

The NFL is done for the year, but it is not pure fantasy to suggest that it may be done for good in the not-too-distant future. How might such a doomsday scenario play out and what would be the economic and social consequences?

(via: Daring Fireball)

Christopher Breen, writing for TechHive, offers an exhaustive look at music subscription services:

Cough up $5 or $10 a month and you can listen to any of millions of tracks in a wide variety of genres, whenever and (within reason) wherever you want. I took a look at the major subscription services—Mog, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, and Spotify—to see how they shake out and which might be the best fit for you.

I generally buy music through iTunes, but I’ve used Spotify and Rdio to sample music. They both seemed like nice services.