Videos

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“I think that’s a contemptible statement and I think everyone who applauded it should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”

Christopher Hitchens, on the show Question Time, reacting to a liberal British MP who thought it unwise to give Salmon Rushdie a knighthood for fear of offending Muslims.

This clip is a great example of why I enjoyed Christopher Hitchens’s speaking and writing so much. After this tortured reasoning from the MP, Hitchens slices through all the mushy nonsense and gets to the heart of the matter, namely that it’s completely antithetical to the values of a free and secular society to allow itself to be intimidated by religious bullies. That ability to cut through all the noise and focus on what’s important is rare.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
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Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision

This is a neat video, I guess. It reminds me of one thing I don’t like about Microsoft, though, and that is how consistently aspirational they are. From their “to the cloud” commercials to Bill Gates talking about speech and vision at the D5 conference, they talk about all this stuff, but they don’t provide any innovation in terms of helping us get there today.

Steve Jobs would never indulge in blue-sky speculation about what the future holds. Part of the reason Apple commercials are great is because they tell you what you can do with the product right now. Go buy an iPhone, and you can video chat today; you can use voice commands today. Go buy a Windows 7 PC, and give me a call when you’re able to stream recorded TV content from your home to your laptop at the airport.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)