Now that Planetary Resources has unveiled its plans to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new deposits of platinum and water, and to strip-mine them and shuttle them back to secure facilities back on our home planet, I think it’s time to take ask the question we’ve all been wondering:

Just what do Earth’s billionaires think they’re doing?

It’s no longer enough, if you’ve made a fortune in electronics or videogames, to buy yourself a $30 million ticket to ride on the Space Station, as Lord British and Anousheh Ansari have done. Now you’ve got to create your own space-exploration company.

Crazy, yes. But going into space has all the earmarks of a perfect second career for the modern billionaire. It’s amazingly cool and is guaranteed to provoke vast amounts of envy in the hearts of the other billionaires you run into at TED, Davos, and the Bohemian Grove. It’s the sort of hugely ambitious project that is worthy of a man (or woman) with an enormous ego. It costs a whole lot of money, so the barrier to entry is high (that keeps out the riffraff). And done right, it could be massively profitable, maybe even enough to create the world’s first trillionaire. So really, the wonder isn’t that billionaires are doing this, the wonder is that it’s taken them so long.

…

Full story: Dylan’s Desk: A spaceship is the perfect gift for the billionaire who has everything | VentureBeat.

For example, the PC revolution began with a bunch of smart nerds (and a few college dropouts) hanging out at the Homebrew Computer Club, showing off things they’d hacked together in their spare time.

Now the really smart people are probably building 3D printers from Makerbot kits, or else creating their own high-powered lasers or animatronic, flame-breathing dragons. Sure, these devices aren’t practical mass-market devices. But then, the Apple I computer that Steve Wozniak put together with a wooden case he built by hand in his shop wasn’t a mass-market device either, and look how far that idea got.

… About a hundred people gathered to hear a handful of experts talk about craftsmanship, apprenticeships, mass customization, and the art of making delightful products that “romance” the customer. The audience was heavily weighted towards designers, to judge from their eyewear alone (lots of glasses with chunky plastic or wood frames — but, alas, no actual monocles).

via Dylan’s Desk: When craftsmanship meets tech, magic happens | VentureBeat.

• While Everybody Was Flipping Out About Instagram-Facebook, AOL Closed Up 43% Today – Business Insider – While Everybody Was Flipping Out About Instagram-Facebook, AOL Closed Up 43% Today $AOL $MSFT by @MattRosoff
• South African Township Barbershops & Salons | Brain Pickings – A design ethnography of South African barber shops
• 19 Regional Words All Americans Should Adopt Immediately – Mental Floss – 19 Regional Words All Americans Should Adopt Immediately —
• Did everybody see what just happened? The pendulum has swung. –
  Find Office Space – 42Floors – Did everybody see what just happened? The pendulum has swung. (@jasonfreedman / 42Floors)
• Untitled (http://www.techmeme.com/120408/p8#a120408p8) – Did everybody see what just happened? The pendulum has swung. (@jasonfreedman / 42Floors)

• Robot Cargo Ship’s Space Station Arrival: Big Pic : Discovery News – Looks like Ridley Scott science fiction, but real: Docking cargo ship at the ISS.
• Trojans, viruses, worms: How does malware get on PCs and Macs? | ZDNet – For new followers, I recommend this post from last year: Trojans, viruses, worms: How does malware get on PCs and Macs?
• Joke app Happy Poo finds some success on Android platform | VentureBeat – Was so much cooler when it was iPhone only RT @deantak: Joke app Happy Poo finds some success on Android platform:
• There’s a Pinterest for that – Also, don't miss our pinboard of Pinterest clones, "There's a Pinterest for that." by @kelly_heather
• Stuff I found online / Pinterest is now the third most popular social network. WTF? – Pinterest is now the third most popular social network. WTF?
• This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy [Update] | Cult of Mac – Finally read @DrCrypt's story, which kicked off the whole "Girls Around Me" controversy. A great read!

• Stop Apps From Tracking You Without Your Knowledge Using Foursquare And Facebook [How-To] | Cult of Mac – How to stop Facebook etc from sharing your location
• Trolls should go to jail, says Arizona, and I agree | VentureBeat – Internet trolls should go to jail! says @jolieodell, throwing her support behind Arizona.
• iPhone crybabies need to shut up about Instagram on Android | VentureBeat – iPhone crybabies need to shut up about Instagram on Android by @sarahmitroff
• Project Glass: Google unveils its geeky augmented reality glasses | VentureBeat – if you wear no shirt and a leather jacket, no one will notice how stupid your Google AR glasses look. by @devindra
• Dylan’s Desk: Frustration and fragmentation rule the mobile industry — for now | VentureBeat – Frustration and fragmentation rule the mobile industry — for now. My latest column: #vbms
• What Obama told journalists at AP lunch | Poynter. – Obama on the most glaring, unsolved problem in political journalism today: fake symmetry
• VentureBeat’s Mobile Summit about to kick off. 180 top e… on Twitpic – VentureBeat's Mobile Summit about to kick off. 180 top execs & investors in one room
• U2′s Bono and The Edge revealed as investors in Dropbox | VentureBeat – What could make @dropbox even cooler? How about an investment from half of the band U2?
• The Ion Cannon Behind the Next Solar Revolution – Very cool: Using an ion cannon to shear off extremely thin slices of silicon wafer

That’s the dominant note sounded by commenters at this week’s Mobile Summit, an invitation-only conclave of mobile-industry executives and investors sponsored by VentureBeat.

It’s polite frustration, to be sure. But again and again, I’ve heard on-stage speakers or members of the audience in various discussions allude to their difficulties working with carriers, with Apple, with Google, or with the vast profusion of platforms out there.

Read the full story: Dylan’s Desk: Frustration and fragmentation rule the mobile industry — for now | VentureBeat.

• "Game Of Thrones" Intro, With Lyrics – Never be sorry about sharing such a wonderful thing. RT @violetblue: @ryan @Veronica I am sorry – but here are lyrics:
• What Would Molydeux? – Loving #molyjam, a three-day global game jam based on the tweets of @petermolydeux.
• How much does Pinterest actually make? — Tech News and Analysis – Good spanking of how journalists can't comprehend VC valuation multiples MT PeterCHoran: Pinterest revenue & valuation:
• Generic Cats Traffic Slideshow [PHOTOS] [CATS] | The Awl – Brilliant. By Choire Sicha
• AT&T accused of using fake deaf people from Nigeria to scam the government out of millions | VentureBeat – Seriously, WTF: AT&T accused of using fake deaf people from Nigeria to scam the government out of millions by @tched
• The DeanBeat: Video games can be about love, not just violence | VentureBeat – Why can't we all just get along? RT @deantak: Video games can be about love, not just violence:
• Trayvon Martin: Obama Calls Shooting A ‘Tragedy’ | TPMDC – RT @joshtpm: Obama: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” via @TPM

For someone who’s lived through one tech bubble, it’s hard not to see signs of another one every time the market starts edging upward.

Besides, no one wants to be the rube who’s the last one to realize the party’s over and the cool kids have already left. That’s why so many people are quick to jump to the conclusion that we’re in a bubble.

I’ll admit, the thought crossed my mind recently when I read that a company selling razor blades had raised $1 million from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. That was just a few days after I learned one of L.A.’s hottest new incubators was hatching a company offering dog-sitting services.

What’s next? Sock puppets on national TV? Companies competing to ship 40-pound bags of dogfood to you? Someone raising a billion dollars to build a new food-distribution infrastructure so that they can deliver groceries to your door?

Read the rest: Dylan’s Desk: 4 signs we’re not in a tech bubble | VentureBeat.

• Tumblelogs – Just for me, this is Why The Lucky Stiff commenting on @jkottke's early, definitive post on tumblelogs:
• For High Tech Companies, Going Public Sucks | Epicenter | Wired.com – why we need a Long-Term Stock Exchange: "@wired: For High Tech Companies, Going Public Sucks "
• Senators hear Verizon & Comcast’s weaksauce argument for approving the $3.6B spectrum deal | VentureBeat – No matter what happens in this $3.6B spectrum auction, the public will probably lose. via @TChed
• Angry Birds Space launches amid planet-wide marketing blitz | VentureBeat – Angry Birds Space launches amid planet-wide marketing blitz by @deantak
• I can’t stop reading this analysis of Gawker’s editorial strategy » Nieman Journalism Lab – Smart analysis of a smart strategy.

• Twitter – OMG Twitter predicted by teh Bible!! Got it exactly right, too.
• Design case study: iPad to Windows 8 Metro style app – Nifty! RT @ryantate @dnanian: interesting study of one app expressed with iOS (iPad) and Metro:
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – The (tragic!) life cycle of a physicist.
• 10 disruptive individuals who are reshaping the mobile industry | VentureBeat – 10 innovative individuals who are disrupting the mobile industry:
• Derek Powazek – How To Spot A Liar – If you traffic in true stories, you can’t lie to your audience, period.
• How Facebook Lets You Live Forever (Sort Of) – Ross Andersen – Technology – The Atlantic – "Facebook lets you survive for everyone else, but you can't survive for yourself."

More than 6,000 hopefuls from around the world entered Facebook’s programming challenge, the Hacker Cup, in January. Three months later, just 25 finalists went head-to-head in a three-hour battle for supremacy today at Facebook’s new Menlo Park campus.

The winner will have his name (all 25 finalists are male) inscribed on a 50-pound trophy, a sort of pixelated-looking two-dimensional brass fist with the work “HACK” blazoned it, which is set on top of a cube of concrete.

There’s a $5,000 prize for the first-place winner, but most of the reward will be the glory of being named, publicly, as one of the world’s top coders. Plus, of course, there’s the thrill of going up against a roomful of world-class programmers.

Full story: Facebook’s Hacker Cup draws the world’s speed-programming elite | VentureBeat.

• How To Convert a SIM to a MicroSIM with a Meat Cleaver! – Solutios – I am relieved to report that this how-to on cutting a SIM down to micro size actually works:
• Largely Unaltered Show Goes On for Fact-Challenged Apple Monologist | Gadget Lab | Wired.com – Wired's @davemosher fact-checks Mike Daisey's stage show. He's still lying:
• Sex-Deprived Male Fruit Flies Turn to Alcohol, Research Shows – Businessweek – Vicious circle: Sex-deprived fruit flies turn to alcohol Alcohol addiction makes fruit flies horny
• Alcohol addiction and sex in flies — Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences – Vicious circle: Sex-deprived fruit flies turn to alcohol Alcohol addiction makes fruit flies horny
• Facebook’s Hacker Cup draws the world’s speed-programming elite | VentureBeat – Facebook’s Hacker Cup draws the world’s speed-programming elite. And bunnies!

• What do we mean when we say a poem is a machine? Part 7: Dara Wier « We Who Are About To Die – “Specs for this poem may be written down.”
• The Fact-Checker Versus the Fabulist – NYTimes.com – .@alexismadrigal @jasontanz worth reading, from a couple weeks ago, about another fabulist:
• 1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame? | Wired Magazine | Wired.com – Worth recalling that no such retraction has been issued for the NYT reports: or @joeljohnson’s
• Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class – NYTimes.com – Worth recalling that no such retraction has been issued for the NYT reports: or @joeljohnson’s
• (500) http://tal.fm/460 – We are retracting the episode “Mr. Daisey & the Apple Factory.” We devote this week’s show to the retraction #ieconomy
• Mike Daisey: Statement on TAL – When people do “nonfiction,” being an “artist” is no defense against lying. Mike Daisey’s response: just dumb.

Lloyd Reynolds | The Guild of Book Workers’ 100th Anniversary Exhibition – Retrospective Entries.

• Congress still not satisfied with Apple’s privacy protections, requests briefing | VentureBeat – U.S. government still isn't satisfied Apple is protecting its customers' privacy in iOS apps. by @jbruin
• Party Like a Geek at SXSW – KDAF – On the difficulty of picking which parties to attend at #sxsw: @jboitnott appears in this austin news report
• The problem, often not discovered until late in… | W. W. Norton – Advice from @neiltyson: 1) know more today about the world than you knew yesterday 2) lessen the suffering of others.
• Google News Blog: Recognizing publishers’ standout content in Google News – how to use the rel="standout" tag
• Dylan’s Desk: Microsoft is about to drive a wedge into the mobile market | VentureBeat – My latest column: Microsoft is about to drive a wedge into the mobile market
• Insane Clown Posse – Miracles
  – YouTube – @juhasaarinen @kimzetter if you watch this, all will become clear: cc @rsingel
• Starling Flocks Behave Like Flying Magnets | Wired Science | Wired.com – Brilliant: RT @wired: Q: Flocking starlings, how do they work? A: Like magnets, of course.
• What’s In David Carr’s Backpack? : CJR – Pen and paper are "an operating system … that almost never fails" and other thoughts from @carr2n's backpack from @CJR
• Paper Con Man Ravages the Internet – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic – I like the part where he basically proposes a duel MT @alexismadrigal: I had to respond to Harper's publisher
• Wolverine [KPW4] – $98.90 : Kellam Knives Worldwide, Inc. – Finnish Puukko Knives and Products – This looks like a very good puukko knife.
• A VC: Yahoo! Crosses The Line – A VC: Yahoo! Crosses The Line
• It’s Time for the Valley to Grab Torches, Pitchforks and Head to Sunnyvale | PandoDaily – @tcarmody that's my suspicion. cf
• John R. MacArthur: Internet con men ravage publishing | This New England Blog | providencejournal.com | The Providence Journal – "I'm offended by the Internet pretension of universality, freedom, and democracy." – John MacArthur, of Harper's
• Does this smartphone make me look stupid? Meet the "ladyphones" – I am so happy @caseyjohnston wrote this feature on so-called "ladyphones"—cellphones targeted specifically at women:
• Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck | Brain Pickings – "Forget your generalized audience." 6 tips on writing from John Steinbeck
• Letters of Note: Butt-Head Astronomer – Oh snap. Letter from Carl Sagan after Apple called him a "Butt-Head Astronomer" Still, I'd've loved to type on a Sagan
• Suing Facebook shows how weak Yahoo is – My take on the Yahoo patent suit: Yahoo can't beat Facebook – so it sued
• Who is the most innovative individual in mobile tech? Get your nominations in now | VentureBeat – Who are the most innovative, market-disruptive people in the mobile industry? Get your nominations in:
• Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH Fastball – Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) – I love writing that opens me up to loving a thing I didn't think I could love. Here's @ihnatko doing it for opera.
• A private social network, just for you and your sweetie | VentureBeat – Chuckling at the comments on my weekend post: A private social network, just for you and your sweetie:
• 13 things you can do instead of going to SXSW | VentureBeat – 13 things you can do instead of going to #SXSW (hat tip @brooke @karaswisher @mistercharlie) #notatsxsw
• Stephen Wolfram has much better data on his life than you do | VentureBeat – Stephen Wolfram has much better data on his life than you do
• Time’s Arrow (2) – Star Trek: The Next Generation | Miso – Mark Twain is a total dick (watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, Time's Arrow 2 S06E01)
• Loopt was a lemon, dropping to just 500 daily active users prior to sale | VentureBeat – Behind Loopt's fire-sale acquisition price: Just 500 daily active users. Ouch. scoop by @jbruin tip @techmeme
• Francis playing ‘Magic the Gathering’ is f#%^ing hilarious (Video) : theCHIVE – @dylan20 @jolieodell @venturebeat Is this how the game is going? That game is serious business.
• Getting the News — Evan Williams | News.me – Good musings on "Getting the News" by @ev -
• Fanboy theory – Marco.org – Marco Arment: "It’s impossible to express a useful opinion to any significantly sized audience without inadvertently angering someone enough to hurl irrational insults at you."
• Learning from competition – Marco.org – "Learning from competition," aka why Microsoft is interesting and why @marcoarment is so smart:
• Angry Birds Space gets geeky with awesome real-life demo from NASA (video) | VentureBeat – Angry Birds in Space! No, really: Onboard the ISS, with astronaut Don Pettit! by @seanludwig
• The Day Smartphones Will Stop Getting Bigger – the disturbing report I was referring to on @fwd:
• Instagram – A repeatingram but one that makes me do very happy. Cheery friends grooving in my hallway Love love love. R
• Spotify vs. Rdio, Part 2: The Billboard Charts | Epicenter | Wired.com – RT @alexismadrigal: Spotify and Rdio have nearly the same catalog, @epicenterblogfinds. by @waxpancake
• This Article Generating Thousands Of Dollars In Ad Revenue Simply By Mentioning New iPad | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source – via @TheOnion – This Article Generating Thousands Of Dollars In Ad Revenue Simply By Mentioning New iPad
• Is Apple bringing the rainbow back to its logo? | VentureBeat – Hey everybody, join hands and come together under Apple's rainbow logo by @tched
• MAKE | Alt.GDC: Rocksmith FTW – So cool. Rock Band for reals – Rocksmith. Teaches you to play a real guitar in a video game interface.
• The new iPad: Apple schools tablet makers again with Retina Display, quad-core graphics, LTE 4G | VentureBeat – Apple schools tablet makers with Retina display, 4G wireless, quad-core graphics by @devindra
• VB homepage screenshot on Twitpic – Yeah, I totally did this. (, with a little help from @skitch)
• Apple unveils next-generation iPad, Apple TV, iPhoto for the iPad | VentureBeat – VentureBeat's @kelly_heather is at the Apple event, updating a news post. Like a liveblog, but readable! #vb
• The iPad is losing market share. Can the new iPad stop the bleeding? (infographic) | VentureBeat – The iPad is losing market share. Can the new one stop the bleeding? A stark info graphic: by @meghankel #vb
• Dylan’s Desk: Design goes minimal, online and off | VentureBeat – @johnpavlus FYI I called you one of the "smartest hipsters in Brooklyn" in this piece.
• Google Image Search recursion – Very cool video that uses Google's image search to find images like the previous one
• All Hail the Kindle Single, Says Top Literary Critic – Rebecca J. Rosen – Technology – The Atlantic – E-readers aren't merely making reading more convenient, they're making new kinds of writing available.
• Letters of Note: I have no ancestors of that gifted people – My boyhood love of Tolkien surges again: ht @stevesilberman
• Untitled (http://twitter.com/sarahmitroff/status/177221388023767040/photo/1) – This makes up for my hour long commute.
• 17 Things To Do Instead of Paying Attention to the Apple Event – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic – Good advice RT @alexismadrigal: 17 things to do instead of paying attention to the Apple event.
• Essential Pocket Briefcase – Leather Notepad, Index Card Holder – Levenger –
• Dollar Shave Club’s blades are “so f*cking great” they just raised a round for ‘em | VentureBeat – Signs of a bubble: Big-name VC firms investing in razor blades and dog sitting services. by @jolieodell
• As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline of PCs – NYTimes.com – RT @romenesko: Entrepreneur who's worked at Apple, Microsoft & Dell sees tablet sales "absolutely" passing PCs.
• Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice | Video on TED.com – This is the TED talk that rocked my world. Please watch & spread! Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice
• Nothing Was Desirable: A Review Of ‘Punk In Africa’ – Just reread. May be the best thing I ever wrote. It is certainly the truest. Nothing Was Desirable: ‘Punk In Africa’:

If the mobile market is a war, the battlefield is shifting.

As VentureBeat’s Devindra Hardawar recently wrote, it’s no longer a contest between the Apple iOS and Google Android mobile operating systems. Microsoft is about to shake things up in the tablet arena with the introduction of the Windows 8 operating system, which you can download in beta form now. Whether or not Microsoft succeeds, the market is about to change forever.

This new, third factor is a wedge that will dramatically shift the landscape for tablets and smartphones, but in different ways for each.

You can see the stakes of the battle in the graph of computing platform shipments by Horace Dediu of Asymco, shown above. It’s an amazing chart, showing the life and death of computing platforms over the past three and a half decades.

…

Full story: Dylan’s Desk: Microsoft is about to drive a wedge into the mobile market | VentureBeat.

Last year’s big fashion trend was the color block, and this year’s tech trend follows suit: It’s the square.

More precisely, it’s the big, colorful rectangle filled with a solid color (like Windows or a photograph (like Pinterest).

Mondrian would have been proud.

via Dylan’s Desk: Design goes minimal, online and off | VentureBeat.

In Microsoft’s vision of the future, Kinect sensors are everywhere: In your living room, your kitchen, at school, and even in the supermarket, above the fruit display.

And why not? The $150 motion-sensing device provides a cheap way to add gesture and voice controls to any application. Plus it’s got a camera and two 3D depth sensors that give computers a tool to map out spaces in three dimensions, recognize people by their faces, identify real-world objects, and create 3D models of those objects.

I spent a day at Microsoft’s Redmond campus this week attending TechForum, a small gathering of about a dozen journalists hosted by Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie. Part strategy briefing, part new-product showcase, part science fair, TechForum was a chance for us writers to see an array of recent and upcoming technologies that Microsoft’s been working on, both in its commercial products as well as in its pure research labs.

Kinect sensors weren’t the day’s primary theme, but it was fascinating to see how many contexts in which the flat, three-eyed black bar kept popping up.

Full story: Dylan’s Desk: You will soon be using a Kinect, even if you don’t have an Xbox | VentureBeat.

For a startup, a lot is riding on the home page. You might be surprised, then, to learn that startups vary wildly in how quickly and reliably their website home pages load.

That’s especially true when you look at load times on mobile devices. An increasing number of people use smartphones and tablets to browse the web, and yet — for some reason — the mobile versions of many startups’ sites lag far behind their desktop equivalents.

Keynote Systems‘ new Startup Shootout Index provides some insight into the three-screen challenge now facing anyone with a web presence. It’s the first website performance index to measure load times and completion percentages on desktops, smartphones, and tablets simultaneously.

Full story: Startups struggle to keep their sites speedy on PCs, phones, and tablets | VentureBeat.