Unsure on the upcoming referendum on the UK voting system? If so, The Observer’s Do we want a fairer election system? op-ed is well worth a read. It’s a balanced, fair piece, addressing most of the major concerns. Not least among them, the argument that coalition would be more likely under AV and OH MY GOD THE CURRENT COALITION IS EVIL ON TOAST AND FULL OF LYING SCUMBAGS. The Observer points out:

Lib Dem U-turns hardly advanced the public’s faith in politicians’ promises. But it is absurd to blame the fact of coalition, as if every manifesto of every winning party before 2010 was fastidiously implemented.

Coalitions are here to stay even under the current system. A hung parliament was elected because neither of the two biggest parties commanded enough support to be trusted alone in government. The idea that they should seek remedy for that decline by propping up a system that helps them cheat is lazy and arrogant.

And for the pro-reform people who are, bizarrely, considering ‘abstaining’ (i.e. not voting) or even voting for FPTP, because they’re not being given the option of AV+ or STV, or because AV has major problems of its own, The Observer has this to say:

AV is not perfect. No system captures the will of the people with photographic realism. The goal is a fair approximate, and FPTP fails utterly. It distorts, obstructs, obscures and perverts voter choices. It causes tens of thousands of votes to be wasted; it forces people to endorse candidates they don’t like, just to punish ones they like even less.

AV will not solve all of the problems of British democracy. It will not undo the harm of the expenses scandal, nor provoke a renaissance of civic participation. It is only a reform. It promises one thing: by taking account of multiple preferences, it would elect a parliament that more accurately describes the political complexion of the nation. That is a start.

Colin Barrett on the Twitter dickbar:

What about Twitter for iPhone’s existing mechanisms for notifying users about things happening outside the home timeline? Anyone who uses Twitter for iPhone has seen the blue dots underneath the tabs in the tab bar. And they will also be able to tell you Twitter for iPhone can’t keep track of which direct messages you’ve read to save its life — even ones you read in Twitter for iPhone.

Twitter should concentrate on fixing its existing notification mechanisms before adding new ones.

Right on target, I’d say.

I’m also sick of Twitter going on about coherent user experiences as an excuse for starting to lock down its API and mothball third-party clients, considering all of its own experiences lack coherence. It’s one thing that the Mac Twitter client differs somewhat from the iPad one. But when the iPad client—a universal app—wildly differs from the iPhone version (the same app, remember) in terms not only of interface but also basic functionality, Twitter’s talking out of its arse.

Yesterday, I flagged buckets of stupid poured on to the internet by Dell and Microsoft execs who should know better. But someone then had to go and tell me about Brett Arends and his WSJ SmartMoney masterpiece Is That iPad 2 Really Worth $2,000?

Now, the smart people among you will have noticed the slight problem with Arends’s argument, in that even the most expensive iPad is a smidge over $800, and the cheapest model is $500. Aha! Arends has you there:

If I don’t spend that $500, I’ll invest it.

Right. In the stock market, which NEVER FAILS. And by the same token, we should all stop buying anything and invest the money, because there’s never any benefit in leveraging new technology, thereby investing in your life, rather than the stock market.

By all means argue that the iPad 2 is overpriced if you can back that up with an argument that isn’t “but a cheaper and better Android device will probably be released within six months”; similarly, if tablets aren’t for you and you prefer netbooks, fair enough. But don’t respond to someone asking whether you’re getting an iPad with “even if I did, I probably wouldn’t want to spend $2,000 on one,” because that makes you sound like a dick.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a great interview with Craig Mundie, in which the Microsoft ‘global chief research and strategy officer’ makes a firm, bold opinion about the future of computing, which Microsoft has been instrumental in for the past three decades:

I don’t know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not.

It’s that kind of decisive thinking that’s helped Microsoft into a ‘back on the starting line’ position when it comes to mobile. Luckily, Mundie has some choice thinking on that area, showcasing his ‘global chief research and strategy officer’ credentials:

Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use.

I’m glad that’s been cleared up. So, Mundie, as ‘global chief research and strategy officer’, what is the future of computing? Where are things going? Steve Jobs is still on leave, so he can’t tell us. It’s all down to you!

I believe the successor to the desktop is the room.

The room? Look, I know you guys built a touchscreen table while Apple was busy wasting time on the iPhone, but a room? Clearly, I misheard you.

Instead of thinking that the computer is just something on the desk that you go and sit in front of, [in the] future basically the whole room is the computer and you go in it.

O… K… So the future of computing, as far as Microsoft is concerned, is this:

Image credit: Simon Pride, from the film Alien (1979)

On CIO, Dell’s global head of marketing, Andy Lark, puts his foot in his mouth and keeps kicking until he’s a gummy exec with a mouth full of shards:

I couldn’t be happier that Apple has created a market and built up enthusiasm

“We didn’t have a clue how to do tablets, but we’re glad Apple’s made something we can rip off in a half-hearted and sub-optimal manner!”

but longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary

“I’ve never used an iPad, nor looked at iPad price-tags and compared them to the usually more expensive competition. So now I sound like an idiot! OOPS!”

[Apple has] done a really nice job, they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.

“I read something about Android winning the smartphone battle somewhere on the internet. Smartphones are tablets, right?”

Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island.

“Like the island of crazy IN MY MIND!”

It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.

“Dell, as you know, is great at making simple things quite complex! … What? What do you mean I wasn’t supposed to say that?”

We’ve taken a very considered approach to tablets, given that the vast majority of our business isn’t in the consumer space

“I hate Steve Jobs. I kick iMacs to death for fun. Also, I have no idea how to win over consumers.”

[A company] like Samsung has to aggressively go after their business, but we’ve got a far more diversified footprint than some of these players.

“We have no idea how to focus. In fact, we have no idea what we’re doing regarding tablets.”

An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600

“Especially if the case is made from solid gold and tiger fur, but then I’ve been reliably informed that’s the case for all Apple cases. And, no, I’m not going to explain my reasoning in saying you’d need to buy a mouse for a touchscreen tablet, nor how the hell I managed to get to $1600 when the most expensive iPad 2 is $829. Look, just leave me alone!”

Our strategy is multi-OS. We will do Windows 7 coupled with Android Honeycomb, and we’re really excited. We think that giving people that choice is very important.

“We think we can mate a turtle and a monkey and get a unicorn.”