2014's tabs have begun in earnest, and if you thought this year would be better you thought so, so wrong.
Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher re/launched the re/mains of All Things D today. The new site is called "Re/code" (that's "re-slash-code") and lives at http://recode.NET because they couldn't get the .com. So, two respected tech industry veterans and NBCUniversal News Group just used $10-$15 million to launch a Wordpress site with 1998-eracyber/branding.
And launch day featured some gems! Like this tab by Andreessen-Horowitz cofounder Ben Horowitz, who espouses a dopey philosophy of Silicon Valley exceptionalism in the vocabulary of a third grader or an MBA. Or this tongue-bath about why talking egg Marc Andreessen, the other half of the Andreessen-Horowitz duo, is using twitter now. I will say it's convenient to get Andreessen's unique brand ofconcentrated wrongness directly from the egg's mouth, so #ff @pmarca I guess. While we're at it, #ff the other sharks, too.
Swish/berg are also re/launching their con/ference with new branding. So now you can pay $6500 to attend something called "The Code Conference" where you will hear CEOs speak, presumably not about coding.
Alexis Madrigal dug into Netflix's bizarre genre database and learned some interesting things about what happens when people and code interact. (Spoiler: Raymond Burr happens. Raymond Burr.)
A database of 4.6 million Snapchat name & phone number pairs has been leaked. Was your info in it? Who really cares, actually.
The New York Times editorial board calls for amnesty for Edward Snowden. It's a fair case as far as it goes, but it doesn't address the issue that much of Snowden's leaked data related to the normal and proper functioning of the American intelligence apparatus. The NYT is also about to unveil a redesign which "allows for much more reader engagement with the content. Readers will be able to view comments directly alongside articles." So brace yourself for all that fun.
De Blasio's New York will have no horse-drawn carriages or historic bibles but it will continue to have embarrassing police department leaks. Future London will not have a Dogger Bank airport 300 miles away from London in the North Sea (probably).
New Year's Resolutions from an anteater and Penny Arcade's Gabe, Repectively: keep eating ants, stop being such an asshole.
Wired's Mitt Hannity reviews a treadmill desk in the style of Henry Blodget.
In No Particular Order: Mesh networking. Stolen brains. Artificial stupidity. When you gotta go.... Skype's twitter hacked so I guess we're still not done with the SEA. Fake Sherlock scenelol. Today in Dads. Coinye West is coming to put the last nail in the cryptocurrency plausibility coffin. One person who lives in a nation with no working social safety net bailed out by the goodwill of others, hundreds of thousands more are not. Happy New Year.
See You At: the turn up function.
Today's Song: Aesop Rock & Blockhead, "Try Not to Die"
~I'm shocked, shocked to find that tabs are going on in here!~
Today in Tabs is a daily mishmash of this and that, leavened with the other thing, and brought to you by Newsweek.com, where you can, with some effort, find our back issues. You may also subscribe by email if you don't already. You should never ever feel obligated to read the whole thing or follow every link. No one else does. Just let the tabs wash over you, and then recede again, like the tides of the bottomless sea. There will always be more.