Happy Easter!

3/27/2013: Ethicists Make Lousy Economists, And Other Lessons From the Endless “Game of Thrones” Debate, Disruptive Competition Project

This started life as a draft here a year ago, when I’d gotten fed up by seeing the same old arguments thrown around on Twitter and in blog posts about the HBO series. Then I set it aside, which turned out be a good thing when I had a paying client interested in the topic.

3/29/2013: Social-Media Trend To Watch: Security That Doesn’t Have To Suck, Disruptive Competition Project

With Dropbox, Apple and, soon, Evernote and Twitter following Google’s lead in offering two-step verification as a login option, I’m cautiously optimistic that this competition will yield more usable security than what the efforts of corporate IT have yielded so far. The skeptical comments this post has since gotten have me wondering if I was too optimistic.

3/29/2013: Augmented Reality Doesn’t Need Google Glasses, Discovery News

I revisited a topic I last covered in depth in a 2009 column for the Post. Part of this post recaps how I still use some of the apps I mentioned back then, part suggests some other possible applications, and then I note how Windows Phone 8’s “Lenses” feature could foster “AR” on that platform. I’m not sure all of those parts hold together.

3/31/2013: Q&A: Is T-Mobile’s new math a good deal?, USA Today

The wireless carrier’s no-contract plans may not save you much money if you buy a new smartphone exactly every two years, but if you upgrade less often–or buy an unlocked phone from a third party–they can work well for you. (And if they foster the growth of a carrier-independent market for phones, they would work well for the rest of us.) The post also includes a reminder to watch out for phone-insurance charges on your bill.

Sulia highlights: calculating how much you’d spend on an iPhone 5 and two years of service at the four major wireless carriers; noting the belated arrival of threaded comments on Facebook pages; explaining why Google Maps doesn’t offer real-time arrival estimates for Metro and other transit systems; critiquing the woeful setup experience on a Linksys router.