When Levy went to Newsweek, I wondered if his famed Apple access would follow him. With Fake Steve, reading columns like this, it's a safe guess he may not want any additional access that may come with the weight of Newsweek. He's a horseman, but I hope he keeps that outside, mainstream perspective that our whole little world of gadget review is a ridiculous one. [Peter Kafka's Brain]

The only companies that join consortia are the ones who are too stupid or shitty to make a great product on their own. It's like, Hey, we've got forty spazzo companies that can't fuck their way out of a paper bag; let's put them all together and maybe they'll magically become some kind of big bad powerhouse.

There are, of course, numerous cons to the singular "hand of God" approach, but the problems with consortia that FSJ lays out are real. It's hard for everyone to agree, and rarely do all involved push for the "greater good" at their individual expense. It might be different this time around, but with so much at stake, martyrs for the Alliance probably won't exactly be lining up. And oh yeah, there's no phone to wrap our hands around yet. [FSJ via Daring Fireball]