Links for Friday March 18^th, 2011

• House of Cards: Good on Netflix, for funding original content. As the major studios become increasingly intransigent over bringing their content online, it's good to see one company stick their neck out, and attempt to route around the problem. I'd like to see Apple do this as well, but I think they are too much in bed with the major Hollywood studios to give this much of a shot. (Once again, via Daring Fireball)

• Is Apple intentionally crippling Web applications on iOS?: Short, concise rundown of the iOS 4.3 browser speed issue. (via Daring Fireball)

• CNN Sending Eight Times More Staff to Royal Wedding Than to Japan: Wrong, on so many levels.

• One Week After iPad 2 Launch: Long Lines Still Abound: This isn't good for people who don't have iPads, and contrary to some opinions I've seen online, this isn't good for Apple either (they only make money when they actually sell an iPad).

• 0x22: Some great Apple trivia, from Chris Espinosa (employee #8). (via Daring Fireball)

• Larry Page Wants to Return Google to Its Startup Roots: Interesting Wired article about Larry Page, and how things might go with him at the helm of Google once again.

• iPhone 5 May Get NFC Payments After All?: For what it's worth, I'd be surprised if the next iPhone doesn't have NFC. Android is already shipping with NFC support, and I don't that Apple can wait another whole year to get NFC-enabled hardware into the field.

• Japanese disaster could create iPad, iPhone shortages: Potentially bad news for Apple fans wanting to purchase an iPad.

• Subject: Airbnb: Backroom conversation between Paul Graham, trying to convince Fred Wilson to invest in Airbnb. As Paul notes:

  "Hundreds if not thousands of conversations of this type are happening now, but if one has ever been published, I haven't seen it. The Airbnbs themselves never even saw these emails at the time."

  This is a rare, and interesting look, at the startup funding world.