July 2011
1 post
Why I don't mind being Google's product.
Google makes billions of dollars in revenue each fiscal quarter. That money comes about by the same process that all companies use: They sell a product to their customers. Their customers pay money for that product.
Who’s Google’s customer? You? Really? When’s the last time you paid Google for anything?
Advertisers are Google’s customer. What do they sell to advertisers? They sell you. Or, at...
May 2011
1 post
3 tags
March 2011
4 posts
The Changing of the Guard
I met Craig Federighi last year, and I liked him immediately. He is personable, well-spoken, and smart.
I chatted with him about the past, present, and future of Mac OS X in his office at Infinite Loop, interrupted only by a call from SJ, for which he gracefully excused himself. In fact, during our whole meeting, it was impossible to find anything out of place with him—he’s got his shit...
Dick as in Dick Move
Becoming the sole provider of the user-facing interfaces to your service so you can generate revenue is a good tactic for a service the scale of Twitter, but things start to taste sour with the added context of recently ousting the CEO and soon after trying to turn a quick buck in your own apps with things like annoyingly-pervasive trending topics (which are both sponsored advertisements and an...
USB, DeviceIoControl, Overlapped I/O, and You (and...
A while ago I was trying to get descriptors asynchronously from devices since in some situations, like if you catch a Mass Storage device while it’s busy servicing a CDB, the device could drop control pipe requests on the floor, causing DeviceIoControl to block until Windows loses patience with the device and resets it (about five seconds).
The naïve approach is to use an OVERLAPPED...
The Role of Open Source
In the physical world the race to the bottom is won by mass manufacturers in third world countries paying their workers 2¢ an hour. That’s bad. Not only do those workers suffer, but product quality suffers as well.
In the software world there are no significant manufacturing costs, so commoditization doesn’t rely on reducing per-unit product cost and actually benefits from higher...
February 2011
7 posts
Today I Learned… →
Pretty much all superchargers are Roots Type blowers, which are a method of pumping fluids that I hadn’t heard of before this week.
Shaking Forces of Twin Engines →
I especially love the lack of any physics in Fig. 7: boxer twin, and the first inertia force that goes off the diagram in Fig. 10: thumper.
Pine Point →
Be warned: this will exceed your daily recommended dosage of nostalgia.
(via kottke.org)
Signs of a Saturated Market
The Verizon iPhone 4 launched this week not with a growl, but with a whimper.
This should come as a wake-up call to the network operators (though this is generalizable to any industry): if a competitor has a product that people want, customers are going to get it. The paying customers who wanted iPhones already have one. Saying “I like Verizon more than I like having an iPhone” is...
“Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop. He’s...”
– Rupert Murdoch on Steve Jobs.
January 2011
25 posts
Accidental Suicide →
A “Black Widow” suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year’s Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.
[They] believe a message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her at a safe...
Today I Learned… →
On the morning of May 26, 1992, Charles Geschke [co-founder of Adobe] was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Adobe parking lot in Mountain View, California by two men as he arrived for work.
Yikes.
Apple Products
shitphotojournalistslike:
This is what lecture halls in university look like these days. Do they have too much money? Too Ivy League? None of that matters more than:
Apple’s back, and this time around they’ve brought more than just mindshare.
Today I Learned… →
For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I say it often, but maybe not often enough: the system is broken.
Today I Learned… →
It’s IBM’s centennial. Wow.
Today I Learned… →
The Microplane grater was originally conceived as a woodworking tool. It’s use in the kitchen came as a total surprise to its creators. The woodworking tool was conceived because the company was making printer parts before the emergence of the dot matrix printer, and they didn’t want to be obsoleted along with their customers’ products. Luckily, their proprietary masking and...
Apple Reports First Quarter Results
Apple PR:
So in the [first] quarter we saw no signs of weakening. We’re up 18% over last year’s [first]-quarter gross, and that, needless to say, is a new record.
Our competition continues to flag and we continue to take up the slack. Market shares in most divisions is increasing, and we have opened seven new regional offices.
Our international division is also showing vigorous...
Today You, Tomorrow Me.
I was on the side of the road for close to 4 hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare but no jack. I had signs in the windows of the car, big signs that said NEED A JACK and offered money. No dice. Right as I am about to give up and just hitch out there a van pulls over and dude bounds out. He sizes the situation up and calls for his youngest daughter who speaks english. He conveys through...
Today I Learned…
Jaywalking is the unsurprising portmanteau of jay and walking. Jay (archaic colloquial) itself means:
Applied to humans in sense of “impertinent chatterer, flashy dresser” from 1620s. […] Jay was slang for “fourth-rate, worthless” (1888) e.g. a jay town.
a fourth-rate, worthless walker.
(inspired by the jay bicyclists we almost mowed down this morning. source: Online...
Horseshoe Crab Blood
Recently I learned that horseshoe crab blood is blue, not red, due to their use of hemocyanin in place of hemoglobin to transport oxygen (copper vs iron). It turns out I should have investigated further, because their blood is more than just different, it’s actually useful.
Their blood also contains amebocytes, which are similar in function to white blood cells, but differ in their...
Today I Learned…
There exist law school scam blogs focused on the topic of how a law degree is not worth the money. Important variables include a low percentage of graduates getting jobs in the industry, expensive tuition, and oppressive loans. A friend of ours (who was a lawyer, now in medicine) tells us that law salaries follow a bimodal distribution with peaks around $40k and $100k, the former of which...
What does it feel like to be stupid? →
An unusual but insightful answer to a question usually asked in insult.
If your car can’t go faster than 55, you’re not angry and impatient with the people you want to pass (all none of them). I tested this theory by driving on 101 with the cruise set to 65 and, even in traffic, I didn’t have to do anything. Other than being boring (because our car *can* go faster), it was...
“After the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the NRC detected radioactive...”
– Wikipedia, via cbarrett
Today I Learned… →
Several sources claim that pigs can run a 7-minute mile.
(via SmartyPig)
Today I Learned… →
Shepard Tone
A tone composed of multiple sine waves at the right frequencies and alignments which, depending on the disposition of the base pitch, creates the auditory illusion of a tone whose pitch is constantly ascending or descending.
“It has been described as a ‘sonic barber’s pole’.”
Click the link, have a listen. Reminds me of Deep Note (mp3), but with no...
A Little Bit About How GCD Works →
And how sometimes it can make your performance *worse*.
Knowing more about how it works, it’s still a net win.
(via boredzo)
Today I Learned About Honey Buns
Movies about prison life invariably show the use of the cigarette as currency, their value presumably being derived from their cost, portability, and physical addiction. Betting, buying, and bribing, it’s all done with cigarettes.
But something more interesting is going on in real prisons, the use of honey buns. At $1.08 each, packed with flavour not found in the mess halls, and 680...
“Government statistics show that about 70 percent of all federal energy subsidies...”
– Washington Monthly, via hagus
Today I Learned About Catnip
Last night I made two catnip toys out of an old pair of jeans, hoping the denim would prolong their life more than other fabrics. This morning the catnip had the desired effect on one of our cats, and we checked the internet to see if she could overdose.
It’s pretty common knowledge that catnip is a “recreational substance” for cats—dilated eyes, euphoria, rubbing, rolling,...
Today I Learned… →
Variable Geometry Turbocharger
By changing the geometry of the turbine inlet, a turbo’s effective range can be extended to the lower and upper ends of the engine’s range, while eliminating the need for a wastegate.
Taking the adjustment capability a step further, the geometry can also be changed to purposefully increase exhaust backpressure to promote exhaust gas recirculation,...
December 2010
16 posts
Verizon on today’s FCC vote:
There is no doubt that the policies put in place by the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration to jumpstart innovation and the spread of broadband worked. As a result, America’s broadband and Internet marketplace is intensely competitive and an engine of economic growth, job creation and multibillion-dollar investment. Today’s decision, however,...
Free Idea: Reputation-based Banning
In any publicly-accessible forum, spam and trolling are a huge issue, consuming most administrator-hours and requiring a larger staff than would otherwise be required to run a large site. In comparison, sites that charge for admission, and sites that cannot be joined without an invitation have close to no administration overhead beyond maintaining the code, servers, and resetting forgotten...
“My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t...”
– Ricky Gervais via h3h
Word of the day:
tat 1 |tat| |tøt| |tat| verb ( tat•ted |tødəd|, tat•ting |tødɪŋ|) [ trans. ] make (a decorative mat or edging) by tying knots in thread and using a small shuttle to form lace. ORIGIN late 19th cent.: back-formation from tatting .
via my mother again, the crossword champion.
Word of the day:
an•ti•ma•cas•sar |ˌantēməˈkasər| |ˌˈøn(t)iməˌkøsər| |ˌˈøn(t)əməˌkøsər| |ˈantɪməˌkasə| noun chiefly historical a piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease and dirt or as an ornament. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from anti- + Macassar .
via my mother, to the disbelief of the rest of us…
Word of the day:
shil•le•lagh | sh əˈlālē| |ʃəˌleɪli| |ʃɪˌleɪlə| |-li| noun a thick stick of blackthorn or oak used in Ireland, typically as a weapon. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from the name of the town Shillelagh, in County Wicklow, Ireland.
via Paulymer, who was reminded of Beyond Zork by hurdy-gurdy
Word of the day:
hur•dy-gur•dy |ˈhərdē ˌgərdē| |ˌˈhərdi ˌˈgərdi| |ˌhəːdɪˈgəːdi| noun ( pl. -dies) a musical instrument with a droning sound played by turning a handle, which is typically attached to a rosined wheel sounding a series of drone strings, with keys worked by the left hand. • informal a barrel organ. ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: probably imitative of the sound of the instrument.
via darth_mall