December 2008
19 posts
Techmeme: Top 10 Biggest Tech Stories of 2008 →
Chess is now a young man's game →
Here are the latest ratings. You have to go down all the way to #61 (Nigel Short) before you find a player older than 40. It didn’t used to be that way. For instance in 1963 Mikhail Botvinnik…
“Analysts say that Tesco’s big advantage over major international rivals,...”
– Tesco: ‘Wal-Mart’s Worst Nightmare’ - BusinessWeek
Got a Christmas tree in the house? Don't forget to... →
Christmas Tree Fire Safety Video from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). (via Esthr Dysn!)
Man who set up alternate email for White House... →
From at-Largely (Larisa Alexandrovna):
“Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted…
Since When Does ‘Top 89th Percentile’ Mean... →
B+
The Top 89th percentile.
Not too shabby - right?
Oh - but how wrong you would be to agree!
It’s not too bad if we’re talking about IQ. The 89th percentile on the curve would be someone who…
11th Grade →
Quote of the Day: Swan Consumption →
Let them eat Black Swan. - Gregor MacDonald (on Twitter)
“Now India is on the verge of making a $2500 car while the average American is...”
– Philip Greenspun
The weirdest sentence that John de Palma read... →
“Mice may be responsible for a blaze that killed nearly 100 cats at an animal shelter near the Canadian city of Toronto, officials say(…)”
Perhaps I should have titled this post “Policing…
Internet Disrupted across Asia and Middle East as... →
The undersea cables linking Europe and Asia, which were damaged by ships early this year, have reportedly been cut again causing severe disruption to internet and voice traffic in the…
Dubai Is Building a Refrigerated Beach →
dataxtream writes “The world’s first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai, located along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. The beach will include heat-absorbing pipes…
Hotel is "proud to be dirty and carry a wide... →
Better living through exposure to microbes at the the infamous Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam. After reading Wild Fermentation, I’m all for it!
Quite Simply The Best Commercial Ever Made →
Only the Danish could get away with something like this (but how great would it be to see Amazon do commercials like this). Danish ecommerce site Fleggaard recently made the commercial…
How credit cards become asset-backed bonds →
Brad Robideau of American Public Media says:
I thought your readers might be interested in Marketplace’s latest “The Marketplace Whiteboard” video making the financial crisis easier to…
Estimating Apple iPhone App Sales So Far: $50-$100... →
Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch customers have downloaded some 300 million software apps since Apple started selling them in July. We estimate that Apple has booked $50 million to $100…
Dell Now Charges $150 Extra for Windows XP →
Dell has been periodically increasing the additional price for new systems with Windows XP, and now it’s up to a whopping $150. No, that’s not the total amount they charge for XP. That’s what you pay…
Today's Great Startup Idea: Launch a Bank →
As the banking behemoths teeter and beg, and the taxpayers shovel out hundreds of billions to save them, it is always nice to see a reminder of the way capitalism is supposed to work:
NY…
“How much faster will [USB 3.0], called “SuperSpeed,” go? If you were...”
– USB 3.0: Ten times as fast as it predecessor.