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© Sam Corl 2010
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Sam Corl is an Internet programmer and website producer in Sonoma County, California. Recently Posted: 3/25/2010
You might find these interesting:The ability to use Gmail to make and receive calls to regular phones generated significant interest in its first 24 hours.
Originally posted at Deep Tech from: Webware.com
Photo via Telegraph, Credit: Anne Young/Solent News
In the Ubud region of Bali, Indonesia comes a companionship straight out of children's books. Photographer Anne Young was vacationing at the Monkey Forest Park when she spotted a young male long-tailed macaque monkey that had adopted a ginger kitten, protectively caring for and grooming it while keeping other monkeys away. The kitten couldn't look happier, and neither could the monkey. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger![]() ![]() from: TreeHugger
The art is by Australian Peter Drew. The photo is by Carlton Reid. Via Boing Boing from: GOOD
It should probably surprise nobody that Google has announced that its employees will not be attending JavaOne this year. "So we’re sad to announce that we won't be able to present at JavaOne this year. We wish that we could, but Oracle’s recent lawsuit against Google and open source has made it impossible for us to freely share our thoughts about the future of Java and open source generally."
from: LWN.net
Love (!) the Puzzle Board by Ooms Dutch Design Studio. Minimal, beautiful, functional. $26 (via apartmentthereapy) from: swissmiss
Radial EnginesRadial engines are used in aircrafts having propeller connected to the shaft delivering power in order to produce thrust its basic mechanism is as follows
Steam engine PrincipleSteam engine once used in locomotives was based on the reciprocating principle as shown below
Sewing Machine
Maltese Cross Mechanismthis type of mechanism is used in clocks to power the second hand movement.
Manual Transmission MechanismThe mechanism also called as “stick shift” is used in cars to change gears mannually
Constant Velocity JointThis mechanism is used in the front wheel drive cars
Torpedo-Boat destroyer SystemThis system is used to destroy fleet in naval military operations.
Rotary EngineAlso called as Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine has a unique design that converts pressure into rotating motion instead of reciprocating pistons
from: World Of Technology
Isn’t it strange that the media carefully label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language but there’s no labelling system for wacky journalism and other questionable content? (like this blogpost :-)
from: Osocio Weblog
Mobile web development is an emerging hot topic in the web development community. As such, the jQuery Team has been hard at work on determining the strategy and direction that the jQuery Project will take. Today, we are proud to announce the jQuery Mobile Project. We’ve launched a new site at jquerymobile.com that publicly outlines our strategy, research and UI designs.
As always, we want to hear from you. We’ve created a new Mobile jQuery forum to collect feedback from the community. Please feel free to join in on the discussion and read more in the announcement. from: Official jQuery Blog
"Welcome to the new decade: Java is a restricted platform, Google is evil, Apple is a monopoly and Microsoft are the underdogs"
Nice. from: (title unknown)
Finding the appropriate font for your design purpose is important. Simple designs can become extraordinary with the correct font choice. Though a wide variety of fonts are available to download online, there is always a demand for fresh varieties to express text or copy in a brand new way. With today’s post of 33 Fresh and Cool Fonts for Designers, we bring you a collection of fresh and trendy fonts you can download for free. Breathe life into your design’s copy with these unique font faces. Enjoy! Nobile FontArcus FontFracmetrica FontFree Font Two OneQub FontAge Free FontMegapolis FontSection FontModo FontMusa OrnataPiron Free RontCode Free RontAcid Type FontSansation FontZero One Base FontChunk Five FontVal Stencil FontAmperisk FontCode FontQ Section FontSumkin Typeface FontPopu FontLaconic FontMerge FontOblik Serif FontDekar Free FontLobster FontBebas FontPatagonia FontSaf Free FontQ H FontTertre FontGlide Fontfrom: You the Designer
![]() The Evolution of Steve Jobs Fashion from: fuck yeah dementia!!1!
A new "tea bag" uses nano-fibers to suck contaminants and bacteria out of water, providing a desperately-needed, cheap solution for the billions of people without clean drinking water. More »
from: io9
from: Techmeme
![]() 'constrained ball' 'constrained ball' is a drawing aid created by korean product designer giha woo. once attached to the pen, this device helps to draw straight lines without using a ruler. normally, a ball point pen rolls freely in accordance with the ball located at the tip of the pen. however, this writing tool prevents winding lines by helping to move the ball in one direction only. using the installed measuring wheel indicated on the product, users can draw the exact desired line length in both a horizontal and vertical direction, as well as strokes in 45 degree angles. ![]() ![]() the mounting area is made with a flexible rubber material helping it adhere to the attached pen. ![]() ![]() measurement of line is indicated on the product ![]() ![]() from: Designboom - Weblog
Advises unhappy users to switch to Google's browserMicrosoft has advised Hotmail users struggling to access their email accounts to surf via Google’s Chrome browser in order to successfully connect to the recently overhauled service.… from: The Register
from: nienie
Sean Gardiner:
from: Daring Fireball
When a boy dropped his Nintendo into the gorilla cage at the zoo, an amateur photographer saw video games and reality collide
from: FOXNews.com
Shared by ocular avulsionist Came across this on the internets last night. It’s been around for a while, but I’d forgotten about it until I saw it again… from: BOX DOG JOURNAL
The In Out Bottle for sugar dispensing has a very clever twist to it, the silica gel mouth kinda in-turns to form a funnel, so that you don’t spill the sugar while refilling it. Reminds me of the funnel refill bottle for soaps we did recently. So I guess the consensus is that funnels incorporated into the lid cuts around two steps in the refilling process, hence better! What do you think? In Out Bottle For Sugar is an IDEA Design 2010 winner. Designers: Yan-Ting Chen & Hsin Yeh
---------- from: Yanko Design
Architects Newspaper recently shared some surprising news suggesting that new low-E windows could be responsible for melting the vinyl siding on neighboring homes. Reflections from the windows are reported to be heating up nearby vinyl siding to the point that it melts.
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from: Yahoo! News: Top Stories
Simply remarkable. Just 6 weeks ago, Warren Buffett and Bill & Melinda Gates launched The Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage all of the nation’s billionaires to give away at least 50% of their wealth. Today, it was announced that 10% of all billionaires have already publicly made the pledge. The Giving Pledge will be holding a press conference later today, so more information will become available. But a list of the billionaires who have pledged is now available, including their Pledge letters. The pledges are an interesting cross section of well known philanthropists as well as billionaires whose philanthropy is generally unrecognized. Each person making the pledge has written a letter describing why they have done so. The letters offer an amazing insight into the philanthropic impulse and will certainly become a standard part of philanthropy education efforts. Fascinatingly, most of the pledge letters state that the person making the pledge plans to leave virtually all of their wealth to philanthropy. The reasons cited and the causes the pledgers plan to support are as varied as can be.
But not every letter is a heartwarming call for equality and self-sacrifice. Maybe the most surprising name on the list to me was Larry Ellison, the CEO of the technology company Oracle who is generally described in the press as a self-styled bad boy who spends huge sums on jets and boats. [Update: I failed to mention in the first version of this post that Ellison is the third wealthiest person in the US, meaning that the top three wealthiest people have all said they'll be giving away virtually all of their wealth]. Ellison’s letter makes it clear that he is also the “bad boy” of the Giving Pledge. But in doing so, he opens the door for participation in the Pledge by billionaires who might not resonate with some of the bleeding heart rhetoric of some of the Giving Pledge members. While many of the letter writers address Warren Buffett directly, Ellison writes:
I hope so too. As I wrote in my column for the Chronicle of Philanthropy following the announcement of the Pledge, I hope that it “sets an example” for and “influences others” who come from every walk of life, not just billionaires. If Larry Ellison can sign the pledge, maybe my hopes for a Second Great Wave of Philanthropy aren’t so far fetched! from: Tactical Philanthropy
Google's blog announced that Google Wave, the innovative communication platform released last year, will be discontinued.
"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave's innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began." Google Wave has a lot of interesting features, but the interface is confusing and difficult to use. While many thought that Google Wave will reinvent email, Google's service combined an online document editor with an instant messenger. Google Wave allows you to create "live" documents that are edited collaboratively in real-time, but it's more than a conversational version of Google Docs. It's based on an open protocol, so you can edit a wave using multiple services. It's extensible, so you can build gadgets and robots that add new functionality. Google Wave had a lot of potential, but Google didn't manage to build a compelling user experience and define some use cases for the application. Instead of building a general-purpose interface for Google Wave, Google could've used the platform to create multiple applications with clearly-defined goals: a new version of Google Chat, a new version of Google Docs, a brainstorming app etc. Now that Google Wave is discontinued, some of its feature will be added to other Google services (Gmail, Google Docs), but the platform will vanish. It's clear that Google doesn't want to invest in niche services, which is a big opportunity for startups. "We want to do things that matter to a large number of people at scale," said Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in an interview. ![]() from: Google Operating System
Today's issue of Nature contains a paper with a rather unusual author list. Read past the standard collection of academics, and the final author credited is... an online gaming community. Scientists have turned to games for a variety of reasons, having studied virtual epidemics and tracked online communities and behavior, or simply used games to drum up excitement for the science. But this may be the first time that the gamers played an active role in producing the results, having solved problems in protein structure through the Foldit game. According to a news feature on Foldit, the project arose from an earlier distributed computing effort called Rosetta@home. That project used what has become the standard approach for home-based scientific work: a screensaver that provided a graphical frontend to a program that uses spare processor time to solve weighty scientific problems. For Rosetta, that problem was the task of figuring out how proteins, which are composed of a chain of chemicals called amino acids, adopt their final, three-dimensional shape. Read the comments on this post from: Nobel Intent
from: Oh Joy!
![]() Complaint #661 Sent by Danny I now have in my possession a pocket-sized computer which, when I speak a question to it (“Who is the author of Kraken?” “Who was the fourteenth president of the Unites States?” “What is the name of John Scalzi’s cat?”) provides me an answer in just a few seconds. If I take a picture of something, the same pocket computer will analyze the photo and tell me what I’m looking at. Oh, and it makes phone calls, too. Among other things. None of that is the cool part. The cool part is, when I speak a question to my pocket computer and it gives me a bad answer, I get annoyed. Because here in the future, when I talk to my pocket computer, I expect it to get the answer right the first time. I think I’ve said before that one of the neat things about getting older is that you really do become aware just how much things change. To be more specific about it, as you get older, at some point you cross an arbitrary line and are aware that you are now living in the future. I’m not precisely sure when it was I crossed my own arbitrary Future Line, but I’ll tell you what, I’m well past it now. That is all. Carry on. ![]() from: Whatever
Many artists have used pencils to create beautiful pieces of work – but only one creates stunning masterpieces on the tip of one. Microscopic artist Dalton Ghetti spends up to two-and-a half years painstakingly crafting each handmade piece on the graphite of a pencil. ![]() ![]()
![]() The New York Times reports
![]() ![]() ![]() It is really remarkable niche in the art world. There have been artists who use pencils as part of their craft, but none use the smallest and most fragile part: the pencil lead. ![]() Related posts:
from: Design Swan
I'm surprised by the number of people inside Google who actually read my blog. I once did contemplate writing a "career guide for Googlers", but finally got off my ass when a Noogler asked me for advice on how to thrive at Google. Given that Google is once again on a hiring spree (something that I'll never agree with), I guess more people will want this advice than not. Obviously, you should take everything I say with a grain of salt, since things change rapidly at Google. With that caveat in place...
Disclaimer: Sanjeev says (and I agree) that if you internalize all this, it will make you less likely to succeed at a startup! Being able to do well at a big company and being able to do well at a startup are completely different things! Tip #1: Never believe anything management tells you. They don't lie deliberately but frequently things change very quickly, so what's true one day is not true the next. I knew someone who gave up a tech lead position because he was told his group would have no manager, and therefore he was doing all that extra work for nothing. Within a couple of quarters after he gave it up, management made the new tech lead the manager, because things had changed. Keep in mind that management wants things that are good for Google. You care about what's good for you. The former does not automatically lead to the latter. In particular:
The big picture: Google rewards hard work, but much more importantly, high profile projects. Never sacrifice a chance to work on those high profile projects versus equally important but unsexy maintenance tasks that will get no respect from promotion committees. Google does not reward the maintenance work, no matter how important it is (Exception: War-room firefighting. Google loves those, and loves heroic performances from people in war-rooms). In particular, if you're stuck doing SRE work but you're a SWE, you need to negotiate your way out of that. In any organization, there are work horses, show horses, and horses' asses. Most people have no trouble figuring out how not to be the 3rd. But it's far better to be a show horse than a work horse. You get all the rewards with less effort. It is rare that the Raymond Chens of the world get rewarded for the effort they put in. (Yes, and Microsoft at its best was smart enough to do so) Finally, if you get fed up of working for a big company, consider joining a startup. from: Piaw's Blog
So says Nielsen in a new report about what American do online. Title: “What Americans Do Online.” The key takeaway here is that social networks and online games take up about a third of our Web time. That’s up from last year, when the two categories combined to take up about 25 percent of our time. And that’s good news for Facebook and Farmville-maker Zynga, which dominate the two categories. It’s neutral news for Google (GOOG), since search’s share has stayed consistent at about 3.5 percent, and it’s bad news for Yahoo (YHOO) and AOL (AOL), since portal time has decreased by 19 percent. Here’s your data in chart form (click to enlarge): And in a groovy graphic: Interesting side note is that usage patterns change if you’re talking about Internet use on your phone. There, Nielsen says, you’re much more likely to spend time tapping out email: What accounts for the difference? Nielsen doesn’t hazard a guess, so I’ll make a couple:
One other data point to consider when considering the different data points: The data comes from different places. Nielsen’s PC-based Web stats come from both self-reported surveys and panel data, where a small group of users allow Nielsen to track their behavior. The mobile data only comes from self-reported surveys. So it may be that people would like us to think that they’re less likely to screw around on their phones than they really are. So be truthful–how much does your Web usage differ when you get on your phone? from: All Things Digital
FakeAPStylebook: there/their/they're - What, seriously? This confuses you?
Jailbreak the display iPhone 4. lol… Related iPhone News
from: The iPhone User Guide
In the last couple of weeks I've met with students at ISB, Great Lakes, ICFAI Business School Hyderabad and IIM Indore. And the one concern which unites students across one year and two year programs is the burden of the EMI.
The average ISB student will be paying an EMI of 25k over 7 years, an IIM student 25k over 5 years (going for the exchange program could jack that up by another 4-5k per month). So the concern students have is: "What will be my ROI?" The way in which a bschooler calculates ROI is very direct: compare what I spent on the course, with the placement salary at the time of exit. In case you have significant work experience, also factor in one year of 'lost income'. OK. By this method of calculation, the ROI - for a majority of students - will be negative. The published figure for average domestic salary at ISB last year is Rs 16.47 lakhs p.a. (CTC). The fees for this batch were approximately Rs 19 lakhs, while the average incoming salary was Rs 8 lakhs p.a. Do the math and you can see that there is much heartburn. Especially for the 50% of the batch which must - necessarily - bag a job lower than the 'average'. The same holds true for an ICFAI Business School graduates, where fees + living expenses for the course would works out to Rs 9-10 lakhs. The average placement salary would be in the range of Rs 5-6 lakhs. A large % of candidates are freshers or with 1-2 years of work ex so we can discount the income loss component. Now let us examine the case at IIM Indore. The average salary for the class of 2010 was Rs 10.29 lakhs. The cost of the 2 year course for this batch was approximately Rs 8 lakhs. Of course, 50% of the batch would have bagged jobs in the Rs 6-10 lakhs range but prima facie IIM seems to provide maximum chances of a high ROI. However. As they say with mutual fund investments, past performance may not be indicative of future returns. So students who are considering the MBA today - be warned. The class of 2010 at IIM Indore consisted of 175 students. That number went up to 235for the batch of 2011. The class of 2012 is a record 450 students. No doubt this will affect the average salary figure. (In fact the larger the batch, the more focus the institute puts on 'quantity' over quality). Moreover from this year, the cost of attending IIM Indore has also gone up to Rs 10 lakhs. Making the 'equation' far less favourable. I can bore you with several more examples but you get the drift. The origin of this entire mess go back to 2008, when the market was booming. It appeared that the MBA was a Golden Degree which, like the yellow metal, could only go up, up and up. Record placement salaries, record number of jobs - and a relatively low fee structure - made the MBA a most exciting qualification. The better the bschool brand, the more excitement, of course. At this stage two things happened: 1) In April 2008, IIM Ahmedabad more than doubled its fees (from Rs 4.3 lakhs to Rs 11.5 lakhs). Other IIMs followed. 2) At the same time, year on year, IIMs began admitting more students (seats increased btw 40-100%) Let me be honest, when IIMA first hiked its fee, I thought it was a good thing. The course was highly subsidised, there seemed to be no reason for taxpayers to underwrite the careers of bright students bagging excellent jobs. What's more, IIMs promised that no one would be denied a seat due to lack of funds. Education loans were made available to all and also merit scholarships, based on family income. But. The consequences of these actions were not limited to IIM students. In the world of finance the Reserve Bank of India signals changes in rates. Similarly, IIMs hiking their fees sent a clear signal to the entire bschool industry. Practically every bschool in India increased its fees by 50-100%. In a strange and convoluted way, the low fees charged by IIMs kept fees of all bschools low. Because no one - apart from ISB, with its own unique brand - dared to charge more than the market leader. To compound the problem, the market crashed. Jobs disappeared. The class of 2009 saw the worst of it - higher fees and lower placement salaries. The number of students appearing for CAT in 2009 also declined - for the first time in years. So, what does this all boil down to? MBA karna chahiye - ya nahin?? Well, I think the 'Gold Rush' era is over. If you are looking for quick and safe returns, you will be disappointed. I do think an MBA will add a lot of value to your career over the long term. By long term I mean a 10-15 year horizon. But you will begin to see the difference in as little as 3-5 years. Certain avenues in the corporate world do open up for you, if you have the right 'branding'. And if you are not from the best known schools you still have the chance to work your way up the ladder through performance and personality. 40 years of working life lie ahead of most of us, a one or two year program is an investment whose returns cannot and should not be calculated merely at the end of the course. And yes, demand and supply is the inexorable law of Nature. Bschools may well have to go back to smaller batches and lower fees - to make themselves more attractive. The other - and tougher way - is to provide such value addition that recruiters are happy to shell out more to snap up students. A scenario so implausible... the more practical method would be to hire Leonardo di Caprio. And let the 'Inception' team loose at one of those CXO Summits where delegates struggle to stay awake :) from: Verhext
Troy Holden brings our attention to this gem, How 2 Rep Suckafree, a chart that allows you to throw up your 'hood sign, and thus bask in OG glory. While it lacks proper hand signage for NOPA (what is this "Western Addition" of which you speak?), Presidio Terrace, SOMISSPO, or the LoRi (Lower Outer Rincon Hill is hardcore, yo), it's still something you will want to learn, live. Print it out and tape it to your cubicle wall. You are, after all, bad ass. Aside: We haven't a clue who dreamed up the cart. For credit's sake, if you or your BFF created it, do let us know. Thanks! Update: Chart by Generic.
from: SFist
The classic definition of a programmer actually rarely exists anymore. Being a programmer can be a difficult job trying to figure out why the code you have developed isn’t working and if everything is going good according to the specs then he’s feeling himself a happiest guy around. It’s not unusual for them to face dynamically new situations so often while performing their job. But they are use to with it. However excitement, enthusiasm, love, horror, frustration and other emotions are the vital part of their professional personality. Below is a cartoon sequence to find out how programmer reacts on different situations. Let’s enjoy and relate it with you if you gets these reactions too while programming.
Via Programmer’s life (cartoon) Brought To You By
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So, the new meme is, Futons good, box springs & TVs bad? from: Dvorak Uncensored
Shared by caldwell ![]() ![]() ![]() Michigan machinist GarE Maxton makes many different types of interlocking solid puzzles of this type, but this one, which he calls The Intimidator, is his masterpiece. Starting the disassembly process requires a special key. Once diassembled, about 20 of the pieces can be recombined to make a functioning single-shot pistol. Other parts of the puzzle separately and securely store "a customized set of tools, all necessary hardware, 45 caliber bullets, a standard sight, a laser sight, a cannister containing black powder pellets, a secure storage area for 209 shotgun primers, a spent primer removal tool and a ramrod for loading the bullets." Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!from: MAKE Magazine
EVER met someone who was rich for a really annoying reason? Someone who flipped his condos just before the sub-prime crash? A trader who made millions betting his employer's money in a bull market but is so stupid he thinks the London underground is a political movement? So much is down to dumb luck. For all those who feel hard done by, read this story from Michael Mauboussin, the strategist at Legg Mason and contemplate the unfairness of life.
from: Buttonwood's notebook
I don't want to give this away in this post, but see if you can suss out this problem:
When you give up, read my answer on O'Reilly Answers. from: Planet Perl
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