I love when people send something they made themselves to the edge of space. LEGO guy holding Canadian flags is no exception. Very cool.
LEGO In Space
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Microwaves = Fun
Awesome little video of various things exploding in a microwave. I’ve always wanted to try the Ivory Soap one. Ivory allegedly has little air bubbles, which when in the microwave heat up causing the moisture to turn to gas. That causes it to expand and appear like a foam.
Ferris Bueller Super Bowl 2012
Jim Henson Robot for Bell System (Now AT&T)
This was made by Jim Henson for Bell System in 1963. The video notes:
It also may be the same robot that appeared on the Mike Douglas Show in 1966. Henson created a different — but similar — robot for the SKF Industries pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair.
So essentially Elmo’s great grandfather is this Steampunk robot.
Web App Stores Via Twittter/Facebook
It seems likely to me that Facebook and Twitter will eventually be competing with Apple in terms of App stores. Facebook sort of already is with their extensive apps platform, however that’s just competing for developer attention. Twitter doesn’t really have an equivalent today (developers mainly build clients and interact with data), but don’t underestimate their clout.
The reason I say this is that Facebook and Twitter have become identity gatekeepers on the net. Already you can login to many sites via accounts with one of the two sites. Creating the API’s to handle purchase/subscriptions and transparently handling the billing to effectively turning a HTML5 site into an “app” is the next logical step. They could undercut Apple and still walk away with a handsome profit for not doing terribly much more than leveraging their size and reach. These apps would work on any device with a web browser. Desktop or mobile.
Given both sites need to diversify revenue streams (something Google never figured out), it seems only logical to make this step. $0.99 for Angry Birds seems more than plausible.
And yes, there are offline abilities in a browser.
Google Wants To Make TCP Faster
Google has been pushing SPDY for a little while now, and so far I haven’t really seen a good argument against SPDY. Firefox 11 will ship with it, though disabled by default until the bugs are worked out. Now Google is turning its eyes towards TCP. Very logical.
While there are a variety of proposals to speed up TCP floating around, I wonder if Google would be better off just buying FastSoft for Fast TCP and pulling a VP8 style opening up. The reason being that it’s already in use on the web, Google could capitalize on that overnight. There are several TCP congestion algorithms out there, however Fast TCP seems to have the most established customer base, including CDN Limelight who uses it to upload to them.
Warren Buffett Playing The Ukulele
Warren Buffett playing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” on a Ukulele for CCTV. Of course he actually owns BNSF Railway, so “working on” is a little bit of an understatement.
Big Mac Index Infographic
Online MBA has a great infographic about The Big Mac Index. It’s interesting how such a popular menu item can tell so much about the world economy.
Click on the image to get a full one mirrored here, the original can be found here.
Apple’s Overseas Manufacturing
Apple’s logistics and manufacturing is extremely complicated, secretive and critical. The NY Times has a great story on it and how it is a great example of jobs leaving the US:
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
There’s lots more, go read it.
How Read Only Programming Languages Are Born
One day a man was writing an email when he left the room to get something to drink. In his absence, his cat walked over the keyboard and among the myriad of characters entered into the body managed to send the email off. The man returned and soon realized what had transpired. Wondering what the recipient might think receiving such a random unsolicited email, he decided to pass it off as a new programming language. He named it after his cat – Perl.