News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Forget those expensive space tourism trips to the International Space Station! A Russian company named Orbital Technologies is planning to have a space hotel in orbit by 2016. A five-night stay will cost $1 million.
Link: http://www.smh.com.au/…
(via Bureau 42)
The creation of Unix at Bell Labs was a revolutionary moment in the history of computing. It has shaped the future of the field, and set in place foundational elements of the modern open source movement. The linked article describes how the Unix revolution was dictated, in part, by a 1956 anti-trust consent decree between AT&T and the US government. Who would have thought that such a small footnote in history could have a significant impact today, over 50 years later?
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
The author of the linked article argues that most tablet manufacturers are making a mistake by trying to cram as many high-tech hardware features as possible into their tablet computers. He contends that, aside from a small number of gadget-loving technophiles, users don’t care about those features. He then goes on to say that Apple and Amazon have the right idea, which is to create a solid base of services that integrate with the tablet, and that this infrastructure is what’s making their tablets successful. His argument makes sense to me, and if he’s right, I think we can see a shakeout in the industry within two or three years.
Samuel Kioskli, a man who worked for an ATM servicing company, was arrested on charges of stealing $200,000 from the ATMs his company managed. What qualifies this for the coveted Chad’s News “stupid criminals” status is that (1) he allegedly replaced the stolen money with photocopied forgeries, thus quickly bringing attention to the crime as angry customers called the bank, and (2) he was under video surveillance at the time.
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/…
(via Slashdot)
In the linked article, Kim Komando gives several good reasons for not sharing your wireless internet connection with neighbors. An important one being that if the neighbor does anything illegal, the police arrest you and confiscate your computer equipment. (On the other hand, if you’re the one doing illegal stuff over the internet, I’ve actually heard people suggest that it’s a good idea to leave your wireless router unsecured—so there’s reasonable doubt concerning who performed the crime.)
Link: http://www.komando.com/…
The linked article has 10 stupid computer user stories, told by a computer support person. Many of them are too old to be relevant in today’s computer-savvy world, but my favorite is “The janitor’s closet”.
The linked article gives a (slightly) technical history of the Ethernet protocol, which these days is almost ubiquitous for wired LANs. It also explains how Ethernet works compared to other networking strategies. Somehow, fast transfer speeds arise out of seemingly total chaos. If you’re technically inclined, I think you’ll enjoy reading this article.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Cephalopods (squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish) are very, very good at camouflaging themselves—it’s their primary method of protection from predators. But just how good is shown in the linked video, where an octopus is hiding. The word “unbelievable” is appropriate.
Thanks to Josh for this link.
Some time ago, I had a computer program that would occasionally glitch and set its location to be somewhere off the screen. The program would run fine and would show up on the taskbar, but I couldn’t access it with my mouse because it was outside the visible area of the Windows desktop. Eventually I discovered the technique described in the linked article. This is a command that’s been around for a long time but isn’t obvious to the casual user, especially the part about using the arrow keys to perform the movement.
One of the problems with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar is their intermittent nature. Sometimes the wind is blowing and sometimes it isn’t. And the sun goes down every night. This is one of the reasons why fossil fuel plants are still a mainstay for any major power utility.
This problem has led to a quest for ways to store energy such that an alternative fuel power plant can supply energy on demand. One such method uses compressed air, while another has large batteries. More recently, a company named SolarReserve has received a $737 million loan guarantee from the US government for the construction of a round-the-clock solar power plant in Nevada—a plant that uses molten salt to store energy accumulated during daylight hours.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/…
(via Slashdot)
There’s just something magical about buying a product for 99¢. And in the digital world, where the cost of producing another copy is essentially zero, you can make serious money from a quality item that’s priced at 99¢. Steve Jobs figured this out, and it’s part of what made the iTunes Store so popular. Later, when the music labels wanted to raise the price slightly on newer songs, he fought them tooth and nail, saying that even a small price increase would ruin things. The labels won that battle, but that doesn’t have to be the case with self-published books on Amazon. The profit on a 99¢ book is 35¢, and it really adds up if you sell a few hundred thousand copies. The linked article is a bit old, but it reinforces the benefits of this sales model where you sell many, many digital copies of an item for a low price. The author of the article, for instance, saw his sales of The List go up by a factor of 20 (to 800 per day) when he dropped the price from $2.99 to 99¢. (I do find it funny, however, that the price is now back to $2.99.)
Link: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/…
(via Slashdot)
It’s a common belief: if you raise prices then income will also increase. But this isn’t always true. Earlier this year, Netflix, the DVD and streaming movie provider known for it’s affordable prices, made some changes to its pricing structure. They lost 800,000 customers as a result. Their stock price plunged, and they may be in the red for most of the next year.
