The whole story is worth a read, including this particular paragraph:
Apple, which had been looking to get into shorter works in a digital format, decided to include e-books in a promotion that it does with Starbucks. It selected Mr. Bissinger’s digital sequel as a Pick of the Week, giving customers a code they could redeem online for the book. (Mr. Bissinger said he still received a royalty of $1.50 for each copy sold.)
Amazon interpreted the promotion as a price drop and lowered its price for “After Friday Night Lights” to exactly zero. Byliner withdrew the book from Amazon’s shelves, saying it did so to “protect our authors’ interest.”
Alot of people who love to read and love to write books will be dismayed by this and think: this can’t be happening. But it is, and it will get worse.
It’s hard to believe, but 45 Years Ago, An Enraged Boston Marathon Race Director Attacked A Female Runner because women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon. It wasn’t until a few years later did events allow and encourage women, and Switzer eventually won the 1974 New York City Marathon in 3 hours, 7 minutes. Now of course, women are great marathon competitors and women fill the ranks of any marathon event.
This great photo sequence is the race director trying to remove Switzer from the race, only to have Switzer’s boyfriend knock him away!
Turns out, there was one—and only one—characteristic that distinguished the happiest 10 percent from everybody else: the strength of their social relationships.
In other words, you need friends! This is not surprising, of course, but it is nice to see the data. Go read the article for more on this.
In the wonderful children’s book series, Poppleton, there is a story about how the main character wants to live to be a 100. He learns from a wise old mouse that the secret to a long life is friends. Looks like it is the secret to happiness too. After all, the two go hand in hand.
I thought wall decals had come and gone, but after seeing the ones at Blik, I want more walls in my house just to have the chance to use some of the great ones that they have, like Asteroids!
I have nothing against either women, though I prefer Mae West because she had a great sense of humour. If you love Madonna, click on the link for a video of the Material Girl.
What is #sundayART? It’s a weekly challenge designed to get you producing art work that you can share with others!
How does it work? It’s simple: every Sunday, starting on April 1st, 2012, check the Sunday Art calendar here on this Tumblr and then produce a doodle, a quick sketch, a photoshopped image, a painting, a sculpture, or what ever you are best / happiest making. Then share it using your favourite social media (Twitter, Instragram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) and tag it with #sundayArt.
Who can do this? Anyone. Of any skill. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how good you are, or what media you like to work with.
Why are you doing this? We were talking about how we wished we were doing more creatively. We also talked about how much we enjoy working on the photo of the day challenge on Instagram. So we decided: why not come up with a similar approach for art work? It would give us an incentive to sit down and create something. The result is #sundayART.
How can i learn more? Go to this link: #sundayArt or ping us on Twitter!
Taking aspirin every day may significantly reduce the risk of many cancers and prevent tumors from spreading, according to two new studies published on Tuesday.
But before you rush out and buy a big bottle, you should note that:
Drawbacks of daily doses of aspirin include a risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.
The Times goes on to say that:
The findings add to a body of evidence suggesting that cheap and widely available aspirin may be a powerful if overlooked weapon in the battle against cancer. But the research also poses difficult questions for doctors and public health officials, as regular doses of aspirin can cause gastrointestinal bleeding and other side effects. Past studies have suggested that the drawbacks of daily use may outweigh the benefits, particularly in healthy patients.
What should you do? First: read the article and then the studies. Then talk to you doctor. You should always talk to your doctor before embarking on any medical treatment, even one that takes something as common as ASA.
According to ABC News, pink slime or BLBT (Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings) or finely textured lean beef, “is more like gelatin than meat” and something that was sold “only to dog food or cooking oil suppliers” until they “found a way to use it by disinfecting the trimmings with ammonia”.
The low-grade trimmings come from the parts of the cow most susceptible to contaminaton, often close to the hide, which is highly exposed to fecal matter. But because of BPI’s treatment of the trimmings — simmering them in low heat, separating fat and tissue using a centrifuge and spraying them with ammonia gas to kill germs — the United States Department of Agriculture says it’s safe to eat.
It’s worthwhile reading the article, especially if you want to avoid purchasing such a product, since it is not easy to recognize it. If you want to be safe, then “If your meat is stamped USDA Organic, it’s pure meat with no filler”.
I must admit, I do some of these Don’t now. For example, I also think adding wasabi in your soy sauce is preferable if you want a bit of the power of wasabi, but not alot. Otherwise, these are good to know.
You can reply to this message by visiting your inbox.
Looks pretty official.
Why do I think it is phishing? For one thing, I haven’t submitted any YouTube videos. For another, when I rolled my mouse over the hyperlinks, some of them point to http://67.199.66.27/books.html. Hyperlinks not related to the company sending you the email or hyperlinks not associated with the topic of the email are a strong indication of phishing.
So remember: if you get an unexpected email like this, check the links before you click on them. If you want to be conservative, delete the email and contact the site via the site itself.
One of the most important technologies of the 21st century will be robots. Right now they are primitive, but they are improving all the time. Oddly, no one is paying them much attention. (Maybe if Apple starts making them, this will change.)
6. Most military drones don’t bomb. Although decapitation strikes may get all the headlines, the vast majority of the time, drones are used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
That surprised me, because whenever I hear of drones in the news, it tends to be around drone attacks. I also thought drones were low cost, but
7. Attack drones require more boots on the ground. Most unmanned aircraft flown by the U.S. military require not just a ground-based “pilot,” but also a platoon of surveillance analysts (approximately 19 per drone), sensor operators, and a maintenance crew. Some 168 people are required to keep a Predator drone aloft — and 180 for its larger cousin, the Reaper — compared with roughly 100 people for an F-16 fighter jet.
I expect more and more drones to be used because the cost will come down. But this surprised me too.
The whole article is good and worthwhile if you only have a vague sense of what people are doing with drones.
Meanwhile the folks at Boston Dynamics have released this video:
You might think: 18 mph…that’s not fast! Note the current fastest man alive is Usain Bolt and he can run 23 mph for 100 meters. In other words, this thing could catch almost anyone in 10 seconds or less. What it will do to you when it catches you? I don’t want to think about it. Nor do I want to imagine a herd of these things on the battlefield.
That said, how would they do in this environment?
Not so good. Like I said before, the rise of the machines on the battlefield will change the way we go to war. In the meantime, it is looking like a Terminator movie more and more every day.
(hat tip to Kottke for the Cheetah video. The photo is from the Battle of Stalingrad, which was hell for anything: man, woman, or machine.)
If you are not an owner of the latest technology from Apple, you may have heard of “retina display” and wondered what does the term mean. In the iPhone 4 page in Wikipedia, there is a good definition of the term: (the bold highlighting was added by me):
The display of the iPhone 4 is manufactured by LG under an exclusive contract with Apple. It features an LED backlitTFT LCDcapacitivetouchscreen with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi) on a 3.5 in (8.9 cm) (diagonally measured), 960×640 display. Each pixel is 78 micrometres in width. The display has a contrast ratio of 800:1. The screen is marketed by Apple as the “Retina Display”, based on the assertion that a display of approximately 300 ppi at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm) from one’s eye, or 57 arcseconds per pixel[42] is the maximum amount of detail that the human retina can perceive.[43] With the iPhone expected to be used at a distance of about 12 inches from the eyes, a higher resolution would allegedly have no effect on the image’s apparent quality as the maximum potential of the human eye has already been met.
Interesting, the claim was disputed by
Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies (who) said in an interview with Wired magazine, that the claims by Jobs are something of an exaggeration: “It is reasonably close to being a perfect display, but Steve pushed it a little too far.” Soneira stated that the resolution of the human retina is higher than claimed by Apple, working out to 477 ppi at 12 inches (305 mm) from the eyes, or 36 arcseconds per pixel.[44]
But as you can see, for all intents and purposes, the iPhone 4 (and likely later Apple technology) meets this standard:
However, Phil Plait, author of Bad Astronomy, whose career includes a collaboration with NASA regarding the camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, responded to the criticism by stating that “if you have [better than 20/20] eyesight, then at one foot away the iPhone 4’s pixels are resolved. The picture will look pixellated. If you have average eyesight, the picture will look just fine.”[45][46]
In a nutshell, if a display is such that you cannot see the pixels, then it is a retina display.
I expect that retina display will come to bigger and bigger screens as the technology advances. First the iPhone, then the iPad and other tablets, to…well as big as displays can get.
As more people access the Internet using social technology, they start to feel like the Internet is their home. And for some people, it is their home, just like for some people, New York City is their home or Paris is their home. For New Yorkers and Parisians, they know the city well, the good and the bad, and they are comfortable with all that.
What I am seeing more of as people using and complaining about social techology like Twitter and Facebook is that they are akin to a 19th century farmer visiting a 20th century city with friends. At first it seems familiar enough when they are on the train with people they know, heading from the country to the city. But the more they look around, the more they realize things are not familar to them at all, and alot of it is overwhelming and scary. There are automobiles and big screen TVs and other things that seem fantastic to them Furthermore, there are parts of the city — this is true of any time — that are dangerous, and people in the city that are threatening.
The Internet is like that too. It may seem familar to you, but there is alot you don’t know about. There are bots and trolls and web sites that are dangerous or annoying. There are ways people in the city interact that are different than how you interact or expect people to interact.
Your first response might be: things things should work the way they do in the country, or in this case, IRL (in real life). But they don’t, and they won’t. You can either avoid the Internet (something that will be less and less possible to do), or you can adopt to it. You need to realize that just because it may seem like real life at times, it isn’t. You need to learn about things like phishing and how to recognize spambots and how to deal with privacy settings and more. It may seem like a big cost, but it is the price of reaping the benefits of being in the big city. You won’t get the know all of this right away, just like you don’t get to know all of a city the first time you visit it. But you need to know enough to make your visit safe and enjoyable and worth your while.
It’s certainly true that Android is popular and a good product. But what I want to look at is the axis of the chart: millions of units sold over X number of quarters. What I think we will continue to see is that more and more charts of new technology are going to look like this. We will continue to see products adopted or purchased by consumers at faster and faster rates.
There’s a number of reasons for this. For one thing, people are more comfortable with adopting new technology than they were a decade or more ago. Two, the technology is easier to adopt. Three, new technology is increasingly social and therefore the chances of you hearing about it and signing up for or buying it is greater. Four: there are more and more companies developing new technologies like this. And five: there is infrastructure (phone companies, the Apple App Store, etc.) that supports this adoption.
The days of slow adoption rates is over. The future is coming at us at a faster and faster pace. Soon, if not already, it will come at us exponentially, and we will need technology to help us adopt new technology. The technology will change so fast, we won’t even realize it. That’s the way the future will be. That’s the way it is now: most people just aren’t aware of it. Soon, everyone will be aware of it.
Zellers is coming to a close (see: Zellers | Liquidation). For those of you that don’t know,
The company was founded in 1931 by Walter P. Zeller as “stores for thrifty Canadians”. The chain began with the purchase of the fourteen Canadian locations of American retailer Schulte-United, all of which were in Southern Ontario. Almost immediately, Zellers initiated an aggressive expansion strategy. Within 25 years, Zellers operated sixty stores and employed 3,000 people. In 1952, in a move to expand into Atlantic Canada, it acquired the Federal Stores chain of variety stores, adding more than 12 new Zellers locations.
It’s gone through alot of changes and owners over the years, and with the latest change, all of the Zellers will be gone and replaced with Target.
What I find interesting in the various videos on robots that I see is the presentation of them as positive. Perhaps it is just my cultural history, but I see them as something to worry about. Time will tell whether or not I am correct.
Testing people for ethics based on class might seem like a challenge, but the researchers for the science journal paper devised a series of ingenious tests to investigate behaviours.
There were two tests that were mentioned. this one…
In one case, they monitored a busy SanFrancisco four-way stop, and had observers hidden from sight check which drivers obeyed the law stipulating that vehicles approaching the intersection yield to a car already making the crossing. The observers tracked the make, age, and conditions of cars, using them as a proxy for class. High-status vehicles such as Mercedes were considered the provenance of the rich, and those driving them were about three times more likely to cut in than those in less flashy cars.
…is something I have experienced myself! I find the people that drive most aggressively in my neighborhood are BMW drivers. The more I thought of it, the more I concluded that people who are most likely to drive in this aggressive way are the type of people trying to get ahead. They are in a rush, overworked, and frankly likely to be pushy as a way of getting what they want.They are also the same type of people drawn to BMW because of how it is a status symbol. What I have noted is that I see this behavoir mostly in BMW drivers who drive the lower 3 class. I also see wealthy people that drive the high end 7 series and even 5 series in my area and I noted that they don’t drive as aggressively. I attributed this to them already having arrived. I think a study just of drivers of high end cars would be fascinating.
Car ownership aside, I found this test also very interesting.
In one test involving throws of an electronic dice, the researchers rigged computers to allow only low scores. Participants were told that those getting higher scores would have more chances to win $50 cash. They then tracked who lied about the results, and found that people in a higher social class displayed higher levels of cheating and more positive attitudes toward greed.
Again, I would like to see further tests and see if the very wealthy are different from the nouvelle riche. I would suspect they are. I suspect the rich people that are secure with their wealth would behave differently than the wealthy that have just achieved it or are striving to achieve it.
This brilliant essay, by Stephen Marche in The Walrus, That Time We Beat the Americans, is not just a superb review of the War of 1812. It also establishes just how important that war was and why we don’t give it more attention. It is the best type of historical writing – clear, concise, insightful, approachable. Please take a moment to read it. I highly recommend it.
If you live in a rural setting or a suburban setting, this changes alot. Now you can build fences or surround yourself with land in order to maintain privacy and keep people away. With drones you will no longer be able to do this, short of building a massive tent over you. Regardless of how high they are, they will be able to video you with a high degree of accuracy, and for the short term, you won’t be able to do anything about it. Eventually drone users will abuse them and they will be dragged to court and boundaries will be set down, but this will take time.
Ironically, it will be better if you live in the city. It will be harder for drones to navigate in the city, and buildings will block them from flying and photographing. As well, if you live in the city and around tall buildings, you have more of an awareness that people can spy on you and govern yourself accordingly. I expect city dwellers to suffer less from intrusive drones.
We live in interesting times, and all new technology changes the way we live in some way. Drones will do that in a significant way.
Thanks to Doug Saunders for highlighting this article (@dougsaunders on Twitter).
Over the next few months, quite a number of Cineplex theatres across Canada will be showing Family Favourites on Saturday mornings at 11 a.m. If you are looking for your kids to see some classics, this is a good opportunity to do it on the big screen.
I think this is more about them than a genuine protest. All it will do if it does work is show their might: I can’t see how it will effect meaningful change of any kind.
Will it work? It depends on how many recruits they get (real or virtual). I suspect they will disrupt some of the root servers, but I think the root server clusters will be able to handle it overall.
Other than the lulz, I don’t see this working out well for Anonymous. The perception of them may shift from We-Take-On-The-Big-Bad-Organizations to We-Are-Reckless-Vandals. They already took a hit when they backed off from taking on Mexican crime lords. This may result in them taking a further hit. But I am hedging here, obviously….we shall see the result soon enough.
I used to wonder why Paul McCartney still made music. He doesn’t need to money or the fame. His new music is no longer influential. So why?
From watching him at this year’s Grammys, I concluded he simply does it because he loves to make music. He seemed to be having a great time here:
A love of music would explain his new album, Kisses on the Bottom. You really need to read this article by Will Friedwald in the WSJ.com, to see why I think that. (The article is excellent.) It’s easy to be cynical about such an album, and think that it might be a waste of time, but Friedwald convinced me to think otherwise. As he says:
From bottom to top, “Kisses on the Bottom” is a much more classy and heartfelt effort than all the other rockers-go-standards projects (a genre partially launched, coincidentally, by fellow Beatle Ringo Starr’s 1970 “Sentimental Journey”); it will probably be the only one that, in future years, I’ll listen to anywhere near as often as the classic recordings of Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra.
It seems like something that Eliot liked, not only for what it provided him, but for what he was doing. And while Ezra Pound and others worried about how it affected his writing, I believe Eliot did well with this job: it may have even helped him instead of harmed him when it came to writing.
To see how this might affect the world, it’s worthwhile to look back to the 14th century and how it was changed by the Black Death (Wikipedia). Vast amounts of the world population was lost in this century, with estimates up to half the population perishing from the disease. This had a profound affect on the world, as touched on in this column: How the Black Death Changed the World | LiveScience. I expect the same thing is going to happen in the 21st century (something already visible).
I also expect other changes, like a decline in global warming, more democracy and economic equality, an even greater focus on geriatrics, and a greater appreciation and support for children and families. A population that is declining and aging will drive all this.
This is older, but still valid. The Globe did a series on people getting ready to run a 10K and the ran a number of articles on the people, the races, and other things that should motivate you to get out there, regardless of your background. Go here for more details: 10 weeks to 10K: Meet the runners – The Globe and Mail
This article has been going around recently (Top five regrets of the dying | Life and style | guardian.co.uk) for good reason. It is well written and insightful. I highly recommend it. But what I recommend even more is that you flip around the top five regrets and make them something you resolve to start doing now.
If those are the top give regrets, you should resolve to:
1. Have the courage to live a life true to ourselves, not the life others expected of us.
2. Stop working so hard.
3. Have the courage to express our feelings.
4. Stay in touch with our friends.
5. Let ourselves be happier.
This article has been going around recently (Top five regrets of the dying | Life and style | guardian.co.uk) for good reason. It is well written and insightful. I highly recommend it. But what I recommend even more is that you flip around the top five regrets and make them something you resolve to start doing now.
If those are the top give regrets, you should resolve to:
1. Have the courage to live a life true to ourselves, not the life others expected of us.
2. Stop working so hard.
3. Have the courage to express our feelings.
4. Stay in touch with our friends.
5. Let ourselves be happier.
It’s not that being 74 causing the muscles to decline: the 74 year old triathelete has the same body composition of the 40 year old triathelete. Furthermore, if the the 40 year old triathelete was to be incapacitated for a long period of time, they would start to resemble the 74 year old non-athlete.
This is not to say that our bodies don’t suffer wear and tear as we get older. But we have more control over the aging process than we may think. So get out there and exercise, regardless of how old you are. Just do it. 🙂
I wanted to make backup copies of some family photo DVDs and I found this tool, ISO Recorder v3, very effective. As it says here, “ISO Recorder for Windows Vista/Windows 7 supports CD, DVD and Blu Ray operations. Blu Ray on Windows Vista requires SP2”. You just right click on the diskand select an option. I made an ISO file first because I wanted to make multiple copies and that was the easiest. Then I right clicked on the ISO file and copied it to a blank disk. Worked like a charm.
There may be more feature rich tools out there, but for simple copying, I like this.
And if you read this excellent article, Technological change: The last Kodak moment? | The Economist, you can see how each company dealt with the coming tidal wave of digital cameras. Through a combination of smarts and hard work and some luck, Fuji has managed to do well for itself. Sadly that is not the case for Kodak.
It’s this: every day take a photo using Instagram, tag it with #photoadaychallenge, and share it with others. In addition, the photo should be based on the list below (e.g day 1 and 31 should be a photo of you). Sounds like fun!
Smart People I Know 
If those are the top give regrets, you should resolve to:
1. Have the courage to live a life true to ourselves, not the life others expected of us.
2. Stop working so hard.
3. Have the courage to express our feelings.
4. Stay in touch with our friends.
5. Let ourselves be happier.
(Via swissmiss).