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Here’s a story that mentions that Slashdot commenter that outsourced his job. “About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He’s happy to have the work. I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I’m telecommuting. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”
Each agent will be capable of various simple tasks, like moving around and building simple structures, but will also have the ability to communicate and cooperate with its cohabitants. Though simple interaction, the researchers hope to watch these characters create their very own society from scratch.
Harry Potter and Willy Wonka are going head to head this weekend. Something tells me that Harry’s gonna win.
Personal outsourcing is becoming more commonplace. Reminds me of the guy on Slashdot who outsourced his work-at-home job to an Indian programmer.
40 things that only happen in the movies. “All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her.”
Creating styled checkboxes and radio buttons with CSS and JavaScript.
Coke is using 500,000 liters of water/day in India despite water shortages. Coke is threatening to sue a photographer who put up a billboard critical of that water usage.
The CollegeHumor guys get a movie deal with Paramount. Casting ideas? Freddie Prinze Jr. as Zach Klein, Jake Gyllenhaal as Ricky Van Veen?
Long article from Fortune on the 10th anniversary of Netscape’s IPO. Features interviews with several of the key players.
PBS will be offering an online-only show called NerdTV starting this fall. The series will feature “PBS technology columnist and industry insider Robert X. Cringely’s interviews with personalities from the ever-changing world of technology”.
More than 100 quick and easy healthy foods. “An excellent list of healthy foods which need less than 30 minutes of preparation and cooking times”.
Misleading article on how to look like a Unix guru. I thought this was going to contain advice on maintaining a long, gray beard and such.
A few months ago, Parade Magazine ran an article by Norman Mailer in which he answered the question: if you could do one thing to change America for the better, what would it be? His answer: ban television commericials because the constant interruptions by TV ads were interfereing with our children’s ability to concentrate and thus to read and succeed in school and in the world.
I’m not sure Mailer chose the best problem to focus on here (if the “constant interruption” thing is even an issue…look at how long kids stay glued to the television), but I believe he’s on the right track in focusing on education. In choosing an answer to this question that would make the most impact, it seems prudent to focus on answers that satisfy two requirements:
1. Get ‘em early. Kids are the most malleable members of a society and much significant change starts with the younger generations. Anything that impacts education will likely have a large eventual effect.
2. Choose a course of action with significant emergent behavior and a positive feedback cycle…basically a cascade effect. Find the best place to punch a tiny hole in the dam so the whole thing eventually bursts.
Nothing I have come up with so far satisfies those criteria and you’re collectively supposed to be much smarter than I am, so I’m asking you: if you could do one thing to change America for the better, what would it be (and why)?
Summer reading list from Edge. I think I would have rather seen a list of recommendations from Edge members rather than their books. Gee, Dawkins writing on evolution? Didn’t see that coming…
Television documentaries are slow, repetetive, and information-poor. The Brian Greene series on string theory had the same problem.
Good review (with photos) of Thomas Keller’s Per Se.
Charley Rosen’s picks for all-time best NBA shooting guards. Not surprisingly, Jordan tops the list.
Table of contents for The Complete Norton Anthology of Emily Dickinson, Post-Zoloft Prescription. Includes “Oh, the ice cubes are melting” and “Today’s a good day for stuff”.
Space Shuttle launch scrubbed because of faulty fuel sensor.
First Pullover is a new blog about footwear design and development. The editor works as a product manager for Hummel, a Danish shoe company.
To read: How to writ more clearly think moor clearly and learn complex stuff more easier and stuff. Yeah need that.
Is Not Magazine is a, um, magazine that is published as a poster in Melbourne.
Video Games Live is presenting a series of concerts featuring music from video games. Last week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic played in front of around 10,000 people.
The World Series of Poker……….Robots. Robots make anything cooler.
The Space Shuttle is set to return to space today. Looks like you can watch a live video stream of the launch onthe web.
Advice on paying the check at the end of the meal from Waiter Rant.
Greg Allen keeps winning free Diet Coke but is having trouble redeeming the prizes. “Coke put me in this situation where I feel like a wronged, government-cheese-stealing welfare queen, whose resentment builds with the fresh taunt of each unredeemable winning lid I find”.
British security officials now believe the London bombers were British-born.
Ephermeral cities (SF, Paris, Berlin, NYC) provide alternative lifestyles to “nonfamilies and the nomadic rich”. “To retain an important role in the future, a city needs upwardly mobile people whose families and businesses identify them with a place. A great city is more about clean and workable neighborhoods, thriving business districts, and functioning schools than massive cultural buildings or hipster lofts.”
Makers of the PulpFiction newsreader for OS X sold to illumineX. Congrats to Erik and the team…sounds like a much needed rest.
Male and female fire ants maintain their own independent gene pools. “The sperm of the male ant appears to be able to destroy the female DNA within a fertilized egg, giving birth to a male that is a clone of its father. Meanwhile the female queens make clones of themselves to carry on the royal female line.”
Comparison of Costco’s labor practices with those of Wal-Mart. “While Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.68 an hour, the average hourly wage of employees of [Costco] is $16.”
Companies are using mapping and demographics tools and software to more efficiently site their stores. “Retailers take the annual sales of a store, then zero in on the surrounding area. The numbers can be crunched down to the spending habits of seperate groups in the same block, providing insight into what appeals to different ages, ethnic, and gender groups.”
Is anyone in Hollywood making movies we’ll actually watch in 50 years?. And who are the actors and actresses doing so?
For reasons which are kind of interesting in a weird way (but won’t get into right now[1]), I’ve changed the movie ratings around these parts from a 100-point scale to a 5-star scale.
And as long as we’re talking movies, I’ve gotten several emails over the past few months to the effect of: “you moron, how can you possibly justify giving the same rating to Casablanca as you gave to Barbershop?” The answer is that I’m not a movie critic (my review of Me and You and Everyone We Know didn’t even have anything to do with the actual movie) and my ratings are almost entirely subjective, except when they’re somewhat more objective. The subjective/objective ratio depends on the movie and my mood and which star is in the house of which planet and/or Greek god and hence is not to be trusted at all, unless you’re a regular reader of my “reviews” and have gotten a sense over many months just what makes me like or dislike particular movies. Also, it’s just a stupid rating. You know, for fun. Relax.
[1] Ever wondered why movie ratings assigned by critics are usually on 4 or 5-point scales and not on, say, 100-point scales? Yeah, me neither. But after using the 100-point scale for over a year, I may have discovered part of the reason. 100 is just way too many points[2]. How can there be any tangible difference between a 75 movie and a 76 movie? And when you start looking the whole list of ~220 movies ordered by rank on a 100-point scale, it gets even worse…why are the 15 movies rated 91 better than the 8 movies rated 90? From the standpoint of the rater, thinking about those one or two point differences is a big waste of energy (it gets worse with time as you try to “fit” a particular movie into the ever-lengthening ranked list) and it just confuses the reader anyway.
Also, the stars look nicer[3].
[2] Aggregated ratings (a la Metacritic) are an exception.
[3] I got the star from Zapf Dingbats (the capital H character at 16px). Astute readers will notice the similarity with the iTunes song rating stars, which is not altogether unintentional.
Profile of filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. Winterbottom directed the excellent 24 Hour Party People and the upcoming 9 Songs.
Impressive demonstration of Ruby on Rails. “How to build a blog engine in 15 minutes with Ruby on Rails”.
Icelandic band Sigur Ros has a Flickr account that they’re updating while on tour.
Have you ever wondered how actors seem to play the piano so well in movies?.
Apple announces the Harper’s Special Edition iPod. “Number of media legends who came together to create this exciting new Apple product: 2. Chance that literary-minded American consumers will find this new iPod impossible to resist: 1 in 1.”
Paul’s really personal Google News. “Paul comes late to work, again”.
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