Wild -- a computer can create an copy of the image you're seeing with your eyes using only fMRI brain scan data. For now, it's only for directly viewed images, but what if it could work for recalled memories and images?
Thought crime might not be science fiction after all.
Saw this infographic in this month's Rolling Stone-- this is a really interesting breakdown of Ticketmaster and where the dollars actually go.
It seems as though it might just be really crap marketing on the part of Ticketmaster + Promoters + Venues. So even if Ticketmaster wasn't so dang greedy, its possible that the price of a ticket might only go down by less than 10%. In the case below, possibly as little as only $4.75 per $66 concert ticket. I still hate Ticketmaster with a passion, but the blame for rising ticket prices has to be shared with Live Nation promoters and venues too. But can you blame them that much? If record sales don't net anything anymore, we've got to pay more somehow. Green Day's got to eat.
Knowing Facebook, they must have AB tested this and found it to be massively effective. Lets show photos of the opposite gender, and tell you that they will miss you. *tears*
Hat tip Patrick Collison -- wow, what a great find. This is remarkable.
--Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft platforms, in 2006 on a private email thread with BillGI am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems [our] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn’t translate into great products.
I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft. ... Apple did not lose their way.
JimAll was the top guy on Windows back when I was at Microsoft. I had never heard this quote until now.
I can't help but wonder what was the true failure of Vista. Was it really lack of leadership? Or was it just pure numbers? Windows had at least a thousand engineers with commit access -- possibly more. OS X must have had still several hundred -- several times fewer.
Keep it lean and you can move faster. Be small, and do big things. That's what I learned the hard way in my time at Microsoft.
type-micah on flickr is helvetica-tizing tons of logos. i believe this means taking an existing logo and re-imagining it with helvetica.
actually posterous already uses helvetica (helvetica neue light) but this is pretty interesting! i'm digging the concept.
Sir James Dyson has unveiled a new motor. He's got 50 guys working on it in the UK. At first glance, vacuum technology seems like the least sexy thing in the world to be working on. Yet Dyson's team has created the fastest motor in the world, and all so that you can make your house or car cleaner.
I think this is a testament to how much there really is left to be done in the world. No, it's not easy. No shortcuts. But you can create anything, and if it's good, it will sell. The world desperately needs this kind of innovation. And it can happen in almost any market, sexy or not. The Dyson motor is a wakeup call and reminder to those who want to build great things: There is so much to build, and so much to make better.
What will you do?
NY Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan on Nov 10. Knowing the Taliban check Wikipedia to find out who they nabbed, friends of Rohde updated his wiki entry to show Rohde had written sympathetic articles in the past to help Muslims in their struggles in Bosnia and Guantanamo.
But then it turned into a cat-and-mouse game to keep the lid on the story. The Times feared that broad knowledge about this information could cause Rohde to become a bargaining chip and reduce his chances of surviving the kidnapping.
Two days later, with no major press on the issue, an anonymous user updated Rohde's wiki page to mention the kidnapping. While the article refuses to speculate -- one can't help but connect the dots.
Remarkable. We know that the Internet is widely used, now even by Taliban kidnappers. And not just to do research, but *possibly* to release information and gain advantage in an ongoing armed conflict.
Who was the Florida-based wiki editor who kept trying to update the page? Was it a well-meaning friend of the family that wasn't in on the secrecy? Or was it the Taliban themselves?
From How to Hack Your Brain, Part 1: Sleep by my friend Dustin, who's one of the best designers I know. And soon to be most famous design blogger.
You can take your firm handshakes and your courage and your lifelong calling to save the day using your fists. We're no longer charmed by the smug romancer who never second-guesses himself. Bush Jr. killed any remaining interest we might've had in a James Bond or a Han Solo or a Crash Davis.
This is the age of Obama. Give us your lanky thinkers, your flawed do-gooders, your hunchy neurotics yearning to breathe free. What we long for these days is a man of ideas, a man of compassion leavened by pragmatism, a well-intentioned fly swatter. We'll happily swap smooth-talking bravery for the worried, thoughtful ramblings of an honest chickenshit.
Maybe it's time for a change. I for one, welcome it.
Update: Foreign Policy Magazine is declaring the death of macho