News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Long-time Chad’s News readers will recall how Kyle MacDonald made a series of trades to go from a single red paperclip to a house. Well now, a teenager named Steven Ortiz started with an old cell phone and made deals on craigslist to trade up to a working Porsche Boxster. Admittedly, it took him 14 swaps over two years, but that’s still pretty impressive.
Link: http://www.whittierdailynews.com/…
(via Neatorama)
I’ve heard that you should never strike a deal to get part of the net proceeds of a movie because most films never make a profit (always ask for a percentage of the gross). Now I finally understand why that’s the case. The linked article explains how Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix grossed $938 million yet still had a $167 million “loss”.
Link: http://www.techdirt.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Several national governments are taking exception to the high level of security provided to Blackberry users. These governments want to be able to intercept and read messages from their citizens, but the Blackberry security protocols are just too good. And the manufacturer, Research In Motion (RIM), isn’t willing to degrade the security. As a result, the United Arab Emirates has decided to suspend several Blackberry services within its borders, and other countries are considering following suit, including India and Lebanon. An imminent shutoff in Saudi Arabia was averted only after RIM agreed to set up a local server in that country.
All I can say is that I’m grateful the founders of our country insisted on the First Amendment.
Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…
Link #2: http://dailycaller.com/…
Update #1: Looks like everything’s going to be okay after all.
Update #2: RIM has come to an agreement with India, where they hand over the encryption keys and an infrastructure was created to intercept Blackberry messages.
If you have an older iPhone 3G and have found that it slows to a crawl under the latest iOS 4, there is a solution: downgrade to iOS 3.1.3. Note that this method only works for the iPhone 3G and not the 3GS—but there’s an entire forum dedicated to downgrading the 3GS, so perhaps it’s possible.
Thanks to Josh for this link.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
Just ran into this neat little nugget. Machinarium is a puzzle game with great artwork. I think of it as Myst lite. Because of rampant piracy, they’re holding an “amnesty” sale where you can purchase the download version of the game for only $5.00 (discounted from $20). The sale ends on August 12th. The website has a demo of the first three levels, so you can see what it’s like. They also have some wallpaper images available for download. Runs on PCs with Windows or 32-bit Linux, and Macintosh computers.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Have an old record collection that you’re afraid to play because they wear down over time? This article gives step-by-step instructions on how to inexpensively create playable copies of your records. That way you can keep the master copies safe and pristine but still play the music all you want.
Link: http://mikesenese.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
Users of Google services such as Gmail, Reader, and Voice can now sign in to multiple accounts at the same time and via the same browser window. This is especially useful for those who have more than one gmail account. Unfortunately you’re currently limited to a maximum of 3 simultaneous sign-ins. The linked article has more details as well as links to the official Google announcement and the help pages that explain how to use the feature.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
Here’s an interesting study by Takahiko Masuda, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He was able to prove that the cultural difference between Western individualism and East Asian collectivism goes so far as to affect perception.
Link: http://www.adbusters.org/…
(via Neatorama)
According to a recent study, reading an e-book is about 5 to 10 percent slower than a paper book. The study also reported that paper books were found to be more relaxing.
Link: http://www.pcmag.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Bill Snyder of InfoWorld has written a scathing article about Dell and its decline from once being the gold standard of customer service. Knowingly selling defective computers is not the best way to retain a loyal customer base, but that’s only a symptom of systematic changes in how the company does business.
Link: http://infoworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Apple has donated the MacPaint source code to the Computer History Museum. As with so many other components of the original Macintosh, MacPaint was an innovative and groundbreaking piece of software. The source code has even been studied by software engineers as an example of how to properly write code. I also find it interesting is that it’s so small—a mere 5822 lines of Pascal and 3583 lines of assembler. For modern programmers, that’s just a drop in the bucket.
Link: http://www.businessweek.com/…
(via TechRepublic)
TechRepublic has posted a list of 75 must-read books for geeks. I’ve read slightly more than half (43 total) and 7 out of the top 10. There are a few I completely disagree with, including Steve Wozniak’s iWoz (long-winded and boring) and Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (overcomplicated and boring). I started both of these books but eventually gave up reading them.
