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xkcd: Money

Posted on November 21st, 2011 at 21:19 by John Sinteur in category: awesome, Cartoon

There, I showed you it

Value of all gold ever mined: $ 009,120,000,000,000 +
Value of World liquid assets: $ 072,120,000,000,000 +
Value of proven oil reserves: $ 124,000,000,000,000 =
___________________________________________________
Sum of all of the above stuff:$ 205,240,000,000,000 is less than:
Size of derivatives mkt ('09):$ 439,000,000,000,000


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Comments:

  1. Sounds like it’s time to start locking people up.

  2. Uh oh. This cannot end well.

  3. What can possibly go wrong?

This 28-Year-Old Is Making Sure Credit Cards Won’t Exist In The Next Few Years

Posted on November 15th, 2011 at 23:33 by Desiato in category: awesome, News

[Quote]:

With Dwolla, payments are made directly from your bank account. No credit or debit cards are allowed. And because they don’t exist in the system, we don’t have to bring the fees into the system. You can spend any amount of money and when you do that, the person on the other end doesn’t have to pay 1, 2, 3 or 4%. They only pay $0.25 a transaction, which is especially helpful when it’s $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 transactions. Obviously PayPal becomes very cost prohibitive with those larger transactions. The biggest difference between ideas like this and a PayPal — and PayPal is a phenomenal idea, Square is too — is that those are built on top of networks like Visa and Mastercard. We’re building our own.

You thought Square was cool? Square is kind of cool, but Square keeps the credit card companies in place, skimming fees off all your payments. These Dwolla guys are building a Paypal replacement that charges a flat $0.25 per transaction rather than the 2-3% that Paypal or credit card companies charge. They started with one bank and a handful of retail businesses in Iowa and are slowly trying to take it national.

It’s hard to believe that the big national banks will let an independent upstart replace the VISA and MasterCard networks. This should be interesting to watch.


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  1. If they do $1,000,000 a day in throughput with an average transaction size of $500, that means they are doing 2,000 transactions a day. At a quarter a piece, they are making $500 a day in revenues.

    I assume they are hoping that it scales up well.

Scenes from the GOP’s “Commander in Chief” Debate | Mother Jones

Posted on November 14th, 2011 at 18:28 by Desiato in category: awesome, Can you Trump this?, Indecision 2012, What were they thinking?

[Quote]:

What would I cut? I think, really, what I would want to do is be able to go back and take a look at Lyndon Baines Johnson’s The Great Society. The Great Society has not worked, and it’s put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they save for their own retirement security. They don’t have pay FICA. They don’t have the modern welfare state. And China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they’d be gone.

A Republican candidate for President suggests the U.S. take hints for domestic policy from a Communist country.


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Time Lapse View from Space

Posted on November 13th, 2011 at 20:00 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera

by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from

August to October, 2011.


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Dubstep

Posted on November 5th, 2011 at 14:00 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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  1. Awesome!!

The Kitten Covers

Posted on November 4th, 2011 at 9:59 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

I’m amazed it took so long for the internet to do this.


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Comments:

  1. What? No Sgt Pepper?

BlueBiped

Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 14:09 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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Codify – iPad

Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 9:13 by John Sinteur in category: Apple, awesome

[Quote]:


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The Pumpkins « Looking for inspiration?

Posted on October 25th, 2011 at 23:06 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Source]:


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Michael Winslow – Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

Posted on October 20th, 2011 at 11:25 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

And just as awesome, the soundcheck before the show:

And if you think “this guy should do Jimi Hendrix”… he did:


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Wadsworth Constant

Posted on October 18th, 2011 at 16:30 by John Sinteur in category: awesome, Google

[Quote]:

For EVERY youtube video, I always open the video and then immediately punch the slider bar to about 30 percent.

For example, in this video, it should have just started at :40. Everything before :40 was a waste. This holds true for nearly every video in the universe.

— Wadsworth

[Quote]:

Thus was born the Wadsworth Constant, now implemented across YouTube. Add &wadsworth=1 to any YouTube URL to jump 30% into the content.


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1 Marine vs. 30 Cops (Marine Wins)

Posted on October 17th, 2011 at 19:39 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY


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Comments:

  1. Sgt. Thomas should run for President.

  2. Embarrassing. Typical sergeant getting all worked up over the sound of his own voice. You’d think that of all the professions that would understand the difficult position the police are in during protests, they would get some solidarity and understanding from the forces.

    Still, if anyone should have an opinion on attacking innocent civilian people it would be someone in the military.

  3. Not active duty, veteran. Here’s what he has to say about all this:

    [Quote]:

    Sgt. Shamar Thomas USMC Veteran. I took an Oath that I live by.I am NOT anti-NYPD. I am anti- Police Brutality. I am no longer under contract with the USMC so I do NOT have to follow military uniform regulations. I DON’T affiliate myself with ANY GROUPS or POLITICAL ORG. I affiliate myself with the AMERICAN PEOPLE that’s it. I REFUSE to affiliate with anything that SEPERATES. There is an obvious problem in the country and PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be allowed to PROTEST without Brutality. I was involved in a RIOT in Rutbah, Iraq 2004 and we did NOT treat the Iraqi citizens like they are treating the unarmed civilians in our OWN Country. No one was brutalized because our mission was to "WIN the hearts and minds", why should I expect anything less in my OWN Country.

Enter Sandman Metallica by The Mini Band

Posted on October 14th, 2011 at 23:11 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

Live at the Bucklebury Beer Festival, The Mini band, with Zoe Thomson and Harry Jackson on lead guitars, Kieran Fell on Rhythm, Harrison Read on lead vocals, Archie Zolotuhin on Bass and Charlie Emmons on drums.


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  1. Proving all it takes is children to play that tripe. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times, fuck metallica

plucky tree: the last time I saw Steve Jobs

Posted on October 13th, 2011 at 20:16 by Desiato in category: Apple, awesome

[Quote]:

And that was the last time I saw Steve Jobs.


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Meanwhile in Japan….

Posted on October 11th, 2011 at 19:48 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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  1. To coin a phrase – “What is this, I don’t even…”.

Immune System, Loaded With Remade T-cells, Vanquishes Cancer

Posted on September 14th, 2011 at 19:45 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst.

A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia.

[..]

But scientists say the treatment that helped Mr. Ludwig, described recently in The New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine, may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer. And not just for leukemia patients: other cancers may also be vulnerable to this novel approach — which employs a disabled form of H.I.V.-1, the virus that causes AIDS, to carry cancer-fighting genes into the patients’ T-cells. In essence, the team is using gene therapy to accomplish something that researchers have hoped to do for decades: train a person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.

And to those in the past who wondered why we’re spending money on a “gay disease”, I’ve got some choice words for you right now..


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The Gary Hudston Project

Posted on August 23rd, 2011 at 15:34 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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Comments:

  1. I’m glad she said yes!

‪Chinese Bluegrass

Posted on August 5th, 2011 at 23:47 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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A Blind Camera For The Photographically Challenged

Posted on August 5th, 2011 at 23:44 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

The Blind Camera is perfect for those people bored by the mass-produced point and shoot cameras. There’s no viewfinder, no lens, or flash. All it has on the outside is an LCD screen and a shutter button.

Inside is a Sony Ericsson cellphone that pulls down images from Flickr. Whenever you click the shutter button, the cellphone pings Flickr and downloads an image that has the same timestamp as your shutter press.


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Friday Freak-Out: Booker T and the MGs’ “Green Onions” (1967)

Posted on August 5th, 2011 at 19:54 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]


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Comments:

  1. Thanks! I needed that!

  2. All right people. The rest of the hard working all star Blues Brothers are gonna be out here in a minute, including my little brother Jake. But right now, I’d like to talk a little bit about this tune you’re hearing. This is of course the Green Onions tune. It was a very big hit in the early sixties in this country. And of course it was composed and recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, right here in the United States Of America. You know, people, I believe that this tune can be acquainted with the great classical music around the world.
    Now you go to Germany, you’ve got your Bach, your Beethoven, your Brahms… Here in America you’ve got your Fred McDowell, your Irving Berlin, your Glenn Miller, and your Booker T & The MG’s, people. Another example of the great contributions in music and culture that this country has made around the world. And as you look around the world today, you see this country spurned.
    You see backs turned on this country. Well people, I’m gonna tell you something, this continent, North America, is the stronghold! This is where we’re gonna make our stand in this decade! Yeah, people, I’ve got something to say to the State Department. I say Take that archaic Monroe Doctrine, and that Marshall Plan that says we’re supposed to police force the world, and throw ‘em out! Let’s stay home for the next ten years people! Right here in North America and enjoy the music and culture that is ours. Yeah, I got one more thing to say.
    I’m just talking about the music, people, and what it does to me. And that is, as you look around the world, you go to the Soviet Union or Great Britain or France, you name it, any country… Everybody is doing flips and twists just to get into a genuine pair of American blue jeans! And to hear this music and we got it all here in America, the land of the Chrysler 440 cubic inch engine!

Soliloquy On B‬‏

Posted on July 27th, 2011 at 13:04 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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Comments:

  1. Awesome! Quite made my day…

Cassini Mission

Posted on June 15th, 2011 at 13:01 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

Cassini Mission from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.


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  1. Amazing…thanks!

A Spectacular Event – A Filament/Prominence Eruption to Blow Your Socks Off!

Posted on June 10th, 2011 at 21:53 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

The email was titled, ”Never seen anything like this before – spectacular”. And he wasn’t kidding!


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Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap

Posted on May 7th, 2011 at 7:24 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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Walk the dinosaur

Posted on April 14th, 2011 at 14:05 by John Sinteur in category: awesome


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Comments:

  1. Seeing the visibly human legs underneath the dinosaur kind of ruins the effect, but still…

  2. Seeing the human legs is reassuring!

  3. Oh they’re just the remains of the last person it dismembered.

Q: How many Cormac McCarthies does it take to change a light bulb?

Posted on April 9th, 2011 at 7:21 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

A: Two or perhaps three, approaching now, from beyond the tree in the long low light of morning. From some black place: a reckoning neither required nor bidden, a reckoning no judge could have ordered, but a reckoning nonetheless. One of the men carries a single glove, ready to grip the hot, bright bulb and twist it dead. The other two follow, smoking, and whisper about what is to come: the treacherous scramble in wet woolen darkness, the fight to fill that space with light. One of them, the youngest, cradles the thin bowl of glass in his hands like a baby foal born too soon―partly out of gentleness, partly as if to shield it from the mare’s desperate inquiring eyes.

The men walk to the bulb. The Remover’s shadow blackens as he approaches it. A quick unnatural lunge.

Then all is dark.


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Comments:

  1. ObNitpick: if the bulb is hot, it doesn’t need changing, does it?

30 years of game development

Posted on April 6th, 2011 at 8:10 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

From this:

to this:


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Comments:

  1. Bringing multiplayer lags and freezes to a whole different level!

  2. I think that, equally, you could illustrate 30 years of graphics hardware development with the above and leave the development of games out of the equation.
    Games themselves are following a fairly steady path. Even MMOs have their grounding on pen and paper games made popular in the early 70s.

A boy’s own guide to building a giant creepy eyeball that follows you round the room

Posted on March 18th, 2011 at 20:33 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

There was a lot of excitement in the Technology Studio this week when a nice man with a van dropped off three large flight cases containing something rather special: a spherical display system called a Puffersphere. Pufferfish, the company which invented them, has been kind enough to lend us one for a week.

[..]

For the next step, the Kinect


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Comments:

  1. That is farking creepy! Coming soon to a mall near you, I’m sure.

Voyager: Still dancing 17 billion km from Earth

Posted on March 9th, 2011 at 16:03 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

At the astonishing distance of 17.4 billion km, the Nasa probe is the most far-flung object made by humans.

But it seems age and remoteness are no barriers to this veteran explorer.

Voyager is executing a series of roll manoeuvres to get one of its instruments into the optimum position to measure particles sweeping away from the Sun.

Controllers at the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, report a perfect response from the probe.

"I liken Voyager like an old car," said project manager Suzanne Dodds. "It’s got simple electronics, not a lot of fancy gadgets – but because of that it can operate for longer; it’s not as finicky."


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Comments:

  1. Voyager should be considered one of the modern World’s Wonders.

  2. And a huge stimulant to producers from Sagan’s iconic “Pale Blue Dot” to the Star Trek movie, to the more recent Brian Cox and the BBC “Wonders of the Universe: Destiny”.

    Hilarious to see the lovely Brian trying to avoid saying “Pale Blue Dot” in this, and worth watching in any case:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbRSd2THTUQ

The Telecaster: Still Wailing At 60

Posted on March 1st, 2011 at 8:02 by John Sinteur in category: awesome

[Quote]:

Sixty years ago this month, a musical icon was born. If you’ve listened to any kind of popular music from the past 60 years, you’ve heard a Telecaster.


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Comments:

  1. And the standard of musicianship in the later clip is way better than the older one. A lot of successful 60′s musicians sound like amateurs by today’s standards.


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