Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: TechMan on December 05, 2016, 12:45:18 PM
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https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/52-things-i-learned-in-2016-299fd1e6a62b#.sjtk4d2zq (https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/52-things-i-learned-in-2016-299fd1e6a62b#.sjtk4d2zq)
Some select items:
Call Me Baby is a call centre for cybercriminals who need a human voice as part of a scam. They charge $10 for each call in English, and $12 for calls in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. [Brian Krebs]
Google’s advertising tools can track real-world shop visits. If a customer sees an ad then visits the relevant store a few days later, that conversion will appear in Google Adwords. Customers are tracked via (anonymised) Google Maps data. They’ve been doing this since 2014. [Matt Lawson]
A Japanese insurance company is offering policies that cover social media backlash. [Tyler Cowen]
There are six million iPhones in Iran, despite them being banned by both the Iranian government and international sanctions. [Christopher Schroeder]
A Californian company called Skinny Mirror sells mirrors that make you look thinner. When installed in the changing rooms of clothes shops, they can increase sales by 18%. [Kim Bhasin]
In Hong Kong, you can buy a $15,000 device called an IMSI Catcher which harvests the mobile phone numbers of everyone walking past, collecting up to 1,200 numbers a minute. [Ben Bryant]
Uber — which offers bank accounts to new drivers who don’t have their own account — is the largest acquirer of small business bank accounts in the USA today. [Brett King]
In 2013, the Dubai Government launched a scheme encouraging healthy living by offering a gramme of gold for every kilo of weight lost. [Nancy Shute] (see also: 48 things I learned while designing a new bank in Dubai)
PornHub used 1,892 petabytes of bandwidth in 2015, equivalent to filling all the storage on all of the iPhones sold in 2015 with porn. [Yana Tallon-Hicks]
Lyft recruits, trains and manages new drivers almost entirely via text messages from disposable Twilio VOIP phone numbers. [The Driver]
El Paquete is the underground Cuban Internet; a 1TB hard disk filled with US music, films, TV shows, magazines and smartphone apps, passed around by street dealers. You can copy what you like for $8 a week. “My friends assure me, El Paquete and chill is definitely a thing” [Wil Fulton]
Twitter has enough money in the bank to run for 412 years with current losses. [Matt Krantz]
Most iPhone case manufacturers don’t get advance notice from Apple about new designs; they rely on rumours. Case maker Hard Candy went out of business after producing 50,000 custom-moulded cases for a leaked iPhone design that never appeared. [Tim Fitzsimmons]
Projects at the ‘Stupid *expletive deleted*it that no one needs and terrible ideas’ hackathon in February included a browser plugin that hides content but shows ads, a 3D cheese printer and a Dark Web wedding list service. [Sam Lavigne & Amelia Winger-Bearskin]
To reduce PTSD in drone pilots, military psychologists have considered developing a Siri-like app for the pilots. The pilots would ‘let crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.’ [Robbie Gonzalez]
Japan Airlines serves KFC to economy class travellers during the Christmas season. The in-flight KFC has 15% more salt to compensate for the lower pressure and humidity. [Alison Fensterstock]
A Dutch bike manufacturer reduced shipping damage by 70–80% by printing a flatscreen TV on their boxes. [May Bulman]
In rural China, farmers sometimes steal natural gas in huge plastic bags. A bag of natural gas is enough fuel for up to one week. [Hi She]
iPhone maker Foxconn has replaced more than half its workforce with robots since the iPhone 6 was launched. [Ben Lovejoy]
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El Paquete is the underground Cuban Internet; a 1TB hard disk filled with US music, films, TV shows, magazines and smartphone apps, passed around by street dealers. You can copy what you like for $8 a week. “My friends assure me, El Paquete and chill is definitely a thing” [Wil Fulton]
Sounds familiar, actually.
Projects at the ‘Stupid *expletive deleted*it that no one needs and terrible ideas’ hackathon in February included a browser plugin that hides content but shows ads, a 3D cheese printer and a Dark Web wedding list service. [Sam Lavigne & Amelia Winger-Bearskin]
A 3D cheese printer actually sounds like it would go over really well for fancy dinners.
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https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/52-things-i-learned-in-2016-299fd1e6a62b#.sjtk4d2zq (https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/52-things-i-learned-in-2016-299fd1e6a62b#.sjtk4d2zq)
PornHub used 1,892 petabytes of bandwidth in 2015, equivalent to filling all the storage on all of the iPhones sold in 2015 with porn. [Yana Tallon-Hicks]
I need to upgrade my bandwidth.
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Japan Airlines serves KFC to economy class travellers during the Christmas season. The in-flight KFC has 15% more salt to compensate for the lower pressure and humidity. [Alison Fensterstock]
That's because "Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!" Kentucky Fried Chicken had a massive marketing campaign in the 60s, I believe, that has forever connected Christmas with Kentucky Fried Chicken for the Japanese.
People RESERVE TABLES at KFC for Christmas dinner. You have to reserve more than a year out.
That's an awesome piece of information I learned last year.
(Edit: I looked it up. They reserve buckets to take home (not tables) and wait in lines down the street for it.)
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What I really hate about living in a post-modern culture-shock future is that it doesn't actually seem like one from ground level when you're immersed in it. =(
The average suburban/urban American is exposed to 100 things a day that blow away the little "I'll buy that for a dollar!" bits in Robocop. And the barista at the coffee shop with sleeve tattoos and gauged ears looks crazier than anybody in Blade Runner.
But I can't appreciate any of it without an extreme act of will.
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That's because "Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!" Kentucky Fried Chicken had a massive marketing campaign in the 60s, I believe, that has forever connected Christmas with Kentucky Fried Chicken for the Japanese.
People RESERVE TABLES at KFC for Christmas dinner. You have to reserve more than a year out.
That's an awesome piece of information I learned last year.
(Edit: I looked it up. They reserve buckets to take home (not tables) and wait in lines down the street for it.)
I thought the lesson was in the changes to the recipe for air travel. Knowledge of Japanese "Christmas" traditions seems to be assumed.
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In rural China, farmers sometimes steal natural gas in huge plastic bags. A bag of natural gas is enough fuel for up to one week. [Hi She]
http://sinopix.photoshelter.com/image/I0000k5SqsSii5.8
Even with a bag that big, that doesn't look like near enough gas to last a week. Then again, according to my last bill, I didn't use very much.
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http://sinopix.photoshelter.com/image/I0000k5SqsSii5.8
Even with a bag that big, that doesn't look like near enough gas to last a week. Then again, according to my last bill, I didn't use very much.
Probably depends on local climate, how well insulated the house is, what interior temp the residents are going for, etc. I can cook for most of a week on a 1lb cylinder if I'm careful with it, including heating wash water, or heat a tiny, well insulated space longer than that.
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"A Californian company called Skinny Mirror sells mirrors that make you look thinner. When installed in the changing rooms of clothes shops, they can increase sales by 18%. [Kim Bhasin]"
GF#4 after my divorce noticed this several years before we met and told me about it. We're talkin' 1988 or so. The mirrors are slightly curved concavely. Doesn't take much to flatter a girl's figure.
There's a "Seinfeld" bit about Elaine encountering a skinny mirror in a store.
Terry, 230RN