It’s Samuel Morse’s birthday and in tribute Google has replaced its logo with a morse code version.
As a former Navy code jockey, I appreciate the dots and dashes. Thanks, Google!
Check It Out
Links to cool places or things.
There are 1,524 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 129 of 153).
An expert speaks on pirates
While I’ve been blogging about pirates for four years now and have sailed through pirate waters during my time in the Navy, my pirate expertise pales in comparison to the merchant mariners who sail these waters every day.
Below is an email I read last night on one of my email lists. Take it from Captain Bill Doherty, an actual merchant marine captain: this problem won’t be solved easily.
I am an active Merchant Mariner.
Last year I spent the entire year out in those waters on the Maersk Vermont, Maersk Ohio and the President Truman.
It’s very difficult for those who dont have first hand Merchant Marine experience in those waters to get a full appreciation of the situation.
Pirates aren’t new, just their tactics and equipment are. They have better boats, better guns and much more sophisticated electronic guidance systems.
Continue reading
The Unemployment Channel
I was checking what programming is available on the satellites and I came across one that caught my eye: The Unemployment Channel.
Think about that for a minute. There is actually a television channel for the unemployed. If there’s a market segment that’s underserved, it’s the people with no money and no job. I imagine only the Prison Channel sells fewer commercial spots!
So who does pay the bills at The Unemployment Channel? Working stiffs (well, non-working stiffs) who pony up $25 for 30 seconds of fame played six times a day for one week. The channel does have a satellite transponder, so theoretically it could reach millions of viewers. But who watches? I can’t imagine a cable provider adding this to their lineup. And why wouldn’t a job seeker just post his or her “video resume” to YouTube, where it can be posted for free and is keyword-searchable?
It seems like a waste of good satellite transponder bandwidth to me. The video resumes they have are fairly amusing, anyway.
AP chases its own Internet tail
Know how I mentioned the Associated Press’s cluelessness when it comes to the Internet? Word comes that the AP threatened a Tennessee radio station when the station posted on its website videos from the AP’s very own YouTube channel. Not only that, the radio station is an AP affiliate!
Going after its own members: there’s a bright business decision. When I said the AP was going to “police itself out of existence,” I didn’t think it would actually police itself!
Robtex
When I noticed a store’s webserver was unreachable, I decided to find out why. With a little sleuthing I found that its nameservers were not resolving.
Normally when this happens there’s no trace of the company left on the Internet, but The Google took me to the robtex DNS tool. Thanks to this site, I was able to find the missing nameservers’ IP addresses and verify that these servers were indeed offline.
I consider it poor system administration to host your domain nameservers entirely in your own namespace for just this reason. If you make a mistake in a zone with your own nameserver, your whole foo.com site becomes invisible to the Internet.
I hope this major store gets itself back on the web soon!
A look at Google’s hardware
Google for the first time gave the public a look at its server hardware. It uses custom-made motherboards, 12-volt-only power supplies, and each server has its own built-in UPS battery. Also, Google datacenters consist of standard shipping containers – containing thousands of these custom-made servers. Very interesting!
A look at Netflix’s cost of streaming movies
My streaming media fascination that began with the ACC Tournament continues. I found this interesting analysis of Netflix and the costs it incurs with its streaming media offering.
I wonder if the Netflix players do any swarm-type sharing of media or if it’s all point-to-point. Swarming such a large amount of data seems like an easy decision to me. Surely Netflix has considered it.
(h/t Hacking Netflix)
HugeURL
Roombas tend tomatoes
I was running our Roomba vacuum around today for the first time in a while and noticing its battery is on its last legs. This has been the first real issue with our robotic friend since we’ve had it. I’m contemplating whether to buy a new battery or consider an upgrade to a newer model.
On a related note, a fellow Roomba fan alerted me to this interesting MIT project that uses souped-up Roombas to tend tomato plants. I thought it was an artificial intelligence milestone for the Roomba just to dock itself, but these Roombas not only do that but they also pick specific tomatoes on command. Amazing! Watch them in action here.
Now if I could just get mine to overwater my plants so that I don’t have to.
TV news van
I don’t know exactly what I’d do with this but I’ve always wanted one and it looks cool.
From Craigslist:
We have a Will-Burt Pneumatic antenna mast to be sold. This is a working unit and is currently installed in a 1987 Ford van. This mast is one of the ‘heavy duty models’ designed to handle approximately 100 pounds and extends to about 55 feet. This unit includes the compressor that operates on vehicle or external power. This size unit currently sells by Will-Burt distributors for approximately $12,000.00 with the pump at an additional $1500.00. This is the link to their site showing the current models http://towermast.willburt.com/vmHDNLM.asp Continue reading