Running a web-site/service? About 1% of your clients will give you any money at all – most will be happy with your free offering. But of those that do give you money, some what to give you a lot. So segment your customers.
Starfire Optical Range Eyeball
Check it out! The US military is trying to blow stuff up with lasers – project starfire, I think it’s called. They’re trying to use atmospheric distortion to focus a wide laser onto a teeny-tiny satellite. Of all the stupid ideas… oh well, at least all they’re doing is spending buckets of money.
Games development by location
GameDevMap is a map, an index of the physical location of developers, publishers etc in the gaming industry. It’s fascinating that it’s happening all over the planet, in the oddest of places.
5 ways to get a startup going
Erick Schonfeld writes about 5 ways to start a company (without quitting your day job) , because with Web 2.0, this time it’s different.
Follow the money, Luke
Original versions of Star Wars 4-6 to be released on DVD.
At last a chance for those people who still have their old VHS originals safely in storage, not even daring to pop them into a VCR for fear they wear out, to get shiny discs to replace them. Sounds like George Lucas got sick of being upstaged by all the pirated versions out there.
What is on your USB memory stick?
Some people responded to the question, What is on your USB memory stick?
Best response: IF_FOUND_RETURN_TO.txt or REWARD_IF_FOUND.txt
Interesting: heavily encrypted financial data / keys
Interesting: run anywhere Firefox
My memory stick is also my MP3 player, so it’s mainly songs. Plus an old version of a website I was putting together, plus some miscellaneous crap like resume/CV. I think I’ll put the reward thingy on it.
So, what have you got on your memory stick?
www-australia.info – what kind of domain name is that?
I found this ad for an amazing site when doing a google search:
| Sponsored Links | |||
| Photos Of Australia Find out everything you need to about this amazing destination! www-australia.info |
|||
Someone has just paid money so that I’d click on that link, and see that site. Look at the photos along the bottom. First, there’s a left-hand-drive vehicle, then a naff sunshade and beachchairs at sunset, followed by a grey road with a yellow centreline driving through a conifer forrest, and finally some people skiing past a maple or something. Search the entire continent, you’re not going to find any of that stuff.
I don’t know if it’s covered in ads, perhaps it is (my ad blocking works really well, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to some dodgy site with IE).
Somebody: Please explain what the hell is going on here? I’d especially love an economist to explain what the heck that site is about – rational decision making my shiny metal butt.
Update: This is a Made For Adsense site. Still doesn’t make sense, but whatever. They too shall pass.
Sticky measuring tape
Why is it Americans think the only measuring system in the world is Imperial? I want Sticky measuring tape in metric!
Wireless Skate Speedometer – a solution looking for a problem?
Finally, a Wireless Skate Speedometer, so now you can know how fast you’re skating. As an added bonus, it’s water resistant at up to 30ft/10m, for when you accidentally skate into a swimming pool.
You have to turn it on and off, because the batteries will only last 300hrs. I can’t imagine that would be hard to do, given where the wheel is – on the bottom of your shoe. And heaven help you if you forget, two weeks later your speedo will be knackered.
Of course, the wheels and bearings wear out, but they thought of that. Just buy your wheels and bearings from them! An electronics company! They’ll also sell you a battery kit, I guess because it uses special batteries or something. Or perhaps because they know you’re going to forget to turn the darn thing off.
They’ve got a big write-up on their site about how pushbikes have the wheel in contact with the ground all the time, but skates don’t, so their computer has to do all sorts of tricks to figure out the right answer. Perhaps hooking up a GPS might have been a better idea?
And of course, you have to consider the privacy implications or wireless transmission of personal data like your velocity…
Where are the aliens?
Coffee drinkers are easier to persuade.
Fermi’s Paradox is explained by aliens getting adicited to computer gaming.
Strom reckons he knows how to make money with a website: ads! Plus a little other stuff.
An Irishman has a rather good summery of how to negotiate an intial salary.
Cross-platform rounded corners without images, extra markup nor CSS. The holy grail of web-design dweebs.
To succeed, movies must be short and suck arse
Edward Jay Epstein explains that The thirsty moviegoer fuels the movie business.
There’s an economic imperiative to make the salty popcorn, and movies short with action which avoids gripping plotlines – and it’s driven by the theatre’s concession stand. Coke calls the shots in the film industry.
This explains it all. It’s not about the razors, it’s about the blades.
Search Upgrade
I’ve been a huge fan of Microsoft’s Desktop Search since it was released, it has changed the way I use my PC and is amongst the first things I install on new PCs. I dream of the day they integrate it with their recently purchase, Foldershare (A magnificent free product that allows you to sync your files seamlessly over the net using P2P technology. It also allows you to search and download from any of your computers from any net connected PC as long as your PCs are turned on. Try it now if you have more than one PC and you want to keep files in sync across them.).
To get an improved version of Desktop Search download the beta of the Windows Live Toolbar. The toolbar doesn’t work in Firefox but it does allow you to update Desktop Search and gain a couple of great features. It installs a new toolbar in Outlook that allows you to save Desktop searches as virtual folders within Outlook – so now Outlook can display search results that include files as well as emails/tasks/appointments. It also changes the Windows default search function (found on the Start menu) to use Desktop Search which means the end of searches that won’t ever find what you’re looking for.