AC/DC's Thunderstruck Played on Two Cellos - Awesome
Thanks to The Loop for this one. Very cool. There are a bunch of other songs on their YouTube channel. Smooth Criminal is another great one.
Tim and Sid's Reactions to Canadian Women Winning Gold
This is pretty awesome. Thanks to Deadspin again.
And, of course, we're also very proud of Jennifer Jones and her rink's Gold Medal in curling today.
#Hashtag2 with Jimmy Fallon & Jonah Hill
I wasn't too excited back in 2009 when Jimmy Fallon took over Late Night, but I watched a handful of times and he grew on me. I liked him better in that role than SNL. I was surprised again when it was announced he was getting The Tonight Show. I watched his first show on Monday night and it was great. He's a more sincere, less cynical version of most of the late night television hosts we've seen over the past 20 years. And I love the #hashtag parodies. Just great.
Facebook to Acquire WhatsApp for $19 Billion
Holy shit, that's a lot of money. And it sounds like the deal got done in a hurry. Here's The Verge's coverage of the buyout announcement from earlier today.
Some key figures:
- WhatsApp has 450 million active monthly users
- WhatsApp launched in 2009
- Very small staff at 32 engineers
- Facebook paying $16 billion in cash and stock, plus an additional $3 billion in restricted stock to WhatsApp app employees, vesting over 4 years after the deal closes
Bitcoin a strange new phenomenon? This new paper money thing is crazy! [Update]
Thanks to a friend for sending me this earlier today. It's a satirical look at what the world would think if digital currency were the standard and paper currency was just invented.
Bizarre Shadowy Paper-Based Payment System Being Rolled Out Worldwide
It's a fun read, with some good quotes. It starts:
World governments announced a plan today to allow citizens to anonymously carry parts of their wealth on their person and exchange it with others using small pieces of colorful paper printed with nationalistic and Masonic imagery along with numbers that purportedly represent the amount of wealth each piece of paper represents (if the paper is not a counterfeit). These pieces of paper are formally a "note" from each nation's central bank, but they are also called "cash" by many - this is a technical matter that is too complex to cover in our basic primer; Suffice it to say, that it is representative of the complexity and user-unfriendliness of this new system.
‘Bills’ – A complex construct
These pieces of papers (also known as “bills”, "dollar bills", "George Washingtons" or "Dead Presidents" among the shadowy community of anti-banking libertarians who have been the primary users of cash to date) will differ from country to country and are not redeemable outside national borders.
My favourite part:
“Cash is a 100% anonymous and untraceable payments technology. It is like a weapon of mass destruction launched against law enforcement,” said Mike Smith, the recently confirmed FBI Director. “It is the perfect payment mechanism for criminals, drug cartels, terrorists, prostitution rings and money launderers. We don’t know how we will be able to combat such a technology and fully expect that a new generation of super-criminals will emerge, working in the shadows of a world where they can conduct their illicit affairs without leaving a trace.”
[Update] After another read, I have a new favourite part:
Though hard to imagine, cash operates with no consumer protection at all. If your ‘bills’ are stolen or lost, they are gone forever.
“I just don’t understand why there is nobody that I can call to reinstate my cash if I lose it,” says Mike Smith, a businessman from Toledo. “What type of idiotic wealth and payment system doesn’t maintain transaction and ownership records?”
Moreover, there appears to be no authentication mechanism associated with cash payments or transfers, let alone one that matches modern security standards. Once someone has gained physical control of your ‘bills’, they are free to spend or use them as they wish and there is no way to reverse the transaction, stop them or even identify who has stolen them.
More on Samsung's original ideas
SHOCKER: Samsung's Galaxy S5 will have a fingerprint scanner in the home button.
A few other original ideas I didn't mention yesterday: a gold Galaxy S4 right after the gold iPhone 5s was released, this new fingerprint scanner, their Samsung retail stores.
I don't know why these things still get me going. It's just so brazen, that I have a hard time believing that they can keep doing it.
Really, Samsung? Really?
Samsung sues Dyson for accusing them of being a copy cat.
Past accusations include:
Boomer Esiason: Tom Brady the best of all time
Can't say I disagree at all.
Candy Crush Saga is made by truly awful people
This one is a link to a link. Marco Arment:
Candy Crush Saga is made by truly awful people. Playing it or having it installed on your phone at all is supporting this cruel, predatory behaviour. Vote with your feet.
I agree with Marco. Read his thoughts and this letter from the maker of CandySwipe, whom Candy Crush Saga totally ripped off. Shameless.
Sochi Olympics - Women Curlers Screaming
Deadspin posted this funny compilation of female curlers yelling.
Why Diamond Engagement Rings Are a Scam
Just sayin'.
Great Response to Michael Sam Criticism
Deadspin posted this a couple of days ago. It's a great reaction to the ridiculous (and anonymous, of course) criticism that Michael Sam has received since announcing he is gay. Good for Michael Sam and good for Dale Hansen.
Olympic Feature from The Onion
You gotta love The Onion.
My New Favourite App - Launch Center Pro
I'm way late to the party on this one (it was released in 2012), but it's still a good recommendation anyway. I first heard of Launch Center Pro recently when there was some hype around the launch of the iPad version of the app. I then downloaded the iPhone version and started playing around with it for the last week or so. It's awesome! It's basically app that allows you to create shortcuts to other apps and actions to save time and finger taps. By installing the app, moving it to my main home screen and creating shortcuts, I've been able to move a bunch of other apps to other pages and hide them in folders to keep myself organized. It's also freed up some prime real estate on my first home screen for the apps I use the most.
Here's the hierarchy of how I organize my apps on my iPhone:
1) Most used apps on my first home screen. Phone app, messages app, maps, camera, email, Safari, etc. This allows your most used apps to be only a single tap away. No folders on my first home screen because an app in a folder requires 2 taps (or more if it's on page 2 of the folder) to open.
2) Launch Center Pro on first home screen. Previously I would have just kept going with my methodology above and moved on to home screen 2 with my next level of apps and so on. After home screen 2 or 3 I start putting seldom used apps in folders, so that I don't have 5 or 6 screens of apps. I might even have had some folders on home screen 2. But now, with Launch Center Pro, I can access even more of my apps from my first home screen. Basically, you open LCP, and then tap on an app or action to launch it. So, now you can launch an app that's on your 3rd screen with 2 taps instead of 3 (or more if it was in a folder). Also, you can launch an app and have it perform an action right away to save even more time. You can set up an action to phone your best friend or spouse right from LCP in 2 taps. Currently, to phone someone you would have to open the phone app, tap to get to the contacts or dialer or favourites tab, then tap on the contact/favourite. That's 3 taps instead of 2. Same thing for iMessages, you can jump right into a message to a frequent contact by setting up an action and save a few taps by having to open iMessages, scroll to the right conversation, etc.
3) Back to arranging apps by frequency of use. LCP can help you create shortcuts to several apps, actions and groups of apps and actions. It's quite powerful and time saving, but then at some point you get back to the old strategy of descending order of use.
Launch Center Pro is $4.99 in the App Store and I think it's well worth it. You might think I'm being kind of nitpicky about saving a tap here and a tap there, but it all adds up. LCP has been great for me and might work for you too.
Here are a couple of reviews of LCP:
Uncrate
Uncrate is another site I visit regularly. The site bills itself as a "Digital Magazine for Guys Who Love Stuff". Sounds good to me. They post five new "awesome" things every day. It's a mix of cars, gadgets, tech, clothes, gear, booze, and a bunch of other stuff that's too long to list. A lot of stuff is on the pricey side, but it's still cool to look at even if you can't afford it. For instance, they posted a $900 straight razor this weekend. Looks "awesome", but I'll never own one. It's fun to dream, though.
Ice Storm Billing Credit - Rogers
So, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally got around to calling Rogers today about my cable and internet bill for the 5 days we lost service during the ice storm that hit Southern Ontario around Christmas. When my next bill came (next 2 bills, actually) after the ice storm, I was charged my usual cable and internet fees. However, I did not receive service for approximately 5 days in December. That isn't right.
If I owned a small business that was affected by the ice storm, and couldn't open, I wouldn't have gotten any revenue. That would not be a fun situation to be in, but you can't get paid for services or goods you don't provide, right? That even applies to the gas company or electric company, who bill you based on metered usage.
For some reason, our telecommunications companies don't think that this common sense rule applies to them. So, I phoned Rogers today and asked why I didn't get a credit or discount on my bills. I was told, "we only provide a credit if the customer requests it". Wow. So, if you don't ask, they will charge you for services that you didn't receive. That's an underhanded practice at best, and criminal at worst.
The good news is, if you call, you will get a credit. I will be receiving a $38 and change credit on my next bill. Call your cable and internet provider now if you were without service for any period of time due to the ice storm!
Jim Bob Cooter
This guy's name is too good to be true. You can't make this stuff up.
From ProFootballTalk:
Why venture capitalists are right to be crazy about Bitcoin
An article in Fortune Magazine about Bitcoin that actually tries to tackle the real genius and potential of Bitcoin. It's not just a currency.
The article is behind a paywall, but here's a good excerpt:
Unfortunately, this debate is focused on the wrong thing. Bitcoin’s primary significance is not about whether it supplants cash. It’s about a revolutionary computer-science breakthrough that has the potential to upend all sorts of established industries.
Here’s an analogy: Email was the Internet’s original application, but 40 years later we all recognize that the Internet has countless more uses than just the electronic exchange of text. Likewise, currency is Bitcoin’s original application, but Bitcoin will not ultimately be defined by currency.
The key to Bitcoin is that it enables verified transactions without requiring a centralized third party to do the verifications. Kind of like the difference between handing a merchant a $10 bill and handing him a Visa card. It does so via what computer scientists call a distributed ledger, in which users are entering (or exiting) a fixed number of ledger slots (i.e., the “coins”).
Tim Cook: Apple to enter a new product category this year
Tim Cook sat down with Daisuke Wakabayashi of the WSJ yesterday, and confirmed that Apple plans to enter a new product category in 2014. Speculation continues as to whether he means an iWatch, some new form of Apple TV set or something else.
I'm thinking and hoping iWatch.