After we’ve lost everything…
| July 24, 2011
Category: Need more MoPo? Check Out These Random Posts
This is Planet Earth’s Impact So Far in the Universe
| July 24, 2011
Mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now — since the days of Marconi.
That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.
But how big is this, really, compared to the size of the Galaxy in which we live (which is, itself, just one of countless billions of galaxies in the observable universe)?
$7,500 For An E-Mail Address
| July 24, 2011
It’s a dilemma that has baffled d-bags for ages….how do you stand out in a sea of d-bags? $1000 apps that do nothing? Solid gold iDevice? I got it….how about an e-mail address that costs $7,500 down that $750 a month after that? Bingo!
The email account is priced at a whopping $750 per month with a signup fee of $7,500. Limited to only 750 members worldwide, the Elite750 club gives members additional services, like email archiving and printout, basically everything that a regular email id with at a cost. Like I said, exclusivity comes with a huge price tag!
Imagine how stupid those guys are going to feel when I start my @UberElite1000 service.
How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors
| July 23, 2011
Cook asked 45 people to face off against each other in several rounds of rock-paper-scissors, in exchange for real money. In every game, either one or both players were blindfolded.
Cook found that the players drew with each other more often when one of them could see (36.3% of the matches) than when both were blindfolded (33.3% of them). The latter figure was exactly the proportion of draws you’d expect if the players were choosing randomly; the former was significantly higher than chance.
Cook devised this study because he was interested in the idea that we all automatically and unconsciously imitate one another. There’s plenty of evidence that we do indeed copy one another, from obvious gestures like touching our face to subtle movements like tensing our muscles. But it’s not clear whether these actions are truly involuntary in the way that the knee-jerk reflex is. To find out, Cook wanted to see if people can stop themselves from performing these acts of mimicry.
China’s Fake Apple Stores
| July 23, 2011
An American blogger living in the middle of China was amazed to stumble across a fake Apple store in her town. It was a complete counterfeit of a real Apple store, designed to look like the real thing. It had signage, and employees walking around in the iconic blue shirts with those lanyard nametags. It had the big long wooden tables with Apple products on them and the typical Apple store winding staircase. But certain details were off.
None of the employee nametags had their names on it. They just said “staff.” And Apple never writes “Apple Store” on their signs, they just put up their logo. A 10-minute walk revealed two more such stores.
Indian Company Produces Flat-Pack, $700 Houses
| July 22, 2011
The Indian company that launched the world’s cheapest car has unveiled its latest product for the fast-growing nation: a flat-pack house that costs just $700 and can be built in a week.
The Tata group, maker of the $2,500 Nano car, said that the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) home comes from a pre-fabricated kit that includes doors, windows and a roof.
“We have already prepared two-three different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback,” Sumitesh Das, the head of the project at Tata, told reporters in Hyderabad. “Hopefully, in the next six-eight months we should be able to roll it out in the market nationally.”
The basic model of a so-called “Nano” house will cost 32,000 rupees ($720) and will use coconut fibre or jute for wall cladding and interiors. It has a life expectancy of 20 years.
