How much information can the world transmit, process, and store? Estimating this sort of thing can be a nightmare, but the task can provide valuable information on trends that are changing our computing and broadcast infrastructure. So a pair of researchers have taken the job upon themselves and tracked the changes in 60 different analog and digital technologies, from newsprint to cellular data, for a period of over 20 years.
Good shoppers use coupons to save money. Extreme couponers have something a bit more in mind whenever they scour their Sunday circulars: they want stuff for free. That’s right: Free, as in zilch, zip and zero dollar.
With a bit of knowledge and a lot of planning, the practitioner of “extreme couponing” can get a lot of stuff for free (or practically free). Billy Baker of The Boston Globe has the fascinating story of the couponing craze:
Spencer’s approach requires significant planning and effort, a willingness to stand up to hostile cashiers, and, some say, a lack of shame. But the reward she offers is too good for her thousands of devotees to pass up.
The goal is not simply a good deal, she says. “The goal is free.’’
On that seminal Sunday last month, a combination of factors collided to bring an entirely new pack of extreme couponers to the scene at once, unable to resist that first taste of “free.’’ After the Great Toilet Paper Rush, nothing would be the same.
“It was the day that sent a seismic wave through coupondom,’’ said Melanie Feehan, a veteran extreme couponer who arrived at a Rite Aid near her home in Plymouth shortly after it opened, only to discover the toilet paper had been cleared from the shelves by a man who bragged to a clerk that he had already emptied three other Rite Aids that morning.
“When a newbie couponer is birthed they are very much like baby vampires,’’ Feehan wrote on her popular blog, The Coupon Goddess. “They go on a couponing rampage that wreaks havoc at every store they descend upon . . . Carnage.’’
Five bipedal machines began the non-stop 42.2-kilometre (26.2-mile) contest on a 100-metre indoor track in the western Japanese city of Osaka Thursday morning after doing knee bends or raising their hands to greet spectators.
One of the competitors retired after finishing only the first lap, but the others continued running day and night, getting up by themselves every time they fell to the floor or got into collisions with rivals.
In the early 1800s more than 65 million bison roamed North America, now their numbers have been reduced to approximately 3900. Bison in the U.S. are mostly confined within the perimeter of Yellowstone National Park but heavy snows in recent years have led them to roam to lower elevations where it is easier to forage for vegetation.
Developed during the Great Depression, Monopoly was one of the few affordable escapes which gave its players the ability to fictitiously own property. But in today’s e-conomy, it’s become increasingly difficult to own land in Atlantic City. Then again, why would you want to?
Today, it’s not land that we look to obtain, it’s content. Content is currency. What more easily transferable currency is there than Memes. I think you get where we’re going with this… Introducing: MEMEOPOLY.
The memes, starting at GO:
Cereal Guy
Antoine Dodson
Community Chest: Milhouse Is Not a Meme
Double Rainbow Guy
Income Tax: Raisins/Super FFFUUU-
Railroads: Longcat
Chris Crocker
Chance: Doubles Guy
Jessi Slaughter
Boxxy
Jail: Forever Alone
Advice Dog
Electric Company: Anonymous
Courage Wolf
Foul Bachelor Frog
Strutting Leo
Prancing Cera
Sad Keanu
Free Parking: Fuck Yea Guy
Cool Story Bro
U Mad
LOL WUT
Star Wars Kid
Grape Lady
Water Works: Reddit
Tron Guy
Go to Jail: FFFFUUUUUU
Dramatic Chipmunk
Oolong
Keyboard Cat
Rick Astley
Luxury Tax: Okay Guy
Happy Cat
