My wife asked me why I name these "potpourri", in case you were also wondering, it is named after the jeopardy category of the same name, which is pretty much just a hodgepodge of random questions that don't fit anywhere else. These posts are just pretty much random stuff on the net I have come across in my reading that I found interesting for one reason or another. I was close to calling it "poop-ourri" but opted for the Jeopardy nomenclature as I didn't know what kind of traffic it would bring in if I started ranking well in google for that term.
Coax-Ethernet Adapter
We installed a wireless-N network at our house about 6 months ago. I was happy with the speeds, but I was not happy with the spotty connection in certain parts of the house that should have had coverage if the true N range was in use. I would get insane wireless speeds from within 20 feet of the hub, but as soon as I disappeared behind a wall I would only get 5% of the speed I was getting. My previous wireless 802.11G network was much better at penetrating normal house walls, I was getting only 20% less bandwidth when I was behind a wall. So we decided to try powerline networking instead and I must say that this and coax are seriously the way to go. We get great speeds, probably not as much as the 802.11n was pulling when I would stand right next to the router, but at least with powerline and coax the speed is pretty constant throughout the house. We went the powerline option and get very good speeds all over the house, but I noticed this coax hub today and although this has I am sure been in production awhile, the fact that this is coming out now I think is symbolic that people are going to try to use the infrastructure that they have in place now as opposed to upgrading (maybe symbolic of an overall shift in purchasing).
FEMA map Service Center
Cool site that will show you if your house (or house you are looking at) is on a Flood Plain or not. After poking around on this it got me thinking though, with enough water, are we all not on a floodplain? A little more research and I am sure I could find some kind of standard amount of water or release of water which they measure by and create these maps, but that specific variable has by far the biggest effect on these results. I assume there is some kind of standard for it maybe?
Free Amazon MP3s
I buy almost all my music from Amazon MP3, here is all the free downloads on one grid, there are a bunch of great artists in there and some decent singles. A great way to find a new band.
A 40-Year Wish List
$650 million for digital TV upgrade coupons?? Please, come on Obama, after all the "waste" rhetoric you are looking just like mid 2000s-crazy-spend neocon and very much like your predicessor. I am glad it won't be spending on need less wars, but Amtrak? Kick Amtrak to the curb and rebuild an entirely new light rail infrastructure. Amtrak has already shown us they won't work, and drop all this pork.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Installing a Deep-Sea Webcam
"Last week, the world's first deep-sea webcam was installed on the floor of California's Monterey Bay, giving scientists an unimpeded look at deep-sea life. Wired went along for the ride."
I love this stuff, now to just find a link to the live feed.
Study: Kidney donors live just as long as others
This is just a small blurb, but for some reason I found it very surprising none the less. The study went back to people who were kidney donors in 1963. I would like to see the weights of the donor years though. Regardless, still good to see.
Don’t Avatars Get a Tax Break, Too?
A purely in-game economy is one thing. A Monopoly player who obtains thousands of dollars in paper money and a raft of hotels has no additional wealth — those assets are returned to the box once the game is over. If user agreements that state that all of the virtual property belongs to the world’s owner are upheld, games like [World of Warcraft] resemble Monopoly. WoW’s economy is not designed to interact with the real world. Instead, its publisher prohibits real money exchanges and sales of accounts, avatars, and items.
Second Life, by contrast, is structured to facilitate commerce. It provides tools for participants to build creations they can sell for Lindens. There is no prohibition on exchanging Lindens for money or other property; in fact, Second Life provides the LindeX, a currency exchange, to support the purchase and sale of Lindens. Second Life is thus intentionally commodified.
Regardless of what the author of this wants to believe, there is a real market transaction system for both World of Warcraft and its MMO ilk. If this were to go into effect for markets with explicit trading like Second Life, does it then up the regulation that those other non-explicit (aka underground) games have to police themselves? Seems a slippery slope. There is no way that many of those games (even Blizzard with World of Warcraft) have the resources to soundly police it (they attempt to - but are no where near able to do it), if they were forced to by law it would certainly get messy and in the end waste more tax dollars for enforcement in my opinion.
David Lee Roth "Runnin' With The Devil" Soundboard
'nuff Said.
Isn’t it Iconic? Don’t you think?
A Great writeup about how introducing rock and roll bands to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is pretty much a waste of time for us all. The author proposes that instead we nominate specific songs. It actually is a good idea, he has a rule set that has to be applied (ie only one song from any given band) and then goes on an aggregate of his list along with about a dozen other peoples. After reading the list I am convinced that he is right.
How the Government Dealt With Past Recessions
Very interesting audio/graphic about how past recessions were dealt with by U.S. Presidents. Worth a listen by anyone imho. I have never really been a big fan of informative graphics accompanied by audio, I feel like one will always take away from the other, but this was really done well and I think the key is that the audio is presented in short blasts of information that supplement a specific area of the graphic. Great job by NYT and well worth the listen.
Playing The Beatles Backwards: The Ultimate Countdown
Extremely well detailed list/rankings of 189 Beatles songs. They were done backwards (starting at 189) and I didn't think I would agree with Jbev's list once I saw Revolution 9 in the completely last place. I am not a huge fan of Rev 9, but out of 189 Beatles songs I hardly think it was the worst. My mind was redeemed though when I did read the top 20, I agree with #1 - A Day in the Life, but I would have put the Abbey Road ending medley (Slumbers/Weight/The End) as #2. I also wonder what the author had against Magical Mystery Tour (my 2nd fav Fab four album), but regardless its a great read if you have the time, and he also provides links to each of the songs. Must have took a huge amount of time and research, a great read.
Black Death 'kills al-Qaeda operatives in Algeria'
This really blew me away that it wasn't getting any more coverage than just this small bit of news I saw. I don't know how prevalent the plague still is naturally, but my first thought was that al Qaeda was trying to weaponize it and just f'd up. Regardless still a scary thought when you put Bubonic Plague and Al Qaeda in the same sentence.
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Potpourri
potpourri, random, links