Year: 2012

London Olympics security craze – surface to air missiles

Yet another story from Slashdot:

I have to admit, when I first read about this I thought it was a hoax, but unfortunately it’s true. The UK government is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential buildings in London for the duration of the London Olympics. From the article: ‘The Ministry of Defence is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential flats during the Olympics. An east London estate, where 700 people live, has received leaflets saying a “Higher Velocity Missile system” could be placed on a water tower. A spokesman said the MoD had not yet decided whether to deploy ground based air defence systems during the event.

Once again proving to every TV watching idiot that “we are winning the war on terror“.  Congratulations!

Discovery Channel Crashes a Boeing 727 For Science Documentary

Slashdot reports:

A Boeing 727 passenger jet has been deliberately crash-landed. The pilot ejected just minutes before the collision. The plane was packed with scientific experiments, including crash test dummies. Dozens of cameras recorded the crash from inside the aircraft, on the ground, in chase planes and even on the ejecting pilot’s helmet. All of this was done for a feature length documentary to be shown on the Discovery Channel later this year.

First of all, hats of to Discovery.  That’s some serious undertaking!

Secondly, just trying to imagine the meeting where this project has been approved makes me smile.  It must have been either too serious or too fun – either a preparation of the business plan, Gantt charts, discussion of the budgets and milestones; … or a “light bulb” idea in the morning after a huge part, and an after party.

Titanic II

Slashdot reports:

Just in time to miss the 100-year anniversary of the fatal voyage of the Titanic, Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer announced he has plans to recreate the Titanic, calling it Titanic II. ‘It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,’ says Palmer. He stated it was to be as close to the original as possible, with some modern adjustments. Its maiden voyage is set for 2016.

Some people never learn …

Weekly digest – 2012-04-29

  • One useful thing Microsoft did for web developers… CSS Gradient Background Maker http://t.co/RHqAA5j4 #
  • New note : Valve Employee Handbook http://t.co/6VIqPB8N #
  • I spent an hour at the meeting today, the content of which would fit into a single tweet. Even with names of all 10 participants. #
  • New note : Hughski – ColorHug – open source display colorimeter http://t.co/Co98ngd8 #
  • @acroitoriu There are indeed a lot of Forex companies in Cyprus. But it's not because of Cypriots. Some don't even accept ppl from Cyprus. #
  • In a mood for a pint. Called 5 people to join me this Friday evening and only one accepted. I guess I'm not as much fun as I think. :) #
  • I just ousted Marios A. as the mayor of Carrefour on @foursquare! http://t.co/bNaKdBGL #
  • I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/7CU65l1q What if Dexter had been a sitcom? #

Microsoft tried to sell Bing to Facebook

Slashdot reports on the rumor that Microsoft tried to sell its search engine Bing to Facebook.  After all the hype around how much of a leader Microsoft is in the web industry, I find this to be quite funny. (Provided that it’s true, of course.)

Microsoft is not a web company.  It doesn’t think or behave like a web company.  Sure, they can change, but these things don’t happen so fast.  Facebook, on the other hand, is a web company.  They know the difference between Bing search engine and Google search engine.  More so, they are a social company, and they do know the difference between attempting to index the whole web, and receiving users’ Likes and Shares.

While I don’t use Bing myself, I think there is plenty of cool stuff in there.  But problems that it has to solve as a search engine, are much easier to solve with Facebook’s social graphs – things like SPAM, results gaming, relevance, etc.  So for me it’s really not a surprise that Facebook declined the offer.