Drop Zone

This page is for miscellaneous snippets and observations about stuff that looks interesting on the Net that I haven't got a home for, haven't decided if I want to find a home for it, but want a record to be able to find it.  Hence they get dropped here...

OpenOffice & StarOffice - just how related are they?

Interesting snippet from Jonathan Schwartz's blog, calling StarOffice the cousin of OpenOffice.  So, not closely related enough to be considered siblings.  Hmmm....

Virtual Economy

Interesting trend - people purchasing virtual items, i.e. possessions that exist inside a virtual game, world whatever... but trading real money for them

More bullying tactics from media companies:

http://www.pearworks.com/pages/pearLyrics.html

For once, a decent article on Intelligent Design and Evolution:

http://blog.tomevslin.com/2005/12/evolutions_not_.html

Click Fraud - damaging online advertising

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/fraud.html

Flip-flops & Bar Code

There is a difference between the way Americans and the Japanese where flip-flops: Americans grip tightly at the V between the toes, the Japanese drag their heels

Bernard "Bob" Silver, a graduate student, overhead the president of a local food chain requesting a system for reading product information, and set about researching it.  Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland's bar code was patented in 1949.  But it wasn't until 1974 that a scanner was installed at a supermarket in Ohio and the first product, a packet of chewing gum, was scanned at the checkout.

- Extracts from Humble Masterpieces by Paola Antonelli, published 2006.

 

References