futuretechreport:

The Internet of Things Will Make You Smarter

This infographic from SAP illustrates how the Internet of Things (IoT) is making our lives SMARTER! SAP estimates by 2020 the number of ‘things’ connected to the internet will hit 50 billion with the drive towards its transformation coming from consumers rather than enterprises.

Infographic source

Connected 24/7

Is wine tasting bullshit?

The author of this article seems to think so.

It’s an interesting read about “expert” taste buds. If there are no judging standards in the wine industry, then it makes sense to look at the entire process as arbitrary.

This commenter had a refreshing take:

I won’t argue one way or the other with respect to wine tasting, but I can tell you beyond a doubt that I have an exceptional pallet when it comes to Mountain Dew. My standards are so high for this exquisite beverage that I can no longer consume the watered-down trash served up by convenience stores. I even have different consumption techniques depending on the temperature of the beverage that allow its maximum flavor to impart itself upon my senses.

So it’s bottles only for me with one exception. If Dew be a Mountain, Taco Bell is surely the Olympus it passively is named after. In that godly realm, the nectar of the gods ascends to a new level unavailable to mortals anywhere else in this world. Truly, it is an otherworldly experience to consume Taco Bell’s Mountain Dew.

christinetheastrophysicist: Birth of a Black Hole A new kind of cosmic flash may reveal something never seen before: the birth of a black hole. When a massive star exhausts its fuel, it collapses under its own gravity and produces a black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational grip. According to a new analysis by an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), just before the black hole forms, the dying star may generate a distinct burst of light that will allow astronomers to witness the birth of a new black hole for the first time. Read More.
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christinetheastrophysicist:

Birth of a Black Hole

A new kind of cosmic flash may reveal something never seen before: the birth of a black hole.

When a massive star exhausts its fuel, it collapses under its own gravity and produces a black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational grip. According to a new analysis by an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), just before the black hole forms, the dying star may generate a distinct burst of light that will allow astronomers to witness the birth of a new black hole for the first time.

Read More.

ripsher: As part of a talk yesterday, I used one of my photos from Singapore to help demonstrate the problem with Feature Creep. These are air conditioning units on an ice cream factory. “Feature creep, creeping featurism or featuritis is the ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, such as in computer software. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication rather than simple design.” (source: Wikipedia.com) This reminds me of what a lot of tech journalists were saying about the new Samsung Galaxy S 4. Nice phone overall, but a lot of the software features feel jammed in for marketing value rather than functionality.
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ripsher:

As part of a talk yesterday, I used one of my photos from Singapore to help demonstrate the problem with Feature Creep. These are air conditioning units on an ice cream factory.

“Feature creep, creeping featurism or featuritis is the ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, such as in computer software. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and so can result in over-complication rather than simple design.” (source: Wikipedia.com)

This reminds me of what a lot of tech journalists were saying about the new Samsung Galaxy S 4. Nice phone overall, but a lot of the software features feel jammed in for marketing value rather than functionality.