theNerdIs.me

Great diagram to let you know where you fit in.

The Hierarchy of Camping
By brendan leonard semi rad

Ever pull up next to someone at a campground and notice they brought way more stuff than you did? Or get to a campsite after hiking nine or ten miles and look over to see your friend pulling all kinds of superfluous crap out of his/her backpack? I mean, camping is roughing it, right? It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. It’s perfectly natural to feel a little self-righteous when you notice someone has brought what you estimate to be too many creature comforts along: Come on, man, is that an Aeropress in your pack? Who brought the ice cream maker car camping? Whoa whoa whoa, is that a pillow? Like the food chain, everyone who “goes camping” has a place on the spectrum of roughing it. Above you are the people who take fewer comfort items with them, and below you are all those weenies who apparently can’t make it a single night without their down booties/extra-thick camping pad/butane-powered curling iron/stuffed animal collection. This is the Hierarchy of Camping. If you sleep outdoors, you are on it. And you look up to someone, unless you are a bear, because you are at the top. Or John Muir or Kennewick Man, because you have been dead for 100 or thousands of years, respectively. Your attitude toward those beneath you on the hierarchy is up to you, of course.

Brendan Leonard is Semi-Rad.

April 16, 2014 at 9:45AM
via adventure journal http://ift.tt/1mp6TFH

Can’t wait to see this movie…

The Social Network 2: Social Guesswork
By Joel Hladecek

The Interactivist has obtained the following pages from the upcoming sequel to The Social Network.

Title: The Social Network 2: Social Guesswork

Scene 27b

INT. FACEBOOK HQ CONFERENCE ROOM, DAY.

We see a pair of bloodshot eyes. We ZOOM OUT to reveal Mark Zuckerberg staring into space.ZUCK sits at huge black conference table surrounded by middle-aged people who probably used to be cool.

On the table in front of him sits an Oculus Rift developer’s kit. …Right behind 37 lines of cocaine.

ZUCK chews his lip nervously.Finally he speaks in short quick clip…

ZUCK: That’s cool.

The room nods.

MIDDLE-AGED PERSON WHO PROBABLY USED TO BE COOL #1: Very cool.

ZUCK does a quick line of coke – grimaces – and pounds the table. Everyone jumps.

ZUCK: Whooo! Yeah – THIS… (he points at Rift) THIS – is totally awesome.

His eyes dart across the room in spastic jerks.

ZUCK: It’s awesome, right?

People nod.

ZUCK: I mean, and I’m just doing my magic here, could you imagine… just imagine… if THIS… was Facebook’s “iPhone”.

Inhales heard around the room.

RANDOM PERSON: Wow.

ZUCK: Right?

CTO, MIKE SCHROEPFER, sitting across table, squints disconcertedly.

ZUCK: What!? Shit, seriously? What, Mike? Fuck you’re such a downer!

CTO MIKE: I didn’t even say anything…

ZUCK: I see your eyes! You don’t think I see your eyes getting all squinty and judgmental??

CFO DAVID EBERSMAN: That’s not fair.

ZUCK: Oh, you too?!? You’re an even bigger downer David!

CFO DAVID: Mark, we’re just looking out for the company.

ZUCK: Oh, I’m sorry, so you’re not a downer!? Oh ok, lets see, uh, Instagram wasn’t the future, and it was too expensive. Paper was a lame app, and it was too expensive. These are your words! QUOTE! WhatsApp is “JUST” another app – it will get replaced by some other app in a year or two and was galactically, monumentally too expensive… and… and – what am I missing?

SHERYL SANDBERG: (snorts line of coke) Facebook has no vision and is randomly grasping to find relevance?

ZUCK: Right Sheryl, thank you! – Facebook has no vision and is randomly grasping to find relevance. Your words, David.

CFO DAVID: Look I’m… I’m being honest. And Mike agrees with me.

MIKE SCHROEPFER looks down at his hands.

ZUCK: What are you even doing here David?

CFO DAVID: I just want to help Facebook Mark.

ZUCK: (stares) …well you’re a fucking downer, David. A complete fucking Debbie Downer.

The room is silent.

ZUCK does 8 lines of coke.

ZUCK: Fuck – even the coke doesn’t UN-DOWN you guys! OK WHAT!? What’s wrong with it?!

CTO MIKE: um… well – I mean it’s cool, yes. But It’s not a platform, Mark.

All eyes back on ZUCK.

ZUCK: What do you mean it’s not a platform!? Have you ever experienced that before??

CTO MIKE: No, but Oculus Rift owns no content, you use this device to interact with someone else’s content. The content exists on a computer and probably over the internet. Manufacturing devices like this has nothing to do with creating and owning the experiences people will have in the future any more than manufacturing headphones has to do with creating and owning the music people listen to. If you want to own the social experience as VR emerges, you needed to create the killer software experiences that people will use. Lots of companies will make headsets like these. It’s like a DVD player, it’s dumb hardware! This headset in no way buys you into the world of VR enhanced social networking. Oculus Rift is… well, it’s just a peripheral. Like headphones and monitors. The content is the experience.

Long silence. ZUCK’S eye dart around the room. He looks at some 17-YEAR-OLD-LAWYER-LOOKING-KID who shrugs.

ZUCK: FUCK!! …Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that before I bought it?!

Gasps around the room.

CFO DAVID: WHAT!? You already bought it? Oh God.

ZUCK: Well fuck David, you’re always such a downer – I didn’t want you in the room. … I did it this morning.

CFO DAVID: But you only saw the device for the first time yesterday…! Did you talk to anyone??? Oh Christ – how much did you spend this time??!

ZUCK: Less than last time.

CFO DAVID: Mark. Look at me. Last time you bought an iPhone app for the price of a small country. What – did – you- spend?

CFO DAVID looks around the room.

CFO DAVID: WHAT DID HE SPEND??!

17-YEAR-OLD-LAWYER-LOOKING-KID: …um 2 3 BMil (unintelligible)

CFO DAVID: What?! 2 3 what? Million?

17-YEAR-OLD-LAWYER-LOOKING-KID: eh, um no… 2 3 um… B… billion. 2 3 Billion.

Several people in the room visibly deflate.

CFO DAVID: (frozen) Good jesus christ.

CTO MIKE slumps in his chair and closes his eyes, visibly shaken.

We hear a loud snort and ZUCK sucks up another line of coke.

ZUCK: SHIT YEA! (laughs maniacally – coke all over his nose) AWESOME, RIGHT? FUCK YEA! WE CAN PUT OUR LOGO ON IT MAN! FACEBOOK! RIGHT THERE BRO!

CFO DAVID: …right where the user won’t see it because it’s covering his FUCKING EYES, MARK!

ZUCK: You don’t think I know that?! I KNOW THAT! And that’s why…. (sly smile) we also put advertising… in the fuckin’ content, baby!

CTO MIKE: …in the content. (sighs) Right, um, Mark, the content doesn’t… it’s not running in this device – it’s just showing up there! The content is running on a computer.

ZUCK: (stares, beat) Well why not? We can just make a smaller computer and cram it in there! CRAM – IT – RIGHT – IN! WHOO!

He snorts more some coke.

CTO MIKE: (under breath) Jesus christ. (to ZUCK like talking to a child) Mark, the kind of experiences that people will want to see on a VR device – and there will be many other VR devices on the market to choose from – will, for the foreseeable future require a lot more processing power than you can cram into this thing. Like in gaming, where resolution and responsiveness of VR is a moving target. A bigger box will always yield a superior experience. Which is why people will prefer having a cable – connected to a bigger game box that gives them a way more kick ass experience, than having a self-contained device that runs 10-year-old looking graphics and laggy response times. Again – this device is not VR. This device is only a peripheral that serves it up. Advertising can exist in the software – and if you, Mark, really have a vision for how Facebook can be enhanced by VR, you should have started making that software – WITHOUT ever having to buy this device.

Long pause.

ZUCK: But it’s FUCKING COOL MIKE! NOW WE’LL BE COOL AGAIN, MAN! DON’T YOU GUYS GET IT? See YOU’RE OLD, and I’M YOUNG! I HAVE a vision man! I’m gonna hang them all over the place! Sheryl!!!

SHERYL: (finishes a huge line of coke) uhf! Yeah? (closes eyes) Oh Shit.

ZUCK: Everywhere I like to chill with my board homies – I want to see these badasses hung all over the walls – decorate the fuck out of HQ Sharon. Shit this is going to be the coolest batch-eh-lor pad in da world holmes! OCULUS RIFT WALLPAPER BABY!

CFO DAVID: Mark…

ZUCK: And YOU! You don’t even get one David. You either, Mike! ‘Cause you’re totally blowing my high, bitches. (Snorts another line of coke) FUCK! I LOVE BUYING SHIT FOR BILLIONS! DON’T YOU JUST FUCKING LOVE BUYING SHIT FOR BILLIONS?? FUCK! C’mon Sheryl, I’m hungry, Let’s go buy In-N-Out Burger and Coke.

-Scene end.

March 27, 2014 at 12:41PM
via THE INTERACTIVIST http://ift.tt/1gewYS0

The saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” may happen sooner than you think.

This Is Your Brain On No Sleep
By Elise Craig

If you’ve been skipping sleep, thinking you’ll make up for it on weekends, here’s some bad news. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Peking University have found that chronic sleep loss may actually lead to irreversible damage to and loss of brain cells.

“We live in a society where each year high school teens, college kids, and young adults stay up later and later and later because of increased demands on their time and to have that edge in the world,” says Dr. Sigrid Veasey, associate professor of medicine and a member of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the Perelman School of Medicine. “But what if that edge is lost through brain injury?”

Researchers monitored the brains of mice after periods of normal rest, short wakefulness, or extended wakefulness, similar to the sleep patterns of a typical shift worker, like a truck driver. For the first time, they found that after several days of shift-worker style sleep patterns, mice lost 25 percent of a particular kind of neuron essential for alertness and optimal cognition, and experienced a reduction in a particular enzyme that regulates proteins involved in increasing energy production, and protects neurons from free radicals.

Though the study looked at the brains of mice, all studied mammals contain those same neurons. “We cannot extrapolate how much damage humans would have for the same sleep loss, but it seems quite likely that given enough sleep loss chronically, we would see some damage to these neurons,” Veasey says.

For Veasey, the next step is to use imaging techniques to study people who work night shifts to see if they can determine differences in brain activation, neurotransmission, and metabolites. “We would love to come up with a simple biomarker so that individuals could track their own status/sleep needs.”

March 24, 2014 at 4:02PM
via Outside Magazine: All Feeds http://ift.tt/1nV0Oog

Describes what confirmation of the inflation theory implies…

03/19/14 PHD comic: ‘Cosmic Inflation Explained’
By

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: “Cosmic Inflation Explained” – originally published 3/19/2014 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

March 21, 2014 at 3:02AM
via PHD Comics http://ift.tt/1jaBPv1

Interesting story of a reclusive old man…

Link: The $17 Million Dollar Squatter
By Paul Kafasis

Michael Gross has the fascinating story of what is almost certainly the most expensive eviction in New York City history. If there’s one lesson to be learned from all of this, it’s that the owners really should have let the old man have his free meals.

∞ Permalink

March 19, 2014 at 9:24AM
via One Foot Tsunami http://ift.tt/1lvLDNw

The story of usability.

Manuals
By

March 16, 2014 at 11:00PM
via xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/1343/