Birthday boy.

Imagine you're sitting in a room with 22 other people in it, what are the chances that two amongst you have the same birthday? For simplicity's sake, you can ignore leap years.

Hints and solutions

The last passenger.

Q. On a sold out flight, 100 people line up to board the plane. The first passenger in the line has lost his boarding pass, but was allowed in, regardless. He takes a random seat. Each subsequent passenger takes his or her assigned seat if available, or a random unoccupied seat, otherwise. What is the probability that the last passenger to board the plane finds his seat unoccupied?

Solution

TechTerm: Domain Hacks

A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain labels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain, making a kind of pun. For example the second-level domain (SLD) blo.gs makes use of the TLD .gs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) to spell "blogs". The third-level domains del.icio.us and cr.yp.to make use of the SLDs icio.us and yp.to from the TLDs .us (United States) and .to (Tonga) to spell "delicious" and "crypto" respectively. A domain hack may use third-level domains, fourth-level domains, etc., and even directories/folders after the domain name to construct the title. For example the musical group Brave Combo's website is http://brave.com/bo/. More domain hacks are possible than one might assume due to the approximately 250 gTLDs and ccTLDs that exist all around the world. inter.net was registered and is thought to be the first domain hack ever. A domain hack is considered to be "perfect" when the periods are used as perfectly placed word separators. The most notable example, at the time of this writing, is stop.spamming.us. A domain hack is considered to be "minor" when the following two occur: 1) the TLD is not used in the title of the domain name, and 2) more than the SLD is used in the title of the domain name. An example of this could be http://dr.phil.com/ (Dr. Phil).
e.g
http://3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.com
Blo.gs
Cr.yp.to
De.lirio.us
Del.icio.us
Fami.ly
Goatse.cx

Drink - the open source way.

OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain free software/open source software, the drink took on a life of its own and 150,000 cans were sold. The Toronto-based company Opencola became better known for the drink than the software it was supposed to promote. The legal grounds for this are dubious however, as recipes are exempted from copyright as they are techniques, not artworks.

read also:
'Our Beer' - the first open source beer.

TechTerm: Mashups

A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.
Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API, although some in the community believe that only cases where public interfaces are not used count as mashups. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript.
Many people are experimenting with mashups using Google, eBay, Amazon, AOL, Windows Live, and Yahoos APIs. Mashup stuff is a wonderful way of allowing people to find new ways of applying the basic infrastructures that these companies propagate.

see also : ProgrammableWeb list of mashups, APIs, and a blog | mashup contest | join the mashupCamp | SpeedGeekings

The dead poet speaks.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…"

Mr. Keating: Thank you, gentlemen. If you noticed, everyone started off with their own stride, their own pace. Mr. Pitts, taking his time. He knew he'll get there one day. Mr. Cameron, you could see him thinking, "Is this right? It might be right. It might be right. I know that. Maybe not. I don't know." Mr. Overstreet, driven by deeper force. Yes. We know that. All right. Now, I didn't bring them up here to ridicule them. I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others. Now, those of you -- I see the look in your eyes like, "I would've walked differently." Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping. Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, "That's bad." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Now, I want you to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction. Anything you want. Whether it's proud, whether it's silly, anything. Gentlemen, the courtyard is yours.

TechTerm: SaaS

Software as a service (SaaS) is a model of software delivery where the software company provides maintenance, daily technical operation, and support for the software provided to their client. It assumes the software is delivered over the internet. Software can be delivered using this method to any market segment including home consumers, small business, medium and large business.

The key characteristics of SaaS software, according to IDC, include^:

• activities that are managed from central locations rather than at each customer's site, enabling customers to access applications remotely via the Web
• network-based access to, and management of, commercially available (i.e., not custom) software
• application delivery that typically is closer to a one-to-manymodel (single instance, multi-tenant architecture) than to a one-to-onemodel.

SaaS is conceptually similar to the original mainframe computing model in which control was centralized, user privacy was minimal and the flexibility allowed to the individual user was limited. Many consumers may feel that in SaaS the gradual erosion of their privacy and control has reached an unacceptable limit.

more on wikipedia

Subtitles as a source of humor

Occasionally, movies will use subtitles as a source of humor.

• In Austin Powers in Goldmember, Japanese dialog is subtitled using white type that blends in with white objects in the background. An example is when white binders turn the subtitle "Please eat some shitake mushrooms" into "Please eat some shit". After many cases of this, Mr. Roboto says "Why don't I just speak English?", in English.
• In The Impostors one character speaks in a foreign language, while another character hides under the bed. Although the hidden character cannot understand what is being spoken, he can read the subtitles. Since the subtitles are overlaid on the film, they appear to be reversed from his point of view. His attempt to puzzle out these subtitles enhances the humor of the scene.
• The movie Airplane! and its sequel feature two inner-city African Americans speaking in barely comprehensible jive, with English subtitles. However, the movie viewer can sense that the subtitles do not match the context of the speech; when they talk in sexually explicit slang, inaccurate sanitized text appears below.

• The Carl Reiner comedy The Man with Two Brains also features comedic use of subtitles. After stopping Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin) for speeding, a German police officer realizes that Hfuhruhurr can speak English. He asks his colleague in their squad car to turn off the subtitles, and indicates toward the bottom of the screen, commenting that "This is better - we have more room down there now".
• In Scary Movie 4, there is a scene where the actors speak in faux Japanese (nonsensical words which mostly consist of Japanese company names), but the content of the subtitles is the "real" conversation.
• In Not Another Teen Movie the nude foreign exchange student character Areola speaks lightly accented English, but her dialog is subtitled anyway. Also, the text is spaced in such a way that a view of her bare breasts is unhindered.

Make your own subtiltles. Download one of the many free softwares available to create and edit subtitles and play around with your creativity.

iPhone vs Zune -- a race against time

Recently, Microsoft filed an application with the FCC for an enigmatic wireless device that could be used to talk over the Internet. The device is described as being used for “consumer broadband access and networking.” Microsoft goes on to say that the device would use OFDM as its communications protocol, not WiFi or Bluetooth. The standard OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) is a modulation scheme that is used widely in upcoming 4G standards of the future. Sprint/Nextel may be the carrier, since they are building out a 4G network that will work with the OFDM standard.And the most interesting part of the story is that this device may be available in May, a month before the iPhone. If this all fits together, it looks like MS is working on a mobile WiMax-enabled Zune Phone, which would have download speeds of up to 2Mbps, fast enough for the Xbox-to-Zune streaming we’ve heard about, and fast enough for just about anything else the Zune Phone might be used for.

Duty, honor and the rule of law -- A Few Good Men

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I'm entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: You're goddamn right I did!!

clash of values recreated with half-life game engine | movie clip.

TechTerm: Web 2.0

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004,refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and since 2004 some technicians and marketers have adopted the catch-phrase. Its exact meaning remains open to debate, and some experts, notably Tim Berners Lee, have questioned whether the term has much meaning.The last, compact definition of Web 2.0, according to Tim O'Reilly is this one:

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called 'harnessing collective intelligence.')".

A Web 2.0 web-site may exhibit some basic characteristics. These might include:

• "Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser.
• Users owning the data on the site and exercising control over that data.
• An architecture of participation and democracy that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This is a sharp contrast to hierarchical access control in applications, in which users are categorized into roles with varying levels of functionality.
• A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.
• Some social-networking aspects.
• A Public good. "public goods" are characterized by two properties: jointness of supply and non-excludability.

The complex and evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 can be best described by the adjoining figure.

See a list of the latest and evolving wen 2.0 companies on Go2Web20.

[see more on wikipedia]

2007: Web 2.0 Companies one shouldn’t Live Without!

BlueDot is a social bookmarking service that is similar to del.icio.us

Digg, where users pick what news makes it to the home page. It’s the future of news, and the most disruptive force to mainstream media since blogs were born.

Flickr is still the photo tagging and sharing site that we use every day. The new geotagging feature is incredible. We’d like to see facial recognition, similar to what Ookles is doing, next.

Flock just feels like a complete ecosystem rather than the hodge podge of sometimes incompatible additional add-ons that you get with Firefox. If Flock didn’t exist I’d be a happy Firefox user.

Netvibes is there to go multiple times per day to get a quick overview of a few important feeds.

Pandora I’ve racked up more hours listening to music on Pandora than on any other site or even locally or the two added!

Skype may be the single biggest productivity booster since email. I use it as my primary instant messaging client, and of course for free on the fly calls almost daily.

These besides the ones mentioned in my links page

The Music Genome Project

The Music Genome Project, created in January 2000, is an effort founded by Tim Westergren, a 1988 graduate from Stanford University and spearheaded by a group of musicians and technicians to "capture the essence of music at the fundamental level" by using over 400 attributes to describe songs.The technology is currently used by Pandora to play music for internet users based on their preferences. Users are invited to create "radio stations" by entering artists or song titles. Pandora then uses an algorithm to select and play music similar to the users' selections. Since the algorithm selects songs on the basis of musical features, rather than artist popularity or record sales, many users have lauded Pandora for its ability to "recommend" unfamiliar songs that fit a user's preferences. Obscure artists may submit their music to the Music Genome Project in a bid to become better known.

See also Last.fm | List of MGP attributes ||MusicBrainz

Oxymorons

An Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words, such as 'Cruel Kindness' or 'Jumbo Shrimp' (Jumbo means 'large' while Shrimp means 'small'). It is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words, terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means.

THE TOP 50 OXYMORONS

50. Act naturally
49. Found missing
48. Resident alien
47. Advanced BASIC
46. Genuine imitation
45. Airline Food*
44. Good grief
43. Same difference
42. Almost exactly
41. Government organization*
40. Sanitary landfill
39. Alone together
38. Legally drunk
37. Silent scream
36. British fashion*
35. Living dead
34. Small crowd
33. Business ethics
32. Soft rock
31. Butt Head
30. Military Intelligence
29. Software documentation*
28. New York culture*
27. New classic
26. Sweet sorrow
25. Childproof
24. "Now, then..."
23. Synthetic natural gas
22. Christian Scientists
21. Passive aggression
20. Taped live
19. Clearly misunderstood
18. Peace force
17. Extinct Life
16. Temporary tax increase*
15. Computer jock
14. Plastic glasses
13. Terribly pleased
12. Computer security
11. Political science
10. Tight slacks
9. Definite maybe
8. Pretty ugly
7. Twelve-ounce pound cake
6. Diet ice cream
5. Rap music
4. Working vacation
3. exact estimate
2. Religious tolerance*
1. Microsoft works*

* relative.
[warning]: just because a phrase describes something non-existent that does not make it an oxymoron. "Partly pregnant" is an impossibility, not an oxymoron.
see more