Offbeat posts

In 1975, Three Days of the Condor with Robert Redford highlighted the profession of CIA researcher, a non-combat, non-covert department of the spy organization. Redford played a standard “knowledge worker” who was propelled into the world of espionage. He got the bad guys, got the girl, and learned to shoot a gun. While most of us in a similar position will likely not be chased by the government, it points to a necessary section of most organizations that gets less glory than the “front line” professions but that, for all intents and purposes, helps drive the world for everyone. The business of…

Missing “Star Wars Day” is a crime against geeks across the world. If you are wondering when Star Wars Day is, you already missed it – May 4th. Fortunately, there are always ways to make up for it, such as by enjoying this excellent and ever-so-true comic by our friends at Calamities of Nature. Much love to Tony Piro for running this excellent comic. Click to enlarge. …

Building a startup represents the 21st century equivalent of the “American Dream.” It’s not a direct comparison, as it has become a global endeavor and it’s also much harder to break in than it was in the early parts of the 20th century when “the dream” was really first born. What does it take? What are they doing right or wrong? How can they succeed? This graphic by our friends at Focus takes us through the various challenges and pitfalls associated with starting a tech company. Click to enlarge. …

When people make predictions about future technologies that come true, they are seen as visionaries. When people miss terribly with their predictions, they have infographics that live forever telling of how wrong they were. Such has been the case for many futurists over the past century and a third. It’s often easy to make a bold prediction when it is supposed to come true in the distant future, but some predictions were proven to be exceptionally wrong looking a couple of years ahead. Bill Gates, for example, said spam would be solved in 2 years. That was 2004. We’re still waiting and hoping for…

Okay, so the LEGO thing has been played out over the Internet for far too much, and I might have contributed, but there is just something about LEGOs that I can’t get over. It just takes you back to a time when everything was so much simpler. Unfortunately, the idea of turning LEGOs into soap bars might be taking it a bit too far. However, I have a hot tip from an anonymous source who informs me that this soap does offer powerful scrubbing action! If you can read German, you can buy it here….

Between a budget shortfall in California and cuts in federal funding, the ongoing “Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence” is going into hibernation mode this month. Mountain View’s SETI Institute has pulled the plug on the Allen Telescope Array, a field of radio dishes that scan space for signals from aliens. Tom Pierson, CEO of SETI Institute, sent an email to major sponsors. “Effective this week, the ATA has been placed into hibernation due to funding shortfalls for operations of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) where the ATA is located.” So, what is it going to take? With automakers,…

If there’s one major complaint that almost every tech company in the world has to deal with from time to time, it’s tech support. When you have upset people with problems having to jump through the hoops often associated with putting in a customers service request, the results are often quite negative. Having the right people in place is always a challenge, as the pay is normally at the low end in the tech world while the skill required is often high. This infographic by our friends at ZenDesk can be used as a roadmap when looking for that exact right person to represent your company on the phone and via…

When the tables turn, comedy often ensues. Such is the ironic case of Righthaven.com, the “copyright troll” that attempts to seize cash and domains from bloggers and other publications who repost pictures and stories from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For a year, Righthaven has filed claims that by printing the material of which they own the copyright, they are entitled to anything from a few thousand dollars up to the domains themselves where the content was posted. Thanks to GoDaddy, we can laugh a little at them. Apparently, they either failed to supply the proper registration information…

The year is 2054. While preventing murders before they happen is the plot device driving the movie “Minority Report,” one of the most memorable aspects of the movie was the way that advertisers found and targeted people. As people passed by virtual billboards, retina scanners would identify them and target ads specifically to their needs. Is this close to the reality of our not-too-distant future? That’s the question that our friends at BuySellAds tackled when they put together the infographic below. First, take another look at the scene from the movie: Augmented reality. Facial (and eventually…

Proponents on both sides of the fence will argue feverishly about how the benefits of their chosen energy preference are better for the environment and the economy. Fukushima put a damper on the arguments for nuclear and the solar community is coming out full force to remind everyone about it. Case in point: this infographic by our friends at 1bog. In it, you’ll see some of key points that make their argument strong in a hypothetical format. Some may consider it unfair to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say “shouldacoulda” but one can’t help to wonder if the situation would be completely different…