5 Intriguing Things
1. How to become the world's only frozen-dumpling billionaire.
"Using mechanical parts harvested from the hospital junk pile, Chen built a two-stage freezer that chilled his glutinous rice balls one by one, quickly enough that large ice crystals didn’t form inside the filling and ruin the texture. His first patent covered a production process for the balls themselves; a second was for the packaging that would protect them from freezer burn. Soon enough, Chen realized that both innovations could be applied to pot stickers, too. And so in 1992, against the advice of his entire family, Chen, then 50, quit his hospital job, rented a small former print shop and started China’s first frozen-food business. He named his fledgling dumpling company Sanquan, which is short for the 'Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China' — the 1978 gathering that marked the country’s first steps toward the open market."
2. Spend 10 minutes looking at this and you'll understand code's power better.
"Algorithms are a fascinating use case for visualization. To visualize an algorithm, we don’t merely fit data to a chart; there is no primary dataset. Instead there are logical rules that describe behavior. This may be why algorithm visualizations are so unusual, as designers experiment with novel forms to better communicate. This is reason enough to study them. But algorithms are also a reminder that visualization is more than a tool for finding patterns in data. Visualization leverages the human visual system to augment human intellect: we can use it to better understand these important abstract processes, and perhaps other things, too... The purpose of this essay is to let you study code through visualization."
3. Blue collar workers are going to see the sharp end of data-tracking "solutions".
"And now, with the explosion of craft beer and other beverage SKUs, telematics software is becoming even more essential, notes Telogis’ Zujus. Retailers are trying to minimize the amount of product stored in their back rooms, which forces distributors to deliver smaller orders more frequently, in some cases, he explains. As a result, he says distributors are experiencing increased costs and labor, and telematics solutions have the ability to help mitigate these challenges. 'The first step in being able to take waste out is being able to see where it is, and without the technology out there, those trucks are driving around all day and they don’t really know what’s going on,' Zujus says. 'So being able to see where I’m driving extra miles, or where my trucks are idling, or where my drivers are waiting, things like that, gives them the ability to start zeroing in on that stuff and saving some money.'"
"WordStar runs no less efficiently and behaves no differently in 2014 than it did in 1983. But if you’re running it today you must be a Luddite, or at the very least a curmudgeonly author of high fantasy whose success allows you to indulge your eccentricities. This is what was so fascinating (to me) about the public reaction to this seemingly recondite detail about Martin’s writing process: a specific piece of antiquarian software, WordStar 4.0 to be exact, is taken as a clue or a cue to the personality and persona of its user. The software, in other words, becomes an indexical measure of the famous author, the old-school command-line intricacy of its interface somehow in keeping with Martin’s quirky public image, part paternalistic grandfather and part Dr. Who character. We know, that is most of us of a certain age remember, just enough about WordStar to make Martin’s mention of it compelling and captivating. But what is WordStar? It is not content per se, nor is it any actual thing. (Or is it?) "
5. Happy Friday, everyone. Happy Friday.
"Rock'n'roll star Chubby Checker, best known for his 1960 version of The Twist, has settled the 2013 lawsuit he brought against Hewlett-Packard over a 'penis-measuring' app. Checker, real name Ernest Evans, had been seeking half a billion dollars from Hewlett-Packard for 'irreparable damage and harm' caused by the Chubby Checker, an app for Hewlett-Packard's Palm OS platform. The settlement agreement has not been disclosed, and neither side has accepted liability, but Hewlett-Packard has apparently agreed not to use the singer’s stage name, related trademarks, or likeness on their products."
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
caucus. Orig. US, probably of Algonquian orig.: a meeting of party or group leaders to decide on candidates, policies, &c. In Brit., a local political committee for fighting elections, defining policy, &c., generally used only of opponents' organizations.
Command-Line Intricacy