This article has incredible relevance to everything we do at SRG, especially in the realm of innovation and research. You can't go wrong when you combine spaghetti sauce and A/B testing, especially when conducted by a psychophysicist. The article is a brief summary of the video embedded below.
5.15.2009
Spaghetti Sauce & A/B Testing
The End is Near - Zombie Fire Ants Exist!
Although this article is from the future (May 16, 2009 -- odd), I read several articles about this topic earlier this week... Zombie Fire Ants!!!
There is a species of South American flies that actually turn fire ants into walking zombies. The process is like this - these flies attack fire ants by injecting them with eggs. As the larvae grow they kill the brain of the ant, which causes the ant to wander around like a zombie. After about two weeks the head of the ant falls off and a new fly is born, ready to repeat the process!
Maybe we should really thank the hackers from Matt's post back in February. Nazi Zombies could be more real than we think!
More on GoogleLapse
The whole Google going down thing has me absolutely fascinated. The fact that Google went down has been as surprising to most people as if they had just found out that the sky was no longer blue or grass was no longer green. Arbor Networks has their finger on the pulse of the internet deeper than just about anyone other the the NSA. The chart below shows the drop in traffic from North American ISPs to Google's network during the downtime. Pretty amazing!
5.14.2009
The Shot Heard Around The Internet
As everyone knows, sometimes web sites go down. Twitter is notorious for having performance issues, hence the creation of the fail whale. Even our beloved SilentPartner had it's wrestling match with downtime. Some websites never go down, and if they do, you know something is seriously wrong. Today, one of those websites, Google.com, went down. Not just Google and related properties were effected, but any site that used a Google service. For example, a site that integrated Google map data, or Google analytics tags were also slowed to a snails pace. It became so pervasive that the internet was buzzing with "WTF GOOGLE?!?" sentiment. Apparently it was all due to traffic being mis-routed through Asia, which in turn caused a traffic jam on the information super highway. Next time you really screw something up, just remember, you are not alone.
5.13.2009
Security Alert - Stealth Viruses
It's no secret that script kiddies hiding in basements all over the world are getting more and more devious in writing malware and viruses. They are now using techniques to hide the presence of the virus from anti-virus software. They do this by running the virus from the master boot record, which runs before the operating system, which runs the anti-virus software. Sneaky bastards! The last sentence from this article about stealth viruses says it all: "The Web has also overtaken e-mail as the top transport medium for viruses, with the number of infected sites growing 300 percent in 2008." Read more.
5.12.2009
Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Available
All you Mac users out there will be happy to hear that the latest update - 10.5.7 is now available to download!
You can get more info, including a full list of changes here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3397
Happy updating!
5.11.2009
WiFi for Road Warriors
It has always aggravated me when I stay in a hotel and they charge for wifi. This is a standard service these days, and should be rolled into the cost of the room, not tagged on as nickel and dime tactic. It's even more aggravating when you pay for the service, it is extremely slow, down, or the hotel blocks certain services like VPN connectivity. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way as this article from The New York Times points out. Check it out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
