Pressing the elevator close button won't stop the BP oil spill

- Five dead auto-brands and why they died:
http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/109823/5-dead-auto-brands-and-why-they-died?mod=insurance-autos




- Why do we still have power cords?  Yeah, why?
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ts_burning_powercords/




- The BP oil spill put into perspective, compared to other oil spills:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/06/08/pie-are-square-oil-spills-are-round/




- Seven myths about grilling a steak:
http://lifehacker.com/5571192/seven-myths-about-grilling-a-steak




- Everything you ever wanted to know about elevators.  Did you know that the close button on elevators doesn't work?  It's a placebo button.  I always suspected as much.  Seems like when people press the close button, the door closes, but not immediately:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all

Give up your seat on the bus and make Alex Trebek happy

- Have you ever asked a woman if she was pregnant, only to find out in abject horror that she was not pregnant?  I almost did this once.  It's a nightmare social scenario.  The easy solution is to simply avoid asking all women if they are pregnant.  However, what if you are on a bus, sitting in a seat, and a woman who may be pregnant is standing in front of you?  Many cities have laws requiring you to give up your seat to a pregnant woman.  Here are some tips to avoid making such a faux pas:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8730106.stm




- The differences between PC viruses, malware, spyware, worms, and other types of malicious software:
http://lifehacker.com/5560443/whats-the-difference-between-viruses-trojans-worms-and-other-malware




- Facebook games drop in popularity:
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/across-the-board-top-facebook-games-take-a-tumble/1401804




- Google versus Apple.  Five years ago this fight was Microsoft versus Apple.  Sign of the times:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/12/phone-fight.html




- Like movies, video games have suffered in quality over the past ten years.  Here's the main reason why:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/publishers-note/7688-Publisher-Note-10-E-for-Everyone-Except-Me




- Lovely maps showing where Americans are moving to, and where Americans are moving from:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/06/move/




- IBM supercomputer to participate in the game-show Jeopardy:
http://hothardware.com/News/IBMs-Watson-Supercomputer-Stars-In-Jeopardy-Promo-Video-Nearly-Ready-For-Primetime/

Hack a Gene Wilder movie on Netflix

- Do you use Netflix?  Take a look at how Netflix sees the future of its movie delivery system over the next twenty years:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/03/netflix-business/




- Timeline history of hacking:
http://www.focus.com/images/view/2242/




- The top photo is Shanghai in 1990.  The bottom photo is Shanghai in 2010.  Incredible change in just twenty years:
http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-1990-vs-2010-2010-6



- Last night while watching The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother (an awful movie) I noticed that Gene Wilder has completely fallen off the map.  Wilder is 77 years old, and apparently in very good condition.  Wilder hasn't done a movie since 1999:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wilder




- Dr. Demento will end his famous radio show after forty years.  I never listened to Dr. Demento, but I remember friends and relatives talking about his show:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Dr-Demento-ends-his-radio-show/tabid/418/articleID/159591/Default.aspx




- Last week I implored you to get a gmail account if you don't already have one.  Well, you may also want a hotmail account.  Microsoft has released a website version Office 2010.  Microsoft gives you 25 gigabytes of storage space and Office 2010 online, all for free.  All you need is a hotmail account (which naturally is free.)  A few years ago Google released their free office productivity suite, Google Docs.  I am curious to try both of them and see which one is more useful:
http://office.live.com/




- How to tell a premium cigar from a bad cigar:
http://www.albertam.com/how-to-tell-a-premium-cigar-from-a-lower-quality-cigar/

Drinking a yotta-liter of scotch in space may save your life!

- The terms computer scientists use to measure bytes in a device.  Your computer has either megabytes or gigabytes worth of memory, and probably has gigabytes or terabytes worth of hard-drive space:

Kilobyte = 1 thousand bytes.

Megabyte = 1 million bytes.  

Gigabyte = 1 billion bytes.  

Terabyte = 1 trillion bytes.

1 Petabyte = 1,000 Terabytes

1 Exabyte = 1,000 Petabytes

1 Zettabyte = 1,000 Exabytes

1 Yottabyte = 1,000 Zettabytes (a 1 followed by 24 zeros -- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)

The following link gives you a better idea of how insanely large a yottabyte is:

http://en.s.digitalkamera.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/blog-infographic-yottabyte-size.jpg

- What your email address says about your computer skills.  I own the email domain of ???@greymarch.com, but I don't use it because it doesn't integrate with my smartphone or my computer as well as my gmail account.  I also have a yahoo email address I give to anyone I think might try to spam me.  If you don't have a gmail account, you really are wasting your life away.  It's easily the best free email client.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/what-your-email-address-says-about-your-computer-skills/

- The first record of someone drinking scotch:

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/06/0601scotch-whisky-first-record

- What would happen if you became exposed to the vacuum of space?  It's uber-dangerous, but don't believe the movies:

http://www.damninteresting.com/outer-space-exposure