This one's one of my favorites. In 2001, researcher Frédéric Brochet invited 54 wine experts to give their opinions on what were ostensibly two glasses of different wine: one red, and one white. In actuality, the two wines were identical, with one exception: the "red" wine had been dyed with food coloring.
The experts described the "red" wine in language typically reserved for characterizing reds. They called it "jammy," for example, and noted the flavors imparted by its "crushed red fruit." Not one of the 54 experts surveyed noticed that it was, in fact a white wine.
Uh huh. Heck, even I can taste the difference between Coke Zero, Coke, and Diet Coke. C'mon now, pretentious snobs!
I use a trick with co-workers when we're trying to decide where to eat for lunch and no one has any ideas. I recommend McDonald's.
An interesting thing happens. Everyone unanimously agrees that we can't possibly go to McDonald's, and better lunch suggestions emerge. Magic!
This is often why brainstorming works. The goal is simply to give any and all ideas - good or bad - because sometimes the lousy ideas lead to better ideas.
Someone who says "McDonald's" for lunch may inspire someone else to remember that awesome burger they had at a cool new gastropub around the corner.
A game developer made a game in which the player assumes the role of a game developer.
He seeded unlocked copies of his game online so people could easily pirate it, with one small change: the player of the pirated version will suffer from high rates of piracy of the games they "develop" in the game.
The developer of the game is suffering from high rates of piracy, complaints, and is not making any money.
Posted May 4th, 2013 @ 07:27pm by Erik J. Barzeski
NBA player Jason Collins says he is gay, and the fact that this rates as news shows just how far behind we are where we should be when it comes to this kind of stuff.
This kind of stuff will not be news in 20 years. Hopefully it won't be news in ten, or five. Or two, but that's probably unrealistic. We still have to wait for a whole bunch of older people to die. 😛
Posted May 3rd, 2013 @ 07:21pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I bet you never thought that since adding actual movies to sites is somewhat complex ((What with non-widespread adoption of the media tag and all)) so people are reverting to making animated GIFs of scenes so that all devices and browsers can display them.
The fact that the 2014 Beetle is going to be one of the first cars to do much with our iPhones is simply appalling.
Cars are owned for four, six, eight, ten years. So when they're already two, four, or six years behind adopting current technologies, they start to feel really outdated really quickly.
It's pathetic how poorly the auto industry integrates with our smart phones. There's money to be made here - design a generic "interface" (a small computer) that powers many of the car's functions, and make a part of it "swappable" to future-proof it against future technology changes (no 30-pin dock connectors if you know what I mean). Then sell upgrades to people when they change phones and/or technology advances sufficiently.
I'd be happy to have my entire touch-screen, GPS, stereo, etc. powered by my iPhone with integrated calling, Siri, etc.
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