Majin des

Polar bear vs. Gorilla

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:35:27 -0400

The polar bear. I’ll give the answer in more detail, An adult male Polar bear can be 10 feet (3 metres) on its hind legs, they can weight up to 680 kg and lift a weight equivalent to two tonnes. An adult male Silver back gorilla can weight up to 230 kg, and can lift the equivalent of 500 kg of weight. Male silverbacks are usually between 5’9-6’2 feet tall (1.5-1.7 metres). A polar bear is carnivorous and therefore has powerful canines and jaws, whilst a gorilla is herbivorous but yet has hundreds of muscles throughout the body. Due to the polar bears’ size, weight and diet it would have to win; as it’s triple a gorillas MAXIMUM weight, polar bears have alot of fur and blubber, and finally razor sharp 5 inch claws would allow it to rip the ape to shreds. Also, gorillas do not punch, rather they throw stuff or grab in order to defend itself, so grabbing at a polar bear’s thick fur is definitely no defense against those sharp claws and teeth.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_would_win_in_a_fight_a_polar_bear_or_a_silver_back_gorilla#ixzz1aa94qfNI

New pay methods for gaming

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:32:55 -0400

The intriguing combination of gaming and marketing has always tickled my fancy, but this really hits the spot.

Back in the days, you bought a game, on a floppy disk and later on CD/DVD and then it was your possession. With the rise of the internet and a CD-writer came a lot of illegal piracy. I’ll confess, I have done my share of playing games I didn’t own, but since all this technology is so much faster than jurisdiction I still am a free man. But I digress.

So no matter how safe they made the discs, the keys and other safety measures, virtually every game could be hacked/cracked. The ingenious company Blizzard came up with a monthly fee system. Pay per year, quarter of a year or per month. They validate your account with the right amount of playtime, and in turn they maintain the game with updates, expansions and what not. The money started to flow, and keeps on flowing as we speak. And since 2004 it has been collecting subscription fees. It’s no rocket science that they make a hefty profit of the now 12 million players.

Slowly, more and more games are using the monthly payment system. Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars The Old Republic. But now, the downloadable content seem to change this tendency.

Without hard evidence, I’m still a little bit in the dark, but from what I heard World of Warcraft is planning to cancel the monthly fee. This would mean the main profit of WoW would be the unlockable content. Not sure if that effects the gaming experience in a good way, with like every door you open, a message pops up, stating: “Do you really want to open this door? That will cost you 5 euro.”

But marketing wise it is quite brilliant. The users are free to play and bond with their avatar, and when they have started playing they are more likely to pay to keep exploring. The threshold has been lowered and the urge to pay will rise.

Of course there are ways to avoid paying for World of Warcraft, but those are hosted on private servers and ill maintained, and always have the chance that host will kill you, with just on look of his level 9999 character.

fwips: things that come happen trying to do other things

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:45:48 -0400

fwips:

~~things that come happen trying to do other things~~

Joost

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:47:24 -0400

In vroeger tijden was Joost een bijnaam die vaak werd gebruikt voor de duivel; dit was een vorm van versluierend taalgebruik, daar men bang was de duivel rechtstreeks te noemen. Waarschijnlijk gaat het om een eufemistische verbastering van het Javaanse dheyos (uitspraak dejos), dat zelf weer een aanpassing zal zijn geweest van Portugees Deos, maar dat werd gebruikt voor Chinese godenbeeldjes. Dit gebruik van Joost is voor het eerst vastgesteld voor het jaar 1729, een eerdere vorm Joos voor 1676. [1]

Of…gewoon afgeleid van Jozef.

Some refreshing insights on college funding.

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:32:00 -0400

Some refreshing insights on college funding.

"Vertrouwen is leuk, maar controle is beter."

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:23:17 -0400

“Vertrouwen is leuk, maar controle is beter.”

- A. Hitler

First lecture

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:15:00 -0400

Normally, my lectures are quiet lame, outdated and not at all spectacular. Not this time though. Topic: Intern Communication.

I was surprised as the teacher began to talk about NASA. Apollo 1, the crew was burned alive. Apollo 13, ’Houston, we have a problem’, just made it back alive. The pressure on NASA grew and, because of all the safety measures, delays, the publicity dropped, and thus the financing.

NASA needed positive publicity: The Challenger was given a crew which represented almost every major American demographic group. The first woman, the first Japanese American, black and white people, Jews, Christians.

The Challenger exploded in midair because of a malfunction of the rubber rings, which supposed to seal off the fuel. There were a couple organisations involved: Kennedy Pace Center, Morton Thiokol, Marshall Space Center, and, of course, NASA.

Here comes in the communication error. One day prior to the launch of the Challenger, Thiokol issued a warning stating: The minimal temperature is 10 C. NASA didn’t like this new last minute launch criteria.

NASA was under pressure and couldn’t afford yet another publicity failure, so they were reluctant to postpone. They made Thiokol sweat and Thiokol’s crew got a meeting with the top of the engineers. They said it was not a certainty the Challenger would blow up, just that it was not guaranteed.

At the same time, Thiokol was about to get another big job from NASA, and this decision would greatly influence that investment. So the managers decided it was time for a management decision.

When the head of Marshall Space Center asked if there was any disagreement, no one replied. And so the recommendations were stated and spread. The next morning, the temperature was below zero.

The major issue here is that the corporate value ‘safety’ was replaced by the value ‘financing’. There are various ways of keeping that most important value a trending topic. One of them are symbolic memories. Good ones, by for example hanging the photos of the crew in the boardroom, or bad ones, like playing a movie in the entrance hall about the past crashes and casualties.

So stimulate the symbolic memories, reward the whistleblowers that try to do what’s right, make heroes out of persons that have the right values at heart. And, of course, evaluate to keep control.