Month: May 2007

Lunch 2.0 at LinkedIn on May 23, 2007

/ Adam Nash / 3 Comments

In case you hadn’t heard, LinkedIn is hosting a Lunch 2.0 event at their new offices in Mountain View on May 23rd.

From the new LinkedIn blog:

Yes, you heard it first here. We’re moving! And, we’re throwing a Lunch 2.0 party on May 23rd. We’d love to have you there. Here are the details:

LinkedIn
2029 Stierlin Court
Mountain View, CA 94043

Map It

So, whether you’re interested in checking out our new digs or just interested in hanging out with the teams behind some cool new LinkedIn products, this is the spring party to be at. We’re even thinking of throwing in a “Wii” little surprise into the mix.

You can RSVP here.  You can read more about Lunch 2.0 events here.

What Do You Do When You Catch Mozilla & Microsoft Dancing?

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

OK, sensationalist title for some trivial pictures, but these were too good to pass up.  Don Dodge posted some images from the recent Mix07 conference.

Source: Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Pictured left to right: Sam Ramji – Microsoft, Rob Conery – SubSonic, Andi Gutmans – Zend Technologies, Mike Schroepfer – Mozilla,  Miguel de Icaza – Mono, Novell, (William) whurley – BMC Software.

OK, that’s not that exciting.  But what did crack me up was this picture of Mike Schroepfer and the rest of the panel doing a Rockettes-like dancing line:

Not sure why this cracked me up, but it did.  I’m sure the novelty factor of seeing pictures of friends will wear off… but not yet.

A New Record: $1 Million Gold Coin Available from Canadian Mint

/ Adam Nash / 6 Comments

How could I possibly resist a post about this one?

The Royal Canadian Mint has issued the first coin with a $1 Million Dollar face value.

This coin is 100 KG of pure, 0.99999 Fine Gold. That’s 3,215 troy ounces of gold in a single coin. As reported on the Coin Collector’s Blog and goldeneaglecoin.com:

At 100 kilograms (3215 troy ounces) and 53 centimeters (21 inches) it is the largest legal tender coin in existence. It will be made of .99999 pure gold making this coin the purest gold coin on the market. The obverse of the coin will feature Queen Elizabeth II with the reverse will feature a “new, elegant maple leaf design.”

This looks like an incredible showpiece for a new process that allows the Canadian mint to issue gold coins at a whole new level of purity that should be appreciated by operations manager: five 9s worth, or 99.999% pure. Right now, the purest coins on the market are 0.9999 fine, including the previous Canadian Maple Leaf and US Gold Buffalo coins.

From the press release:

The Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin was first launched in September 1979, as a one ounce investment coin, the first coin to be struck of pure gold. The Gold Maple Leaf coin was 999 pure until 1982, when its purity was raised to 9999, setting a new benchmark for gold bullion coins. The RCM has maintained its tradition of leadership in the gold bullion industry by raising the bar once more, to 99999.

This is quite a coin. The gold value alone is worth over $2.25 Million US dollars, based on a gold price of $700 per ounce. It sells for approximately $2.7 Million dollars.

According to this MSNBC article, three of the coins have already been sold. The article also states that the coin is 20 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, weighing over 220 pounds. Apparently, it takes 6 weeks to manufacture a single coin of this size and purity.

“They’re not doing this because there is huge demand for 100-kilo gold coins,” Bret Evans, editor of Canadian Coin News said Saturday. “They’re doing it because it gives them some bragging rights in having the largest purest gold coin in the world.”

If you are looking for gift ideas for me, look no further. 🙂

Battlestar Galactica: Some Season 4 Details Emerge

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

OK, OK, I give up.

The demand for new posts on Battlestar Galactica has been relentless.  I had sworn off them for the time being, because the new season doesn’t start until January 2008, and the TV movie doesn’t air until this Fall.

Some interesting articles this week on BuddyTV and on SyFy Portal have some emerging tidbits on Season 4, which began shooting this week.  Go ahead and dig in if you are interested.  Basically, it sounds like a couple of new characters from Pegasus are going to play a role in Season 4.  Kendra Taggert is apparently one of the names to know.

Interestingly, the movie this Fall will be based on Pegasus, and its story between the attack on the colonies and its rendezvous with Galactica.   This is one of the advantages of the series – there are a lot of potential stories to be told, even within the known timeline.

How to Add a Second Hard Drive to the Tivo Series 3

/ Adam Nash

Finally… we are getting a little bit closer to HD DVR nirvana.

These instructions on Engadget show you how to hook up an external SATA drive to your Tivo Series 3 to upgrade the external storage. Apparently, the secret is holding down the “pause” button on your remote as the machine boots up, and then entering “62” at the right time. Too cool.

Since you can get eSATA storage now in very large sizes, this is a great way to expand your Tivo Series 3 beyond the normal 250GB (30 hours) of HD storage.

Ever wish you could use that friggin eSATA port TiVo taunts you with on the back of your Series3? If so your moment has finally arrived — and not a moment too soon for many a DVR-loving TV fans whose drives are filled to the brim with HD programming. Best of all: you don’t even have to crack open your box or nothin’. Ready to get it going on? Let’s upgrade that TiVo.

Too cool.

Update: US Mint Coin Schedule Through August 2007

/ Adam Nash

In a previous post, I highlighted the schedule for new US Mint products through May. The US Mint has updated their site with a slew of new dates, so I’m posting them here quickly.

May 1 Washington Official First Day Coin Cover
May 15 Little Rock Central High School Desegregation Commemorative Coin
May 17 John Adams $1 Coin Bags and Rolls
May/June American Eagle Platinum Proof Coins
May/June American Eagle Platinum Uncirculated Coins
May/June Presidential Spouse Gold Proof Coin
May/June Presidential Spouse Bronze Medal 1 5/16″
May/June American Buffalo 24-karat Gold Proof One Ounce Coin
Late May/June American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins
Late May/June United States Mint Presidential $1 Coin Proof Set®
Late May/June United States Mint Proof Set®
Late May/June United States Mint Silver Proof Set™
Late July/August United States Mint Uncirculated Coin Set®

Looks like we’ll see the first Presidential Spouse gold coins soon, as well as the new American Buffalo Proof Coin. The US Mint has decided to price that coin at $850, a $50 increase over the 2006.

The price increase isn’t surprising to me – last year I bought two coins at $800 and sold one almost immediately on eBay for over $900.

John Adams will get his dollar coin on May 17th. Something to look for given the excitement over the George Washington dollar coin errors.

I’m curious to see if the US Mint Uncirculated Eagles will be a big draw this year. Last year, no one paid much attention to these, and they had some of the lowest mintages ever of a US Eagle. As a result, the prices for these immediately skyrocketed. Of course, that will likely lead to overproduction in 2007, and lower prices. We’ll see. I bought my uncirculated silver eagle on eBay in December for about $50. I’ve seen prices as high as $80 on eBay recently. Not bad for something that sold for under $20 six months ago.

Digg Firestorm over HD-DVD Hack (AACS Key)

/ Adam Nash

I don’t have time for a full post right now, but I’m finding this firestorm at Digg over the posting of the HD-DVD AACS Key incredibly interesting.

Here is a really good interview with the Digg CEO on the issue.

I’ll post more links & articles later. But in case you haven’t read about this yet, here is the deal:

  • The new security system for HD-DVD has been cracked. It’s called AACS, and it requires unique keys embedded in the new high definition DVDs & players. A key is just a 16-byte number.
  • This number has been posted on a lot of blogs and websites. Some of those have made their way to Digg, which is a cite where users can mark their favorite posts, and share & discuss them with others.
  • Digg, citing their policy on posts that contain illegal content, took down some of these posts for fear of legal liability.
  • The community was infuriated and revolted, stating that this was a free speech issue, reportedly reposting the content over 800,000 times!
  • Digg relented, and decided that their community wanted them to go down fighting, and let the content stay.

In particular, this statement from Digg is really powerful. For any online company that depends on their community, this is something to really think deeply about and internalize. Here is the post from the founder:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin

Amazing.

Review: Diet Coke Plus

/ Adam Nash / 11 Comments

This one might seem a little out of left field for my regular readers. After all, I’ve done movie reviews and book reviews, blog reviews and website reviews. But I haven’t done any soda reviews… until now.

First, a quick disclaimer: I am an unabashed Diet Coke fan & addict. Truly, it’s a sickness. I think I’ve been drinking Diet Coke for at least 20 years, and I truly prefer it to Coke, Pepsi, or pretty much any other soft drink. I appreciate its subtleties – the taste of can vs. bottle vs. fountain. Ice cold vs. cool vs. room temperature vs. warm (yes, there is a time & a place for warm Diet Coke. Almost supernaturally, Diet Coke can hold its fizz for hours and temperatures that render most other soft drinks into warm syrup.)

So, Coca Cola has gone a product extension tear lately, and when I go to DietCoke.com, I find no less than seven varieties of Diet Coke on the market:

  • Diet Coke
  • Caffeine-Free Diet Coke
  • Diet Coke with Splenda
  • Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke
  • Diet Coke with Lime
  • Diet Cherry Coke
  • Diet Coke Plus

(Note that Coke Zero is not included, since that’s not under the Diet Coke sub-brand)

Now, let’s talk Diet Coke Plus.

My wife picked up a 12-pack of the new Diet Coke Plus this week, so I’ve tried it out. If you are not familiar with the new drink, the idea is to take the Diet Coke and make it healthier by adding vitamins & minerals. As noted in Carbwire:

According to the nutritional label, Diet Coke Plus includes 25% of the recommended daily allowance of niacin (vitamin B3), vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 as well as 15% of the RDA for magnesium and zinc in each 12-ounce serving. It is sweetened with an aspartame/ACE-K blend that has become the industry norm for just about every diet drink nowadays.

Low-carb blogs have been talking about this for a while… check out this one, for example.

Anyway, fundamentally, if you are going to drink Diet Coke anyway, it might as well have something nutritional added to it. But how does it taste?

Answer: On a scale from 1 being terrible (Diet Pepsi) and 10 being terrific (Diet Coke), I give it a 7. It’s OK, but it’s not Diet Coke.

The problem is their move to sweeten the drink with an Ace-K & Nutrasweet blend. Ace-K is the sweetener that debuted with Pepsi One, and for some reason, it seems like most soft drink companies have decided that this is a superior sweetner. Not in my book.

One of the great things about Diet Coke is that they specifically do not try to make it as sweet as normal soda, but with artificial sweetener. Instead, they just dial down the sweetness altogether.

Diet Coke Plus tastes like Pepsi One. Not terrible, but I’m not sure the relatively tepid health benefits of adding a B-vitamin complex, magnesium and zinc is worth it.
Still is coke, so maybe is not that healthy to use it as an everyday drink, unless you want to use one of the Top 9 Best Wrist Blood Pressure Monitors For 2017, but maybe the diet part helps a little.

Anyway, it’s worth trying.

Since I’m on the subject, I’ll just take a moment to post a desperate plea to the Coca-Cola Company to re-instate Diet Vanilla Coke as a shipping product. This was the single best product extension ever, and I genuinely preferred it to Diet Coke. (Yes, this means on my scale, it went to 11.) It never got significant distribution, however, and they cancelled it after only a couple years on the market. Instead, we now have to live with Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, which is OK (It’s an 8 on my scale), but just not the same.

Here’s to you, Diet Vanilla Coke:

Here is my complete grading scale, for all versions of Diet Coke, and a few related drinks:

  • Diet Coke (10)
  • Diet Pepsi (1)
  • Caffeine-Free Diet Coke (4)
  • Diet Coke with Splenda (7)
  • Diet Coke with Lime (6)
  • Diet Coke with Lemon, discontinued (3)
  • Diet Coke Plus (7)
  • Coke Zero (7)
  • Diet Cherry Coke (5)
  • Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke (8)
  • Diet Vanilla Coke, discontinued (11)

A Sailor’s Map to Social Networks

/ Adam Nash

Just for fun, found this link on Valleywag tonight:

Quote:

In this map from Randall Munroe of XKCD.com, social networks and other online communities are represented by kingdoms. Myspace dominates this mythical world, the internet giants such as Yahoo and Microsoft are relegated to the “frozen north”, and blogs appear as a scattered archipelago. Now, all we need is this skin on a version of Risk, the global domination game, in which players can fling armies of users against their bitter rivals.

Of course, I can’t seem to find my favorite online communities, eBay & LinkedIn anywhere on this map. But still fun. I particularly like the Sea of Memes.

Planet Earth Available on HD-DVD & Blu-Ray DVD

/ Adam Nash

In case you are looking for eye candy to demo your new 1080P flat panel television, you are in luck.

The HD-DVD & Blu-Ray DVD versions of the BBC/Discovery 11-hour high definition nature documentary are now available.

Engadget has a review here.

It’s interesting to see that content publishers are not taking advantage of the extra storage and features possible on Blu-Ray, likely to simplify their production costs across HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.  Another way this format war is likely to end up hurting the consumer.

Hawaii: The Design of the Last State Quarter is Revealed

/ Adam Nash / 5 Comments

Quick nod to the Coin Collecting News blog for this find. The design of the last of the 50 State Quarters has been revealed.  Hawaii, the 50th state to enter the United States, will get its quarter introduced toward the end of 2008.

From the Honolulu Advertiser:

A 25-cent piece featuring the mighty profile of King Kamehameha, the eight main islands, our state motto (Ua mau ke ea o ka ‘aina e ka pono), admission year and — in case anyone doesn’t get it — the word “Hawaii” will be jingling in pockets and purses across the U.S.

Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday announced formal approval of the Hawai’i commemorative quarter, the last of 50 such quarters to be authorized and issued by the U.S. Mint. . . .

Personally, I like seeing the runner-up coin designs. It would have been cool to have a surfing quarter in production…

Life with a 320GB Raid 0 Striped Array in a MacBook Pro

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

I couldn’t help but provide a link to this great article by my friend Eric on his experience tricking out his MacBook Pro laptop with two 160GB hard drives, and configuring the machine as a 320GB Raid 0 Striped Array.

I’ve posted here about Eric before. He is a professional photographer, with a specialty in underwater digital photography. He also runs the website wetpixel.com professionally.

What you may not know is that Eric has a storied history with the Mac. Eric was a PC-focused freshman when he came to Stanford, but during his years on the farm he relented and ended up working on Macs. He even did an internship with the famous Apple Technology Group, in that last summer before it was killed.

Eric went back to PCs at the end of the 1990s, being extremely rational about his technical needs and the advantages at the time of the platform. But every now and again, maybe once every year or two, I’d catch Eric seriously considering going back to the Mac. Well, he finally did it a little while ago, and he’s been working off a MacBook Pro.

Eric is a pretty tough cookie to please when it comes to computers, and he demands a lot of performance out of his machines. He also really focuses on his specific needs as a photographer who travels the globe constantly.

So, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see the pickup of Eric’s article on a lot of sites. On Lifehacker, I take some delight in seeing Eric referred to as “Mac user Eric Cheng“– it’s nice to see Eric publicly wed to the platform.

There has been a lot of discussion on Digg about the merits of running Raid 0 on a laptop. Personally, I wouldn’t question Eric when he gets into the zone like this on an upgrade. The stats in his article are pretty compelling, as are his experiences running Windows XP in Parallels on the upgraded machine.

My favorite comment of his, however, is directed at the Digg comments:

Some folks on the second Digg page are saying that it’s stupid to use RAID 0 in a computer, because there are “no real world benefits” and because it’s too dangerous.

I disagree. My machine is clearly running much faster, and it doesn’t seem to be running that much hotter. The fans still only spin up with high CPU usage. Battery life has always sucked on the Macbook Pro, and the estimates of losing 10-15% seems to be accurate so far. Finally, I back up frequently onto bootable, external media, even when I’m on the road, so losing my internal volume wouldn’t be catastrophic. At home, my system backs up automatically to NAS every night. The only problem is that I would have to work off of an external drive, if the RAID failed. I’d have the same problem even if I wasn’t using RAID.

I used to use a Thinkpad T-series notebook, which was a great machine because it allowed the use of two hard disks at a time in a supported, modular way. I loved that thing.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I’d love to hear about the negative Digg commenters’ personal experiences with running RAID 0 in a notebook. I’ll bet none of them have ever done it, and are speaking without any facts to back up their claims.

Cheers to Eric for his super cool MacBook Pro and for standing his ground.

In case you missed the link at the top, Eric’s article on adding RAID to a MacBook Pro can be found here.

How to Check the Status of Your Tax Refund

/ Adam Nash

Did you file electronically this year? Waiting for your refund?

This tip from the blog GetRichSlowly:

Are you getting antsy for your tax refund? You can check the status of your refund easily with this simple web-based tool from the IRS web site. You’ll need to provide your social security number, marital status, and exact refund amount in order for your request to be processed.

If you are receiving a large refund, consider having your employer adjust your W-4 so that less is withheld from your paycheck. This will, in essence, spread your refund out over the course of a year. If you have the discipline to use this money wisely, you’ll have use of it much earlier than if you had waited for a refund.

The IRS website tool is located here.  Enjoy.