Cockeyed

Semi-related. Who remembers this classic: Cockeyed.com - several decades worth of fun projects (creations, experiments, etc). https://cockeyed.com/

A little off-topic, but Rob Cockerham's investigation into Herbalife is one of the best pieces of citizen journalism I've seen. http://www.cockeyed.com/workfromhome/workfromhome.html

1. How long ago was this? 'Becoming a problem' implies that it is a new-ish thing, and an observation from 5 years ago isn't really current. 2. Are you sure you don't mean "hard to find 1 morbidly obese person everyday? You do realize that a BMI of 30 or greater is obese, right? And In non-tight and non-revealing clothes, you probably aren't even going to be able to tell a person with a BMI of 30-35 is obese. But they are according to studies like the linked article refers to. For instance, this guy is obese (BMI of 30.7): http://www.cockeyed.com/photos/bodies/511-220.html And this guy is overweight (BMI of 26.2): http://www.cockeyed.com/photos/bodies/603-210.html

This is why I love cockeyed.com. Not only did he draw attention to the scam [1], he was actually offered money to take down that page - and printed Cash4Gold's contact with him in full [2]. But my favourite (related) article was when turned the scam around on Gold Kit (similar deal) and sent them junk he had spray painted gold. [3] Fun. [1] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/cheat.shtml [2] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/reputation.shtml [3] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/gold_kit02.shtml

>But actually, if none of the companies advertise, consumers still find what they need through retailers I don't know how it works in the UK but in USA, advertising also happens inside the retailers' locations: - endcaps displays of products via promotional payments are a form of advertising [0][1]. A related concept is "slotting fees" - instant tear off coupons on the aisle shelves is a form of advertising - workers giving out free food samples (e.g. blue uniform contractors at Costco) is advertising - informational videos mounted on displays in the aisles is advertising >, word of mouth, The first person in the word of mouth chain was often a recipient of advertising. > or simply continuing to buy what they already buy. But a lot of consumers don't want to always buy what they already buy. They want to buy new and improved products. In my case, I saw an advertisement for Oatly in a magazine which is a new brand of non-dairy milk. I used to use soy milk which didn't taste great but it was better than drinking black coffee. The new oatmeal-based milk tastes much better and I would have never found it by going to the same regular retail grocery store I normally shopped at. I had to go out of my way to find a different retailer that carried it. Although 99% of advertising is terrible and irrelevant, it sometimes exposes me to new products that make me happier. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endcap [1] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/retail/raleys.php

That's opinion/stereotype, and unsupported. From Rob Cockerham's experiment (2002): "I guessed that 98% of all truck beds are empty" "In 25 minutes I had counted 150 trucks, and 99 of them had been empty. This 66% empty ratio was much lower than I had expected. I hadn't realized that so many trucks were being so successfully utilized." "The results were similar: 39% of the trucks were hauling goods, and 61 of them were empty" "Along with this adjustment of my perception, I also realized that an empty truck is no more wasteful than an empty back seat. Most cars AND trucks in the US drive around with 75% of the cargo space unutilized...what difference does it make if it is interior or exterior space?" https://cockeyed.com/science/data/truck_beds/truck_beds.html

Vacuum people have been trying to normalize high prices for a long time... From the old Internet: https://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html

This reminds me directly of "The Light Sharpener", one of Rob Cockerham's experiments. https://cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml https://makezine.com/2007/06/06/the-light-sharpener-12-fo/

Largest Diesel engine in the world[1] burns 160g (5.6oz) of diesel each combustion, within a 960mm (38in) diameter cylinder with a 2500mm (8.2ft) stroke. A barrel of oil is about 160 litres and contains 6.1E9 Joules[2], so each combustion stroke is about 6MJ. The fusion reaction released 1.3MJ of energy. So a single cylinder fusion engine seems realistic! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wärtsilä-Sulzer_RTA96-C [2] https://www.ocean.washington.edu/courses/envir215/energynumbers.pdf A Cheeseburger weighs 3.9oz for comparison https://cockeyed.com/science/weight/cheeseburger-mcdonalds.html

This is neat! It kind of looks like a ziploc. https://cockeyed.com/science/eyeclops/eyeclops_ziplock.shtml

Rob Cockerham's site is part of the Olde Web and is filled with things that are not-quite-similar to this, e.g. the "High-Profile Sculpture Replacement" http://cockeyed.com/pranks/mall/plazaprank.html

Manufacturers often pay stores for space on the end cap. http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/retail/raleys.php As far as I know, "Amazon's choice" is not an advertisement/suppliers can't bid to be Amazon's choice.

But one guard can guard a lot more than $20m. A normal-size briefcase holds about $1m in $100 bills, (http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/million/million.html, https://www.quora.com/How-many-$100-bills-can-you-fit-in-one-of-those-… or presumably about five times that if you store in 500-euro notes. So in the end people with amounts of cash in the single- or double-digit millions would probably get together and hire one guard instead of many (you don't get rich by spending six figures a year unnecessarily) ... and we start heading back towards reinventing banks.

I think the difficulty would be finding enough safe deposit boxes. If I had $100M (let me dream, will you!) where could I store that physically? That much cash takes up a lot of space. The Oatmeal had a post where he talked about how heavy his $200,000 withdrawal was (that was in 20's). A little Google searching found: http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/million/million_dollars.html I think Adam Curry talked about buying actual gold bullion and storing that. Still takes a lot of space and a lot of cost in storage. $100M in gold is over 80,000 oz. Two tons of gold? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_bar#Standard_bar_weights http://demonocracy.info/infographics/world/gold/gold.html Me, personally, if I had $100M, I'd buy an island somewhere close to an internet backbone. Real estate is always a good investment!

I'd be interested to see such a citation as well. Quick searching shows that the US (and other countries such as Canada and the UK) have Good Samaritan laws that protect doctors assisting people in such situations. Specifically: "The Aviation Medical Assistance Act of 1998 ensures that if you're flying in the United States, even if the airline is not owned by a U.S. company, you have Good Samaritan protection."[1] I also found one article interviewing a doctor who answered the call who mentioned that no physician has been successfully sued for assisting in an inflight medical emergency.[2] A claim that he actually backs up with a citation.[3] [1] http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2008/0400/p37.html [2] http://www.cockeyed.com/personal/doctor_airplane/doctor_airplane.html [3] http://methodistanesthesia.com/Articles/Article_25.pdf

This reminds me of a comment from cockeyed.com's article about the price of an XBox One from the rent-to-own shop Aaron's [1]. The concept is the same, large payment up front is much cheaper than renting, if you can do it. > $2,082 for a game console? Have you lost your mind? > This is a ridiculous retail proposition. What fool would sign up for this? > Not me, but I couldn't help noticing that Aaron's Xbox price ($79/month for 24 months) is the exact price and duration of my AT&T wireless contract which I signed to take delivery of my fancy new Galaxy Note smartphone. > This is embarrassing. [1] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/aarons_and_rentacenter/ps4_xbox_one_re…

These people [1] have shown that you can store $1M inside a microwave with room to spare. $100M fits on a shipping pallet. No doubt that physical money storage has associated costs. -0.1%/yr isn't enough to get someone to start storing money, but -1%/yr probably is. [1] http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/million/million_dollars.html

That's a pet peeve of mine, also. There's usually a date, but often not near the top and/or not in a standard format. Then there are these sites that use relative times, e.g., 0 minutes ago, or 865 days ago ... In the current case, there is a timestamp of sorts at the bottom of the page: "Updated December 27, 2012 Copyright 2012 Cockeyed.com". Here is blog owner's About page, last updated January 27, 2012: http://www.cockeyed.com/personal/about.html.

Actually printer ink is very similar in price to human blood: http://www.cockeyed.com/science/gallon/liquid.html

Almost no change after 25 weeks in a home compost pile: http://cockeyed.com/science/compost_chips/sunchips.php

That reminds me of the guy who tried to become the ultimate shopper by mailing people a copy of the UPC from his Safeway discount card with the intention that they would stick it over their UPC code. http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/safeway/ultimate_shopper.html

"Dyson and Herbalife cop much larger pastings if you explore the site further" I think you mean Kirby, not Dyson. Here's a link: http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html

Looks a lot like what Rob over at Cockeyed did with his Light Sharpener: http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml The Google version looks more professional, though...

We do ask people to guess whether or not they are committing DWI/DUI though, which is a huge problem in my opinion. Cockeyed.com sums it up better than I can: http://www.cockeyed.com/science/breathalyzer/breathalyser01.shtml > Monitoring blood alcohol levels is difficult. Holding people accountable for crossing the .08 limit is like holding them accountable for trespassing once they walk past a particular longitude. The line is invisible. It is possible to determine your longitude, but it is awfully tricky if you don't own a sextant or GPS unit. > Imagine if cars did not have speedometers, but speeding laws were still enforced with $2,000 police radar guns. It would be really difficult to tell how fast you were going, particularly (as is the case with blood alcohol levels), you had never experienced having your speed tested, nor had any real experience with what a particular speed (for example 55 mph) feels like.

I'm guessing it does 100w only at 20v, which is 5A, which, with proper engineering, could be carried over 22-24 AWG wire according to https://www.eol.ucar.edu/rtf/facilities/isff/LOCAL_access_only/Wire_Si… For an example of how thick 24AWG wire is (22 is thicker), your standard CAT5E wire is 8 strands of 24AWG, so with the current-standard USB wiring of VCC (5v DC pos), Data (neg), Data (pos), GND (5v DC neg), it'd be ~half as thick as CatV (but would probably have different shielding). However, according to http://pinoutsguide.com/Slots/usb_3_0_connector_pinout.shtml , the powered USB 3.0 connector has 11 pins, which would be ~lamp cord thickness, or probably comparable to those ~10ft USB printer cables. Consider how thick overhead power lines are and how much power they carry in watts, and how thick + long your vacuum cleaner cord is with how much that carries (a Dyson DC33 takes 1190 watts): http://www.cockeyed.com/science/power_use_database/dyson_vacuum_cleane… Here is a good primer on wire capacity and how it relates to volts, amps, watts, and wire diameter: http://www.rowand.net/Shop/Tech/WireCapacityChart.htm TL;DR totally possible with 20vdc to use a wire thinner than a BIC pen to deliver 100w ~6ft in addition to high-speed data.