The Ice Cream Truck Wars of New York Gloversville:
I am the danger, Skyler. I am the one who knocks!: „Malatino shouted out at the Mr. Ding-A-Ling driver that his business ‘controls the ice cream sales market in the city of Gloversville.’“ Bitch!, Malatino added… yeah, I made that last one up.
Dead Peoples’ Metal-Business
Eine holländische Firma recycelt Metallware aus Krematorien, Schwermetalle landen in Autos und Flugzeugen, Blech wird zu Straßenschildern und -laternen, die Einkünfte werden Charitys gespendet.
Metal body parts from the dead are being recycled into road signs, lamp posts, car parts and aircraft engines. Steel hips, plates and screws from legs and skulls are collected after cremation and sent off for recycling. Even metal plates from false teeth and tiny fragments from fillings can be recovered and re-used, together with metal fittings on coffins. High value metals which survive the 1000-degree cremation are then sold for use in the automobile and aeronautical industries. They include cobalt and titanium, found in some implants and dental work, with cobalt used in aircraft engines.
But other less valuable metals are smelted down and sold for more general use – including road signs, motorway barriers and lamp posts. The metal salvaged from cremations is put in large wheelie bins at the crematoriums and collected by contractors who take it to specialist plants for recycling. Items such as steel hips, metal plates from legs and skulls and screws fitted to various body parts are collected after cremations and then sent off for recycling, Money made is donated to charity and almost £1million has been raised for good causes since the project began in Britain in 2004.
Metal body parts from the dead are being recycled to make ROAD SIGNS (via Arbroath)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
The Business of selling Body Parts
Inside the Business of Body Part Trading
Lucas Arts R.I.P.
Weitere Aufräumarbeiten bei Disney: Nachdem sie vor ein paar Wochen das Ende von Clone Wars ankündigten, stampfen sie nun die Game-Schmiede Lucas Arts ein. Erscheint mir ein logischer Schritt, LucasArts ist von seinen Glanzzeiten (Maniac Mansion, ZakMcCracken, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) meilenweit entfernt und die Marke werden sie behalten und an externe Publisher lizensieren. Könnte noch sehr interessant werden. Hier das offizielle Statement:
After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.
Disney Closes Game Publisher LucasArts
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Disney buys Lucasarts, Star Wars 7 will rule the Galaxy in 2015
Disney confirms Star Wars-Spinoffs
Finally: Star Wars Clone Wars R.I.P.
Leia Organa, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker WILL return for Star Wars
Versteckt auf der letzten Seite eines tollen Bloomberg-Artikels über Disneys Star Wars-Deal bestätigt George Lucas himself, dass Luke, Leia und Han offiziell mit dabei sind und bereits für Episode VII unterschrieben haben. Er rudert dann nochmal ein Stückchen zurück, aber ich denke, den Sack können wir zumachen:
Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”
Disney verfügt jetzt auch über Lucasfilms eigene Star Wars-Datenbank, die über 17.000 Charaktere auflistet, verteilt über tausende Planeten in einem Zeitraum von 20.000 Jahren. Wahrscheinlich sowas wie eine Wookiepedia auf Speed.
His company maintained a database called the Holocron, named after a crystal cube powered by the Force. The real-world Holocron lists 17,000 characters in the Star Wars universe inhabiting several thousand planets over a span of more than 20,000 years. It was quite a bit for Disney to process. So Lucas also provided the company with a guide, Pablo Hidalgo. A founding member of the Star Wars Fan Boy Association, Hidalgo is now a “brand communication manager” at Lucasfilm. “The Holocron can be a little overwhelming,” says Hidalgo, who obsesses over canonical matters such as the correct spelling of Wookiee and the definitive list of individuals who met with Yoda while he was hiding in the swamps of Dagobah.
How Disney Bought Lucasfilm—and Its Plans for ‘Star Wars’ (via Daring Fireball)
[update] Wired hatte vor fünf Jahren eine ausführliche Story zum Star Wars Holocron:
Of course, Chee’s Holocron isn’t a Force-sensitive crystal. It’s a FileMaker database, a searchable repository of more than 30,000 entries covering almost every character, planet, and weapon mentioned, however fleetingly, in the vast array of Star Wars titles and products. The Holocron isn’t just for fun—when Lucas Licensing inks a deal with a toy company or a T-shirt designer, it vets those ancillary products to ensure they conform to the spirit and letter of the continuity that has come before and will continue afterward. In the past 31 years, Star Wars movies have grossed in excess of $4 billion worldwide. But retail sales of merchandise stand at $15 billion, and 20 percent of that has been earned since 2006, the year after the final film was released. Careful nurture of the Star Wars canon—thousands of years of story time, running through all the bits and pieces of merchandise—has kept the franchise popular for decades.
P2P-Abmahner DigiProtect ist pleite
Die ursprünglich von Moses Pelham gegründete DigiProtect Gesellschaft zum Schutze digitaler Medien mbH aus Frankfurt ist pleite. Vorher hatten sie noch versucht, Forderungen aus Abmahnungen für Pornofilme in Millionenhöhe zu versteigern, die rechtlich mindestens zweifelhaft sind. Da gibt’s auch Verbindungen zu Digi Rights Solution in Darmstadt, liest sich alles so eklig, wie man sich das vorstellt. Einer weniger.
Top-Banks are not profitable, form an economic Super-Entity
Bloomberg hat ausgerechnet, dass die Too Big To Fail For Trial-Banken nicht wirklich profitabel sind und ohne Subventionen durch den Steuerzahler grade mal so den Break-Even schaffen. Dazu empfehle ich diese zwei Jahre alte Studie, die Besitzverhältnisse internationaler Konzerne durchleuchtet hat und eine wirtschaftliche „Super-Entity“ in Form genau dieser Banken ausmacht, die Kontrolle über die Konzerne ausübt. Daraus ergibt sich dann ein hübsches, klares Bild einer Quasi-Weltregierung, die globale Wirtschaftspolitik mit Finanzströmen betreibt und die zu einem guten Anteil vom Steuerzahler finanziert wird. Ich bin echt kein Freund von Verschwörungstheorien, aber das klingt schlüssig.
Von Bloomberg: Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion a Year? (via Fefe)
The top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – - account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits (see tables for data on individual banks). In other words, the banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry — with almost $9 trillion in assets, more than half the size of the U.S. economy — would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare. In large part, the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders.
Von Plos One: The Network of Global Corporate Control (via New Aesthetics)
We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.
Atari files for bankruptcy
There goes my Childhood. (Ist anscheinend halb so dramatisch, es geht um eine Reorganisation der Finanzen (Chapter 11 Bancruptcy) und Abtrennung des US-Geschäfts vom französischen Mutterkonzern… but still.)
The U.S. operations of iconic but long-troubled video game maker Atari have filed for bankruptcy in an effort to break free from their debt-laden French parent.
Atari Inc. and three of its affiliates filed petitions for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York late Sunday.
Its leaders hope to break the American business free from French parent Atari S.A. and in the next few months find a buyer to take the company private. They hope to grow a modest business focused on digital and mobile platforms, according to a knowledgeable person not authorized to discuss the matter privately.
Atari U.S. operation files for bankruptcy, spOn: Atari meldet in den USA Insolvenz an (Danke Hank!)
Real Estate Agent Headshots
Ein Tumblr voller Selbstportraits von Immobilienmarklern. The Horror The Horror: Real Estate Agent Headshots. (via Quipsologies)
Karen Berger leaves the Comics
Karen Berger, Chefin von Vertigo, hat gestern die Comic-Welt geschockt mit ihrer Ankündigung, DC Comics (dem Mutterkonzern von Vertigo) zu verlassen. Die Frau hat unter anderem mit Alan Moore an Swamp Thing und Neil Gaiman an Sandman gearbeitet. Die Frau ist praktisch im Alleingang für die Existenz von Vertigo verantwortlich und ohne sie gäbe es wohl kein Preacher, kein Fables, kein Y: The Last Man, kein DMZ und kein V for Vendetta. Ob Vertigo in einem Jahr noch existieren wird ist nun mehr als fraglich und ihre Entscheidung hat garantiert langfristige Auswirkungen auf die Kreativität der Comic-Industrie, Vertigo dürfte jedenfalls als Inkubator für innovative Comics damit mehr oder weniger Geschichte sein.
Hier ein paar Links dazu:
The Beat: The Karen Berger era and what comes next
Unfug: Ende einer Ära: VERTIGO – Chefin (und dreimalige “Eisner Award” Gewinnerin) Karen Berger kündigt bei DC! (…das war’s dann wohl für Vertigo?!)
Publishers Weekly: Karen Berger to Leave DC Comics’ Vertigo Imprint in 2013
Bleeding Cool: #Vertigone?
Viral Video Stock Exchange
Nettes Game: Auf VVX.io kann man mit einer virtuellen Währung „Anteile“ an Viral Videos kaufen und wie an der Börse auf den Erfolg seiner Clips wetten. Ich hab’ grade mal ein paar Anteile an Russell Brands Interview mit zwei Mitgliedern der Westboro Baptist Church gekauft. Der Clip wurde während der Nacht durch FOX gesperrt, wie ich grade merke, was meine Businesskasper-Talente bemerkenswert treffend zusammenfasst. Wie auch immer: Lustige Spielerei für fünf Minuten.
Essentially, the game is like the stock market, only instead of betting real money on the future value of stocks, you bet free virtual currency (called “voins”) on the future viral success of a video (with no risk of bankruptcy, should you bet wrong, as the game doesn’t sell virtual currency, avatars, or special in-game powers for real money). Unlike the stock market, where huge wealth imbalances are inherent to the system, Ganly limits the number of voins you can “earn” on VVX.IO.
HumbleBundle goes GameDev-Democracy
Tim Schafer und DoubleFine machen was neues mit den Leuten von HumbleBundle und lassen User nicht nur bezahlen, soviel sie wollen, sondern auch über ein Abstimmungsverfahren aktiv am Entwicklungsprozess teilnehmen, sprich: Man bezahlt Betrag X für zwei Game-Prototypen und kann obendrauf für seine vier Lieblingsprototypen abstimmen, die Entwicklung der Games wird dann ins Netz gestreamt. Spannend!
Double Fine’s Tim Schafer On Openness And His New Game Project With Humble Bundle
High Frequency Trading in Super Slow Audio
Fantastischer Podcast der BBC, die High Frequency Trading extrem verlangsamen und mit Usain Bolts 100m-Lauf vergleichen. Der Pistolenschuss beim Start des Rennens dauert in dieser Verlangsamung 4 Tage, Bolts Reaktionszeit einen Tag. Einzelne Trades im HFT-System dauert circa eine halbe Sekunde. Wie gesagt: This won’t end well.
Last week Knight Capital lost a lot of money very quickly. It was the latest chapter in the story of something called ‘high frequency trading’. Investors have always valued being the first with the news. But high frequency trading is different: algorithms execute automatic trades, conducted by computers, at astonishing speeds. We ask: is the rapid growth of high frequency trading progress, or – as some think – a threat to the stability of the entire financial system?
How to lose money – fast! (MP3) (via Boing Boing)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
High Frequency Trading GIF’d
Silk Road makes Shitloads of Drug-Bitcoins
Nachdem der anonyme, hinter Tor-Servern versteckte und auf Bitcoin basierende Drogenmarktplatz Silk Road bereits im Sommer letztes Jahr von der US-Politik ins Visir genommen und im April The Farmers Market hochgenommen wurde, hatte ich nicht damit gerechnet, jemals wieder von der Seidenstraße zu hören. Aber nö, denen gehts saugut. Die verkaufen im Monat Hits und Turns im Wert von 2 Millionen Dollar, die Anzahl der Verkäufer hat sich seit Februar verdoppelt und die Macher der Website verdienen am Tag 6000$. Ich bin gespannt, wie lange noch. Von Forbes:
In a research paper (PDF here) released earlier this month, Carnegie Mellon computer security professor Nicolas Christin has taken a crack at measuring the sales activity on Silk Road’s underground online marketplace, which runs as a “hidden service” on the Tor network and uses tough-to-trace digital Bitcoins as currency, two measures that have helped to obscure its sellers, buyers and operators from law enforcement.
His findings: the site’s number of sellers, who offer everything from cocaine to ecstasy, has jumped from around 300 in February to more than 550. Its total sales now add up to around $1.9 million a month. And its operators generate more than $6,000 a day in commissions for themselves, compared with around $2,500 in February.
Christin cautions that his study only looks at a six month period of Silk Road’s sales, and that a big part of the site’s measured success comes from appreciation in the highly volatile Bitcoin currency Silk Road trades in, which has itself increased close to 70% in value over the course of Christin’s study. But even accounting for changes in that crypto currency, the site’s numbers point to very real growth. “It’s very bursty and spikey, but overall the numbers are moving up,” says Christin. “It’s a stable marketplace, and overall it’s growing steadily.”
Black Market Drug Site ‘Silk Road’ Booming: $22 Million In Annual Sales (via /.)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Silk Road: The Underground Online-Marketplace for Drugs
Inside the Business of Body Part Trading
Fieser Artikel im Sydney Morning Herald über den internationalen Schwarzmarkt für Körperteile. Tote aus der Ukraine für amerikanische Pharmaproduzenten mit Sitz in Deutschland und sowas.
RTI is one of a growing industry of companies that make profits by turning mortal remains into everything from dental implants to bladder slings to wrinkle cures. The industry has flourished even as its practices have roused concerns about how tissues are obtained and how well grieving families and transplant patients are informed about the realities and risks of the business.
In the US alone, the biggest market and the biggest supplier, an estimated two million products derived from human tissue are sold each year, a figure that has doubled over the past decade.
It is an industry that promotes treatments and products that literally allow the blind to see (through cornea transplants) and the lame to walk (by recycling tendons and ligaments for use in knee repairs). It’s also an industry fuelled by powerful appetites for bottom-line profits and fresh human bodies.
Human corpses harvested in multimillion-dollar trade (via Boing Boing)
Valves Employee Handbook
Irgendwie ist Valves Mitarbeiter-Handbuch ins Netz gelangt und das Teil ist eine Offenbarung. Die Firmenstruktur ist das innovativste, was ich in diesem Bereich bis jetzt gesehen habe, die Hierarchie ist vollkommen flach (zumindest auf dem Papier), die Schreibtische haben Rollen, so dass sich Mitarbeiter und Teams wie Lego zusammensetzen lassen (und es gibt eine Online-Karte, auf der man alle Kollegen finden kann und deren Tische werden über die IP getrackt). Die Job-Descriptions landen im Mülleimer und die Zeit, die bei Valve an “eigenen” Projekten gearbeitet wird, beträgt 100%. Google ist ein spießiger Bürokratenladen dagegen.
Why do I need to pick my own projects? We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100.
Since Valve is flat, people don’t join projects because they’re told to. Instead, you’ll decide what to work on after asking yourself the right questions (more on that later). Employees vote on projects with their feet (or desk wheels). Strong projects are ones in which people can see demonstrated value; they staff up easily. This means there are any number of internal recruiting efforts constantly under way.
If you’re working here, that means you’re good at your job. People are going to want you to work with them on their projects, and they’ll try hard to get you to do so. But the decision is going to be up to you. (In fact, at times you’re going to wish for the luxury of having just one person telling you what they think you should do, rather than hundreds.)
VALVE HANDBOOK FOR
NEW EMPLOYEES (PDF) (via Boing Boing)
