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Microsoft wants to hire the best engineers for its Kinect project, but that’s hard when there are so many tech companies in the Seattle area vying for prospective employees. It hired the ad agency Wexley School for Girls to find a solution. The agency did so: bacon. Wexley set up a food cart outside of Amazon.com’s headquarters and invited workers there to have some bacon:
The promo made its debut today in the shadow of Amazon.com headquarters in South Lake Union, where a stream of bacon lovers braved the downpour for free strips of Swinery pepper bacon.
Also free were toppings, including spray cheese, Sriracha, peanut butter, maple syrup and chocolate sauce.
Serious candidates may even get a bacon air freshener.
I just looked outside the door and there’s no cart from anyone in front of the Neatorama office. I feel a bit unloved.
Link -via DVICE | Photo: Brier Dudley/Seattle Times
Danbo is an absolutely precious cardboard man that travels the streets of Japan. Or at least according to this adorable Flickr series by user ru0905.
Link Via Viral Bender
Which
cities in the United States have the most bookworms? Amazon has just announced
a list of the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in America:
After compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format since Jan. 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents, the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:
A few more nifty details:
Is your city listed?
Sellers usually try to price their wares cheaper than their competitors, to make them more attractive to buyers. That’s how you get price wars.
But the strategy can be very different for rare goods, where price is usually not the limiting factor. Here’s the strange tale of how The Making of a Fly
Michael Eisen of it is NOT junk blog discovered this strange phenomenon, which was caused by Amazon’s algorithmic pricing:
A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extra copy of Peter Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly – a classic work in developmental biology that we – and most other Drosophila developmental biologists – consult regularly. The book, published in 1992, is out of print. But Amazon listed 17 copies for sale: 15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping). [...]
On the day we discovered the million dollar prices, the copy offered by bordeebook was1.270589 times the price of the copy offered by profnath. And now the bordeebook copy was 1.270589 times profnath again. So clearly at least one of the sellers was setting their price algorithmically in response to changes in the other’s price. I continued to watch carefully and the full pattern emerged.
Once a day profnath set their price to be 0.9983 times bordeebook’s price. The prices would remain close for several hours, until bordeebook “noticed” profnath’s change and elevated their price to 1.270589 times profnath’s higher price. The pattern continued perfectly for the next week.
Link (The price issue has been fixed) – via Wired
Even the Wicked Witch is no match for the Scarecrow!
Amazon sells the Contech Electronics CRO101 Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler. The normal purpose of such a device is to scare pets and wildlife (and maybe kids) away from your lawn or garden. However, many folks have their own ideas of how it should be used, as you’ll see in the seven pages of customer-submitted images. Link -via b3ta
This is an x-ray image of a Heliotrygon gomesi, one of two new species of freshwater “pancake” stingrays discovered in the Amazon rain forest. See more pictures at Amazing Planet. Link -via Boing Boing
(Image credit: Ken Jones)
We’ve had fun with facetious Amazon customer reviews for a number of odd products, like the TSA Security Checkpoint toy, the Three Wolf Moon Shirt, and the Table That Attaches to Your Steering Wheel (which has the world’s greatest customer images). But the granddaddy of all customer-reviewed Amazon products is Tuscan Whole Milk, which we featured back in 2006.
One should not be intimidated by Tuscan Whole Milk. Nor should one prejudge, despite the fact that Tuscan is non-vintage and comes in such large containers. Do not be fooled: this is not a jug milk. I always find it important to taste milk using high-quality stemware — this is milk deserving of something better than a Flintstones plastic tumbler. One should pour just a small dollop and swirl it in the glass — note the coating and look for clots or discoloration. And the color — it should be opaque, and very, very white. Now, immerse your nose in the glass and take a whiff. Tuscan transports you instantly to scenic hill towns in central Italy (is that Montepulciano I detect?) — there is the loamy clay, the green grass of summer days, the towering cypress.
Of course, the attraction was the novelty of a mail-order vendor selling fresh milk -which they don’t do anymore, but the product is available from “other sellers”, starting at $48.09. And now there are 1,240 reviews! Don’t miss the eight-stanza poem one reviewer left, along with five stars. Link -Thanks, Joe Kooman!
This really happened, in Hudson, Ohio. Link -via The Daily What
On October 17th, a landslide destroyed the pier at Chibatão Port on the Amazon River in Brazil. This video from a security camera shows the destruction as it happened. The river had been at it lowest level since records started being kept in 1902. A cracked developed along the river bank and cargo containers were sucked down as the banks collapsed. Link -Thanks, Chris!
Ecologically speaking, devastation of the Amazon rainforest is far greater than the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. So why do we care more about the Gulf?
Dan Aierly of Need to Know on PBS explains:
Here’s what we know about human caring and compassion. First and foremost, it is based on our emotions rather than our reasoning. Joseph Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the masses I will never act, but if I look at the one I will.” In oil spill terms: We see pelicans and turtles mired and dying in oil, and we want to cry. We hear about families who have had their homes ruined and their livelihoods horribly affected or even destroyed, and we sympathize with their helplessness and want to do something to help them recover. Our compassion isn’t necessarily proportional to the magnitude of the catastrophe. It depends on how much of our emotion is invoked. [...]
Here are a few characteristics that might differentiate the BP oil spill from the destruction of the Amazon. First, it is a singular event with a precise beginning. Second, while the tragedy was ongoing (and we are not yet sure if it has ended or not) it seemed to become more desperate by the day. Third, we have a single organization that we can villainize. In contrast, in the Amazon, there are many organizations and individuals at fault, both in the countries where deforestation is occurring and abroad. And fourth, the Gulf is so much closer to home (at least for Americans).
Wild Amazonian cats mimic the vocalizations of small animals in order to lure them for dinner. However they don’t tell the tiny beasts that they are going to be the main course.
Researchers first recorded the incident in 2005 when a group of eight pied tamarins were feeding in a ficus tree. They then observed a margay emitting calls similar to those made by tamarin babies. This attracted the attention of a tamarin “sentinel,” which climbed down from the tree to investigate the sounds coming from a tangle of vines called lianas. While the sentinel monkey started vocalizing to warn the rest of the group of the strange calls, the monkeys were clearly confounded by these familiar vocalizations, choosing to investigate rather than flee. Four other tamarins climbed down to assess the nature of the calls. At that moment, a margay emerged from the foliage walking down the trunk of a tree in a squirrel-like fashion, jumping down and then moving towards the monkeys. Realizing the ruse, the sentinel screamed an alarm and sent the other tamarins fleeing.
Link via Uncertain Times
Woot, the discount website that sells one item a day, has been bought by Amazon, which they are quite happy about. In addition to the above video posted at their blog, CEO Matt Rutledge wrote the most awesome memo ever announcing the acquisition to Woot employees.
We are excited about doing this for all sorts of reasons. One, our business model is so vague that there’s no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we’re truly doing: preparing the way for the rise of the Lava Men in 2012. Also, our deal means that Jason Toon will finally be released from that Mexican jail owned by Zappos honcho Tony Hsieh. No, don’t lie, Tony, we’ve seen the paperwork. And we need a powerful ally in case Steve Jobs finally breaks down and comes after us for all our Apple jokes over the years. Don’t think of it as a buyout; think of it as NATO!
Link -via Metafilter and Holy Kaw!
A small but terrifying new species of leech roams the Amazon basin. Tyrannobdella rex seeks out animal orifices to enter and attach itself inside, in order to suck the victim’s blood. The case of a 9-year-old girl in Peru with a leech in her nasal cavity brought the creature to the attention of doctors and researchers. Three years later, earlier cases have been confirmed and a report has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.
“We named it Tyrannobdella rex because of its enormous teeth,” said researcher Mark Siddall, curator in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Although its teeth only reach up to 130 microns high — a little more than the width of a human hair — “that’s at least five times as high as that of other leeches,” Siddall said. “And every one of the people who were found with these in the clinical cases had a frontal headache. Their teeth are big, and these things hurt.”
Link -via Unique Daily
(image credit: Anna J. Phillips et al., PLoS ONE)
In 1982, filmmaker Werner Herzog wrote and directed an epic movie called Fitzcarraldo, based on the life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.
In the movie, a man named Fitzcarraldo traveled to the heart of the Amazonian jungle to get to the last remaining rubber trees parcel in a steamboat. He has to navigate some of the most perilous river in the Amazon as well as transport the boat up a mountain on dry land (you’ll see).
Just as interesting as the movie is his newly published book Conquest of the Useless; Reflections on the Making of Fitzcarraldo, which is a transcript of Herzog’s notebooks from almost three decades ago. Minnesotastan of TYWKIWDBI blog has the excerpt:
What was interesting to me was to discover that Herzog didn’t live the life of a pampered director; he was on-site near the headwaters of the Amazon, living in squalor and coping with the incredible incompetence of local workers. Here are some of my jotted notes from the book to give the flavor of the contents:
12 – At the Indians’ request, we bring chain saws, machetes, and shotguns to the Rio Cenepa, as well as a large canister of poison for arrow tips. They no longer know how to make it themselves. Vivanco says they will pay for a spoonful with a gold nugget.
79 – The family who had given us a pot of hot water crowded around, and we fixed tuna for them and gave them tea; that is how it is done here – food is always shared, Cesar says, which is why there is no word for “thank you” in their language.
169 – The helicopter of the Bolivian president, Barrientos, flew into a power line and crashed from a low altitude. He had suitcases full of money with him, presumably from drug deals. The helicopter immediately caught fire, but although people were there and tried to rescue him from the blaze, no one could get close, because the heat made the submachine guns carried by the president and his entourage start firing wildly, and in the hail of bullets no one dared approach.
226 – Across from our headquarters overlooking the Nanay there was a huge explosion in a boiler, fortunately after the work day in the factory there as over. The one night watchman was blown to pieces and sent flying. A smallish bloody piece of him landed with a splat on our porch.
But if readin’ ain’t your thing, you can just rent Burden of Dreams, a documentary by Les Blank about the making of the movie.
A little flood isn’t going to stop a couple thousand of good fire ants in the Amazon jungle. Take a look at this amazing BBC Wildlife video of how fire ants crossed a river by forming a "living" life boat made with their own bodies.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by stacy09.
NASA’s Earth Observatory has some amazing satellite photos of the deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest over the past 8 years. At the link, click on the years posted below the picture to see the progression.
The state of Rondônia in western Brazil is one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon. In the past three decades, clearing and degradation of the state’s original 208,000 square kilometers of forest (about 51.4 million acres, an area slightly smaller than the state of Kansas) has been rapid: 4,200 square kilometers cleared by 1978; 30,000 by 1988; and 53,300 by 1998. By 2003, an estimated 67,764 square kilometers of rainforest—an area larger than the state of West Virginia—had been cleared.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by liquidanbar.
Sales of the “Three Wolf Moon Shirt” are up 2300% after word got out that it was getting priceless customer reviews on Amazon. Hundreds of reviewers are vying to be the funniest. The first one says, in part:
This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn’t have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to him.
It gets better from there. The manufacturer is not exactly pleased with the reviews. Link to story. Link to reviews. -via Fark
Chris of Cynical-C blog has a nifty series called You Can’t Please Everyone. In it, he collects one-star Amazon reviews of classic movies, music, and literature.
Take, for instance, The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews. The movie won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1965. Adjusted for inflation, it made more than $1 billion in earnings since it was made … yet, even it can’t please everyone:
This movie was made in the sixties, we live in the 21st century, GET OVER IT!
I loved it when I was ten, but I think I’ve out grown it
When I see garbage like this, I finally understand what is wrong with the world. I watched this movie on a dare and was absolutely mortified!!!!! I would have given it negative stars if I could have. As an animal lover and vegetarian, I was especially offended!!! Anyone who is a fan of this series should run, not walk to the nearest Psychiatrist. You are in desperate need of having your head examined. And we as a society wonder why violence and seriel killers have become a part of daily life. Well, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Exhibit A…….
This movie should be called the Sound of Mucus. The only redeeming quality is that the family has to run from nazis.
See more of Cynical-C’s You Can’t Please Everyone series: Link – via kottke
Michel Cuhaci received a flawed copy of the book A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equation, so he left a one-star review on Amazon. The author, Dan Fleisch responded and promised to send a replacement overnight. At the time, Fleisch did not realize how hard that would be on Christmas Eve!
“I called (parcel services), and getting it delivered was out of the question,” he said. “Then I thought, ‘OK, maybe I can find a bookstore that had it in stock.’ ”
No luck — most bookstores had closed early.
“It got to be late afternoon. I couldn’t find anyway to get it to him.”
His next thought — he’d drive to Canada and deliver the $26 book himself.
“I looked at my iPhone and there was this massive blob (snowstorm) over the whole Northeast,” he said.
Fleisch ended up flying from Ohio to Ottawa to deliver the book on Christmas Day, ending up back home after midnight. His journey reads like a comedy of errors.
Last week Cuhaci went back to Amazon and added a new comment about the book and its author.
“But I did not change the rating,” he said. “I want people to look at my comment and see what a dedicated author he is.”
Link to story. Link to Amazon review. -via reddit
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a web service that lets you assign tasks to human workers in exchange for payments. It is named after The Turk, a chess playing automaton made by Wolfgang von Kempelen in the late 1700s (it turned out that a chess master was hiding inside the machine).
Andy Baio of Waxy was curious to see what exactly the Amazon Mechanical Turk looks like, so naturally he started a new Turk experiment to answer two questions: what do these people look like, and how much does it cost for someone to reveal their face?
Here are his answers, #1:
And #2: about $0.50
Archaeologist Benedicto Perez Goicochea and colleagues discovered something fantastic in a remote mountainside in the Amazonian jungle: the village of the mystical "Cloud Forest People."
The buildings found on the Pachallama peak are in remarkably good condition, estimated to be over 1,000 years old and comprised of the traditional round stone houses built by the Chachapoya, the ‘Cloud Forest People’. [...]
Archaeologist Benedicto Pérez Goicochea said: "The citadel is perched on the edge of an abyss.
"We suspect that the ancient inhabitants used this as a lookout point from where they could spot potential enemies."
