"The coffee tastes about as you’d expect—pre-ground Starbucks beans"
There are many ways to brew instant coffee, but this is one of the most creative. Origami is Starbucks Japan’s take on the single-use pourover filter, a product that coffee brands have long sold at Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores.
Starbucks calls it “personal drip,” and offers it in three roasts. We picked up this Christmas Blend kit (link in Japanese) while meeting with Starbucks in Tokyo late last year.
Origami is simple—and, dare we say, fun—to use: Open a sealed bag, one per serving. Unfold the “origami” filter that’s pre-filled with ground coffee. Place it on a mug. Slowly pour hot water over the grounds. Enjoy your coffee! And then toss the whole contraption in the trash—grounds, filter, and stand.
The coffee tastes about as you’d expect—pre-ground Starbucks beans, with a pleasantly smoky aroma. But it’s at least a more interesting technique than, say, dumping instant coffee into a mug of hot water.
“Invoking the artistry and hand-crafted nature of Japan’s ancient art of origami, this innovative product allows customers to brew a single cup of Starbucks coffee at home that does not require any special equipment,” Starbucks said when it launched the product in 2010 in partnership with Ajinomoto General Foods, a Tokyo-based instant coffee manufacturer.
Instant and ready-to-drink coffee products, by the way, have long been eyed as potential growth drivers for Starbucks, which still generates most of its sales from its stores. In the US, Starbucks sells three types: its own VIA packets and Verismo pods—and, more recently, K-Cups for Keurig machines. On Starbucks’s earnings call this week, the company announced that 100 million Starbucks K-Cups were shipped last December, up 20% from the prior year.
“No industry or country can reach its full potential until all women reach their full potential. And this is especially true in science and technology, where women with a surplus of talent still face a deficit of opportunity.”
Facebook COO/Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg has been kicking ass of late when it comes to speaking up for women in STEM. In the video above you can see her talk as a part of the leader’s gallery of IGNITE: Women Fueling Science & Technology; in the video below you can see her discuss that press conference where President Obama only called on women.
Sandberg also discussed that press conference in a piece co-written with Adam Grant for The New York Times earlier this month called “Speaking While Female.” A bit from that:
The long-term solution to the double bind of speaking while female is to increase the number of women in leadership roles. (As we noted in our previous article, research shows that when it comes to leadership skills, although men are more confident, women are more competent.) As more women enter the upper echelons of organizations, people become more accustomed to women’s contributing and leading. Professor Burris and his colleagues studied a credit union where women made up 74 percent of supervisors and 84 percent of front-line employees. Sure enough, when women spoke up there, they were more likely to be heard than men. When President Obama held his last news conference of 2014, he called on eight reporters — all women. It made headlines worldwide. Had a politician given only men a chance to ask questions, it would not have been news; it would have been a regular day.
The NHL All-Star Game is pretty much the only place you'll see a hockey scrum where most of the players involved come out laughing and smiling.
Especially when Alex Ovechkin is involved. The entertaining Capitals captain decided to start a fake scrum after some opposing players poked his goalie.
Or maybe he was just upset he still doesn't have a new car?
Here’s something rather natty. Some clever sort has created a thing called Daggerfall Tools for Unity. They describe it as “a code asset which acts as a bridge between Daggerfall’s binary data files and Unity3D.”
What this essentially seems to mean is that if you own a copy of Daggerfall – which Bethesda offer as a free download, bless ‘em – you can use Daggerfall Tools to import all manner of assets and content into Unity projects and then tinker as you like.
The list of features the tools include is dreamy: enemies come pre-loaded with animations, there are custom components to handle stuff like switches and doors, many of the GameObjects created during the import process come with useful metadata… why, take a look for yourself.
What you’ve got here is a big old game development sandbox based on one of the most famously sandboxey game series of them all.
Here’s developer Gavin ‘Interkarma’ Clayton on these tools:
Daggerfall Tools for Unity is a code asset which acts as a bridge between Daggerfall’s binary data files and Unity3D. It consists of a mature API for opening and converting almost all of Daggerfall’s content files – plus a set of editor windows, example classes, and prefabs for quickly converting Daggerfall’s environments into fully functional Unity scenes.
The underlying API, called DaggerfallConnect, is a battle-tested C# library that has been under development since 2009. This library is already used by content exploring tools with thousands of downloads and has been retooled specifically for use inside Unity. Full source code is included for everything related to Daggerfall.
Accompanying the API is a suite of components and editor windows to interface between Daggerfall’s files and Unity. You can import any mesh, block layout, city, building interior, or dungeon with a single click. There are dozens of options to control how content is imported into Unity, using either the editor or directly from code.
Everything you can import with the editor can also be imported fully procedurally at run-time, allowing you to build vast worlds out of Daggerfall’s content and extend however you like with Unity’s broad feature-set.
I literally could not have put it better myself. I’m no developer, but I have enjoyed fiddling about with Unity. I’ve made a few tutorial projects, a game level in which you walked towards a sphere that made noises at you, and – hat tip Kerry Turner – a rather nice tree. To this list I think I might add “making a tremendous, glorious mess out of something beautiful”.
Notwithstanding its versatility, the em dash is best limited to two appearances per sentence. Otherwise, confusion rather than clarity is likely to result
Jay Cutler has been benched from taking care of his kids.
Jay Cutler's wife Kristin Cavalleri posted a screenshot of her texts with her husband after leaving him in charge of their 2-year-old and 1-year-old children for a few days:
A photo posted by Kristin Cavallari (@kristincavallari) on
The IG caption:
Contrary to what many people think, we don't have a thousand nannies. So with that being said, when I got home from LA 2 days ago this is what I landed to. Pretty hilarious. Ladies, u want your man to appreciate u? Leave them alone with the kids to see what we deal with!
Bears fans will have jokes about how Cutler is as ill-equipped in charge of infants as he is in charge of an NFL offense.
Quinn will replace another defensive-minded coach, Mike Smith, who was fired after seven seasons in Atlanta. The Falcons finished 6-10 in 2014, the second straight season they've missed the playoffs.
Quinn's biggest challenge in getting the Falcons back to the postseason will come on the defensive side of the ball. Atlanta ended the regular season with a top-10 offense, but the defense struggled all year long. The Falcons finished at the bottom of the league in total defense, giving up nearly 400 yards per game, and were also the worst at defending the pass. Fortunately for his new team, Quinn has had plenty of success in both areas with Seattle and will continue to call defensive plays in Atlanta.
The 44-year-old took over as the defensive coordinator of the Seahawks in 2013 after Gus Bradley left to become the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. In each of Quinn's two seasons at the helm, the Seattle defense allowed the fewest total yards, passing yards and points per game. The Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII on the back of their dominant defense and shutdown "Legion of Boom" secondary, and then used the same formula to make it to the Super Bowl this season.
Quinn's second trip to the Super Bowl only boosted his value for the Falcons, who have been very patient in order to get their man. The Falcons interviewed Quinn multiple times, including the day after the Seahawks beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship.
Washington defensive backs coach Raheem Morris will reunite with Quinn in Atlanta, according to Mike Jones of the Washington Post. Morris will interview with the Falcons this week for the hybrid position of assistant coach/defensive coordinator. Morris played under Quinn at Hofstra, where Quinn was the defensive line coach and then defensive coordinator from 1996-2000, and later Morris served as his defensive backs coach from 2000-01.
Prior to his stint with Seattle, Quinn was the defensive coordinator at the University of Florida. In the NFL, he's been the defensive line coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets and Seahawks. This will be his first head coaching job.
"We never got to the numbers part," the agent, Joe Linta, said on Saturday. "They called and said they were interested in bringing him back."
Hoyer, who started 13 games for Cleveland in 2014, is scheduled to become a free agent on March 10. He has repeatedly said he would like to return to the Browns, but his decision will hinge on whether the team is willing to give him a shot to compete with Johnny Manziel for the starting job.
"I think the only thing that would make him not [want to] come back is if they said Manziel or whoever we take in the draft or whoever we sign in free agency is going to be the starter and you will only be the backup," Linta said. "I think that would probably drive him away a little bit.
"If Pettine said, ‘Hey, it's going to be an open competition again between you and Johnny,' great, let's go. ... [Hoyer] wants to play. The kid wants to have an opportunity to compete and play."
New submitter AlCapwn writes [Fark founder] Drew Curtis announced on Friday that he will be running for governor of Kentucky. "We have a theory that we're about to see a huge change in how elections and politics work. Across the country, we have seen regular citizens stepping up and challenging the status quo built by political parties and career politicians. They have been getting closer and closer to victory and, here in Kentucky, we believe we have a chance to win and break the political party stronghold for good."
Tom Benson, the 87-year-old owner of the NFL's New Orleans Saints and NBA's Pelicans, announced plans on Jan. 21 to transfer ownership of both teams to his wife, Gayle, upon his death. That marked a sudden reversal of Benson's longstanding plans to give control of the franchises to Rita Benson LeBlanc, his granddaughter as well as the Saints' owner and executive vice president ... until last week, when Benson fired her.
Benson didn't just fire his granddaughter. He cut LeBlanc, her brother Ryan and their mother and Benson's adopted daughter Renee out of the will completely. Rita Benson LeBlanc and her family sued.
One major limb on the family tree sawed off over an inheritance. Families sparring over a will is nothing new, but when it involves one of New Orleans' most prominent patriarchs and a national figure thanks in part to his ownership of an NBA and an NFL team, it means the drama and the ugliness usually involved when families fight over money will be played out for the entire country to see.
The lawsuit
Shortly after being fired, Rita Benson LeBlanc, her brother and their mother filed a lawsuit seeking to contest the transfer of ownership for the Saints, Pelicans and other family business assets. The lawsuit, filed in Louisiana, details Benson's failing health to establish the petitioners' contention that he is incompetent and unable to act in the best interest of the family trust. It alleges that Gayle is manipulating Benson, getting his signature for what the suit describes as irrational business decisions and not providing an appropriate level of care for his physical and mental health needs.
As for remedy, LeBlanc and her family members are asking the state to intercede and make his daughter Renee Benson the primary curator of the family trust as well as for Benson himself. Rita LeBlanc would be named the undercurator for Benson and the family trust.
Family business
Renee Benson is the adopted daughter of Benson and his first wife, Shirley, who died in 1980. For decades, she's been part of the family businesses, with ranches and car dealerships included in Benson's holdings. Her daughter Rita has been part of the businesses, the sports teams in particular, from an early age. She interned for the Saints as a high school student, and in college, she interned for the NFL's corporate office as well as NFL Films and NFL Publications. She took a job with the Saints in 2001.
Rita rose to prominence in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The lawsuit glosses over Benson's attempts to move the Saints following the natural disaster. Benson acknowledged his plans to hand over the team to Rita when outside interests approached him at the time to see about purchasing the team and keeping it in Louisiana.
In 2012, the NFL approved a succession plan that would transfer ownership of the team to Renee and her two children upon Benson's death. Rita LeBlanc would be the Saints' owner representative. That plan was reaffirmed by the league last year.
Competition for Benson's attention
Benson was approached by Gayle Marie LaJaunie Bird in 2003 to solicit funds for a charity. The two began dating, according to the lawsuit, months after Benson's second wife, Grace, died of Parkinson's disease in November 2003. They were married in October 2004. Prior to marrying Benson, she signed a prenuptial agreement that limited her claims to Benson's property upon divorce or death.
The relationship between Benson's heirs and his third wife has reportedly been tense for some time. A report by the Times-Picayune says it began to unravel in the wake of Katrina when Rita LeBlanc's role with the team increased.
At the same time, Benson's third wife started to play a more prominent role in his affairs. The Times-Picayune report details a long list of charitable spending, including a $5 million donation to former Saint Steve Gleason's ALS foundation, that sources believe was spurred by his wife. That reportedly began to unnerve Benson's heirs.
The lawsuit also details lavish spending on behalf of Benson's wife. The suit alleges that Benson attempted to purchase a local racetrack and gambling facility, Fairgrounds Race Course and Slots -- something that's prevented by NFL ownership rules. It also points to the purchase of six race horses, for nearly $1 million, for GMB (Gayle Marie Benson) Stables in September 2014.
"Candy, ice cream, soda and red wine"
Benson's health has deteriorated rapidly over the last year, including a publicized fall during the NFL owners meetings in Atlanta last spring. He needs assistance from a walker to get around now, and his cognitive ability is reportedly failing as well. Court documents say that Benson recently said that the current U.S. president was Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman. The suit also points to a recent incident in which Benson was unable to identify his daughter Renee.
The lawsuit also alleges that Gayle Benson is incapable of caring for her husband and unwilling to acknowledge the full extent of his declining health. Benson's family members go so far as to claim his wife has failed to provide him with a proper diet. Under her supervision, the suit claims, Benson is "subsisting on candy, ice cream, soda and red wine."
Cutting Benson's family out
In the lawsuit, Benson's family actually refers to it as a "coup attempt," the process of cutting his daughter and her two children out of the family trust. It allegedly started with smaller things, refusing to get together with the family at Thanksgiving and Christmas and removing pictures of his daughter and grandchildren from the house. From there, it scaled up to the current legal machinations to remove them from the will.
On Dec. 27, Renee, Rita and Ryan received a letter, via email, from Benson that barred them from all of the family businesses, from the sports teams to the car dealerships. In that letter, Benson speaks to the divide between his current wife and the other family members:
"Suddenly after I remarried you all became offensive and did not act in an appropriate manner and even had arguments among yourselves, which created a very unpleasant family situation, which I will not stand for. It made me very unhappy and uncomfortable. This situation can not continue at my age."
Rita LeBlanc was fired from her role with the Saints on Dec. 30, and there were even orders that her car be repossessed.
In January, Benson attempted to remove hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets from his trusts, including the Saints and Pelicans. That move was blocked by the trustee, setting up the current legal fight.
Transferring assets from the trust
Trusts are a common tool estate planners use whereby property is held by one person for the benefit of another -- in this case Benson's daughter and grandchildren. It allows the assets held by the trust to continue to operate and, ideally, profit. Assets are taxed, but when the property transfers, the beneficiary does not pay inheritance taxes on it, because it's not considered part of the estate. A trustee is appointed to oversee the assets and act in the best interests of both parties until the event triggering the passing of the trust to the beneficiary.
Benson is allowed by law to swap assets in the trust, which he tried to do with his professional sports franchises this year. However, that move was rejected by the trustee because Benson was attempting to swap the assets for unsecured promissory notes, i.e. assets that had nothing but paper backing them.
The attempt to swap those assets would have devalued the two sports franchises from a combined value of roughly $1.76 billion to just over $427 million.
The lawsuit from Renee Benson and her children seeking to declare Tom Benson incompetent halts attempts to swap out the sports teams and other assets from the trust until the issue gets resolved. The two sides could reach an agreement on their own for how to handle the trust and its assets. For now, the matter looks like it's headed for a lengthy court battle that could get ugly, as things tend to do when families squabble over billions of dollars.
It’s three in the morning in South Africa, in the middle of winter. Temperatures have dropped to just below freezing and a vervet monkey — silver-furred and black-faced — is very, very cold.
'Last year, we encountered golf otter, golf turtle, golf gator, golf pheasant, golf fox, golf bear, golf dog, golf squirrel, and golf baboon. So here's hoping for another strong golf animal season.'
Don't mind the rams patrolling the course in Palm Springs.
Bighorn sheep sightings aren't extremely rare at the Humana Challenge, with a significant population around the event's three courses in the Palm Springs area. But this ram wandered directly into the sightline of Brendan Steele, who was fighting for elbow room at the top of the leaderboard at the time.
The ram seemed undeterred by the golf tournament going on around him, only momentarily bringing his head up to look around when Steele made contact with the ball. Then it was right back to munching on some turf. On occasion, however, they even aid the players, such as this benevolent ram that helped Kyle Reifers line up his putt on a green the animal obviously knows well at his home course.
One of the selling points for modular smartphones like Project Ara or the Puzzlephone is that they reduce waste. But little has been said about how discarded modules could be put to use. Finland's Circular Devices, the company developing the Puzzlephone, has now revealed its answer to that question: it's called the Puzzlecluster, and it's a scalable supercomputer.
Reuse and reduce
The concept is pretty simple: when a Puzzlephone owner inevitably decides to upgrade their modular phone's "brain" (read: processor unit), the old module can be repurposed to power a versatile computer. With many different outdated smartphone CPUs combined, the cluster should have enough processing power to make the Puzzlecluster a useful addition to someone's business — and give the modules a new lease on life.
In addition to a traditional power supply, the concept calls for the case to be able to accept battery modules from the Puzzlephone as well, to maintain the system's heartbeat. Circular Devices says that the Puzzlecluster's "applications can range from research and data analysis, to rendering farms and in-house cloud services, as well as any other case that requires parallel computing." The initial illustrations show a small cube that can only accept a few modules at once, but multiple units could be combined together to create an even more powerful computer.
For now, the Puzzlecluster is just a concept — it seems to be little more than a few ideas on a whiteboard. But it's a good idea, and whether or not the Puzzlephone takes off, it's good to see that someone is thinking about what we can do with smartphone modules once they become outdated.
ThOR hates sports beat shared for Andrew Luck's incredible fucking face
Team Irvin meets Team Carter.
The Pro Bowl draft is over and the teams have been chosen. The NFL's version of an all-star game comes to your television this Sunday.
As part of the league's effort to make the Pro Bowl actually digestible, the rosters are no longer conferenced as they had been for the majority of the game's lifespan. The rosters were completed Wednesday when Hall of Fame wide receivers Michael Irvin and Cris Carter drafted their players and coaches.
Irvin, a former Dallas Cowboy, ended up with every Cowboy in the draft. The list includes DeMarco Murray, Tony Romo, Jason Witten, 60 percent of the Dallas offensive line, and the Cowboys' long snapper. Irvin even drafted the team's head coach and ex-Dallas All-Pro pass rusher DeMarcus Ware.
As for Team Carter, he built his team around Andrew Luck and a bevy of great receivers. After receiving Antonio Brown as a captain, Carter added A.J. Green, Jordy Nelson, and T.Y. Hilton. He also invested heavily on the defensive line, a group that includes J.J. Watt, Mario Williams, Calais Campbell, and Marcell Dareus.
Though the Pro Bowl has historically been played in Hawaii, the game will be held at the site of Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium. Also unlike past years, the Pro Bowl will take place the week before the Super Bowl rather than after.
Richard Sherman just gave us the press conference equivalent of setting something on fire and walking away without watching it explode. It's this week's example of the Seahawks cornerback being the biggest boss in the NFL. He's calling out the NFL commissioner and the owner of the Patriots.
"Will they be punished? probably not. Not as long as Roger Goodell and Robert Kraft are still taking pictures at their respective homes. I think it was just at Kraft's house last week before the AFC Championship, you know. Talk about conflict of interest"
Sherman remains the single most interesting person in the NFL, bar none.
Here’s a hot one for fans of Boston-based punk bands and organized labor: The Dropkick Murphys have declared that they “literally hate” Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and they want him to stop using their music at his political events. As reported by Inquisitr, the Murphys’ announcement came as a response to Walker using “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” as his entrance music during a speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit—without approval from the band, presumably. In case you’re wondering why Walker gives a damn about Iowa and its freedom, he has been not-so-secretly considering a presidential campaign and needs to start winning over more voters than the half of Wisconsin that likes him.
Really, though, the Dropkick Murphys’ beef goes all the way back to 2011, when Walker introduced a bill that was designed to straighten-out Wisconsin’s budget—and yes, it’s just as exciting ...
"one potential solution is to look for REEs on the moon" great
Rare Earth Elements make up a large portion of our high tech equipment and the demand for the elements is only increasing. This infographic, published by Buy Metal Online, has that examines the situation and the troubling shortages in our future.
Here we have an infographic that takes a look at rare earth elements (REE) including information about what they are, what we use them for, who’s producing the World’s REEs and more.
Good topic with clear visualizations and attractive illustrations. They have a lot of valuable information packed into this design. However, in my opinion, there’s way too much text included, with multiple paragraphs explaining each section. In my experience, if readers see this much text in an infographic, they are likely to perceive it as too complicated and detailed. They’ll probably move on without ever reading it. Infographics are supposed to be simple explanations that are quick and easy to understand.
“Twitter and Tumblr are public, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is invited to the table–just like if you see a group of friends talking at a restaurant, that is not an invitation to barge in and ask them questions, even though you are able to see them and hear their conversation.”
Wil Wheaton: "Don’t you dare give up, and don’t you dare let a tiny group of dedicated trolls make a decision for you. Keep working toward your dream, and be awesome."
Jessica Price: "Don’t let a group of trolls decide for you, definitely.
But also understand what you’re getting into.
At this point, as much as I want to see more women in games, I can’t in good conscience tell any woman she should pursue a career in video games unless she understands and is up to dealing with the consequences and risks that entails.
That decision is a deeply personal one. No one but you can weigh your own emotional reserves and life circumstances and circle of support and so on and decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks for you.
And if you decide the cost is too high, that’s okay. You’re not being weak. You’re not failing. You’re making an informed decision to do what’s right for you. You’re not required to sacrifice your safety, health, and emotional well-being to change the climate. If you’re willing to risk that, bravo. I applaud you and I’ll do whatever I can to have your back.
But no one can make that decision for you. No one can demand that of you. You don’t have to volunteer to take the fucking Ring to Mordor while Gandalf and other people who have access to giant fucking eagles who could fly them there in a half hour sit around with their thumbs up their asses. (Because make no mistake: major game companies and sites could do plenty to change the climate. But even when it got as bad as any of us ever imagined it getting — universities threatened with bombings and shootings just for letting women speak, female devs driven out of their homes, swattings and other acts that could lead to devs’ injury or death — almost no one had industry women’s backs. And, unfortunately, the silence of Microsoft, Sony, EA, and other big players will come as no surprise to most women who have worked at these companies.) Remember that while it was great and noble and inspiring that Frodo managed to get it there and even (from a purely biological standpoint) survive, he came back a forever-wounded shell of a person who had to leave the fucking real world and go off to Elfland to heal from his trauma.
You are not required to risk that.
I applaud Wil Wheaton for standing up to Gamergate and encouraging women to play and make games and using his celebrity as a force for good. And I get where he’s coming from: it’s a good place. He’s being a cheerleader for women in games and calling for people to fight back against what is, in essence, terrorism directed at women for having the temerity to make and critique games while being female. It’s noble.
But he’s not a woman who works in games, so I have to bristle a bit at the “don’t you dare” language. He’s not going to be asked to pay the same sort of price you might be asked to pay just for trying to do your job.
Understand, you may have to make a choice between having a public persona/participating in non-friendslocked social media, or being able to do and talk about your job without threats, harassment, stalking, and potentially life-threatening persecution like swatting. (Not to mention all the other downsides of working in video games — regular layoffs, neverending crunch, abusive working conditions, etc., most of which are worse for women because women have to continually prove their commitment and competence to a greater extreme than men, or be viewed as not performing as well as their male colleagues.)
That’s mitigated somewhat if you luck out enough to get a job at one of the rare companies that are supportive of their female employees, or if you have the means to start your own company, but those opportunities are limited to a fortunate few. I wish I could get every woman who wants to make games jobs at Paizo, Harebrained Schemes, Lone Shark, Bioware, or the other handful of companies I know from personal experience or the accounts of female friends and colleagues to be decent to their female employees, but I can’t. And these companies are the exception. I’ve seen too many of my female colleagues end up drained, depressed, and burnt out by the struggle just to be allowed to do their jobs in peace, and seen them revitalized after they’ve left, to not be honest.
How serious of an issue is this? Attrition rates for women in tech are increasing, not decreasing. We’re not making progress on that front: we’re backsliding. 56% of women in tech leave in the middle of their careers. (Compared to an average of 20% of women in other fields.)
We can recruit all the starry-eyed young hopefuls we want, but if the majority of women are still being driven out before they get to any position of seniority or authority, it’s not going to get better.
If you’re starting a studio with your husband, that seems like a good way to create that bubble of safety, and more power to you. But be prepared: you’re still probably going to be dealing with publishers, and you’ll still have to deal with the internet.
Maybe you don’t care. Maybe your drive to create is so strong that you’re willing to put up with all the crap. In which case, bless you, and thank you for joining the other women working in the industry, because the presence of more women is the only way it’s going to get better.
But this isn’t a “if you just believe enough in your dream, you’ll succeed!” situation. The risks are real, and exhausting, and constant. Go in with your eyes open.
It’s your decision, and only yours."
Don’t you dare give up, and don’t you dare let a tiny group of dedicated trolls make a decision for you. Keep working toward your dream, and be awesome.
" “Wait, what?”, you shout, “they half-fixed their broken site and then intentionally broke it again?”. Yes, they did. Instead of getting rid of storage SPOF — by configuring GlusterFS replication to a different availability zone or moving static resources to S3 where they belong — they just threw all the improvements away and went back to a single instance. Instead of setting up Auto Scaling and just making the next traffic spike a non-event, they reverted to the “we have no idea how to use AWS” mode.
Why? I don’t know. Greg says that they don’t have enough AWS budget, which seems unlikely for a company that can afford Kim’s butt.
Another opinion is that if you have a writer friend who can describe what seems like just an ordinary day at work in a romantic story, then that kind of publicity can indeed allow you to charge more for your services. And making the site scale automatically does not bring any consulting income next time a popular butt needs to be published, does it?'
Remember that thing with the nude photos of Kim Kardashian in Paper magazine a few weeks ago? Ends up long-time friend of the Internet Greg Knauss is the guy who engineered their server setup to handle the influx of tens of millions of page views. Paul Ford:
Hosting that butt is an impressive feat. You can’t just put Kim
Kardashian nudes on the Internet and walk away — that would be
like putting up a tent in the middle of a hurricane. Your web
server would melt. You need to plan.
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