We're Binge-Eating Wireless [Factoid]

By Brent Rose Oct 11, 2011 12:32 PM 6,341 16

Wanna hear something crazy? There are 327.5 million wireless connections in the U.S., which is more than our population. Data traffic up 110 percent year-to-year, and there is a 50x increase in smartphone data usage year-to-year—that's across all carriers in the US.

Those facts are coming to you from the President of the CTIA Wireless Associate. At this rate, demand will quickly overtake supply, and we're going to need more spectrum, like, really soon.

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Kodak Is Worth Less than Tumblr [Factoid]

Here's today's depressing tweet, courtesy of the WSJ's Dennis Berman: Kodak, which historically pioneered personal photography and employs almost 20,000 people, closed at an all time low, and "is now worth $468m, or $330m less than 50-person, profitless Tumblr."

Kodak is more or less on a slow slide towards annihilation at this point. They've got no worthwhile foothold on the digital photography slope, and nobody buys film—not that they even make the film once prized by photographers across the world. And now a share of their stock is worth $1.74, on the same day Tumblr's received a scalding hot injection of $85 million in venture capital cash, owing mostly to its ability to quickly spread animal memes and Rebecca Black GIFs. There's no use mourning obsolescence, but sometimes the shifting of money from one place to another makes me want to frown. [Dennis Berman]

Photo by Nesster

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Smoking Weed Is Really Bad for the Environment (Doing Other Drugs Is Less Bad) [Factoid]

Marijuana, hue notwithstanding, is not exactly new school green. In fact, it's the worst drug for the environment. Marijuana growers use $5 billion worth of electricity to power lightbulbs, fans, dehumidifiers and whatever else it takes to grow weed. That's 1% of the national electricity consumption.

Not only that, smoking a joint is worth two pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Who knew getting high could have such environmental consequences! We'll ignore the fact that if it was legal, growers could grow out in the open and not damage the environment with energy consumption. Thanks lawmakers. As for the other drugs: Cocaine powers the deforestation of rain forests, as farmers chop down trees to grow the coca. Also, according to National Geographic:

Farmers also use a number of harmful insecticides, fungicides, and fertilizers to grow the [coca] plants. Petroleum products are also a key ingredient in the process of turning coca into cocaine. To extract the drug from the plant, farmers mash coca leaves and soak the paste in petroleum products such as gasoline or kerosene. According to the U.S. State Department, as many as 85 quarts (80 liters) of kerosene are used to manufacture every kilogram of cocaine that makes its way to the street market.

Making meth uses energy, along with toxic ingredients like drain cleaner, lye, camping stove fuel and more. According to the EPA, the production of a pound of methamphetamine creates five or six pounds of toxic waste. Extracting heroin requires toxic substances like ammonia, acetone, hydrochloric acid, etc. that often ruins the environment the process takes place in.

Basically, any illegal drug you take to gets high, takes a toll on Mother Earth too. Think about the planet the next time you smoke/snort/tweak/shoot drugs. Or just eat shrooms. [National Geographic, Image Credit: Pashabo/Shutterstock]

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People Only Care About Your Twitter and Facebook Links for a Few Hours [Factoid]

That Cracked article you linked to on Twitter? That music video you posted on Facebook? Bitly's data suggests those links only have a half-life of 3-5 hours (in terms of your friends and followers actually clicking). [Bitly]

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Why You Should Never Save a JPEG as a 7 in Photoshop [Factoid]

We've been told for years that file size doesn't necessarily mean higher quality, though it's usually regarding megapixel counts on camera sensors. But did you know that there's a point in Photoshop where increasing the quality setting—and file size—actually decreases the image quality? That point is 7.

When saving JPEG files, Photoshop uses chroma subsampling—which hacks off color data because your brain doesn't register it at the same rate as brightness—up to 6. But after that it saves all color information. To keep the file size progression linear, rather than having a humongous size bump moving from 6 to 7, files are more heavily compressed at the 7 setting than they are at 6. The quality scale should right itself if you move to 8, though; it's just the abrupt change in the amount of color data at the 6/7 gap that causes the muck up. See? Less really is more, except when it's less, or when more is also more. [ImpulseAdventure via PetaPixel]

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It Costs $23,000 to Get Your Peen Snipped in the US [Factoid]

Hospitals are already so ridiculously overpriced that I'm surprised I'm even surprised about this but according to a new father, a hospital in Boston quoted him $23,000 for a circumcision procedure for his son.

His son was born in a birth center so he couldn't get circumcised at birth. So when he called Mass General in Boston, MA they gave him the ridonkulous price.
In his words:

When I called Mass General to get a quote on the price, I got the following: $23,000 (includes Facility, Physician, Anesthesia)

This procedure is less than 30 minutes; the doctor himself even stated that this is one of the easiest procedures. I've researched prices for other countries and found a high of $1200.

A foreskin saved is 23 grand in your pocket? [Cynical-C via BoingBoing, Image Credit Ljupco Smokovski/Shutterstock]

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NY OkCupid Profiles Are Even More Depressing Than You Thought [Factoid]

It's no secret there's a good population of assholes on OKCupid, but here in New York, the online dating world boasts some particularly uncreative types: the guy who was "born and raised" listening to Dylan and the girl who is "obsessed with" Jay Z.

Yes, according to OKCupid's latest data batch, New Yorkers really like watching snarky mainstream TV, especially when it takes place smack dab in the Big Apple. Here are the top six words/phrases found in every person's profile, organized by sex:

Men
30 Rock
Arrested Development
Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Bob Dylan
born and raised
my iPhone

Women
30 Rock
True Blood
Jay Z
obsessed with
ice cream
wine

Pretty depressing! Guess that means true love in the city is knowing someone else who finds Liz Lemon's awkwardness just as charming as you do. Either that, or it's someone who will share a sad little bowl of Häagen-Dazs with you as "Hard Knock Life" bumps in the background. [Village Voice, Image: Magdalena Bujak/Shutterstock]

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Yesterday's Earthquake Caused More Twitter Traffic than Bin Laden's Death [Factoid]

What happens when you mix a relatively mild seismic event with an extremely dense population of the tech-savvy and self-centered east coast? Twitter-splosion! Yesterday's quake let loose 5,500 tweets per second, beating Dead Osama and tying Fukushima's 9.0. Priorities!

Between the marble and brick federal egocentrism of DC and the media self-fellation of New York, it's no wonder there were 40,000 tweets regarding the 5.8 tremor within one minute of it happening—and that they reached us in New York before the ground started to shake. People love talking about themselves, especially when they are shaking because of an earthquake.

But for many soft, sensitive east coasters like me, it was also our first earthquake. And that's kind of a big deal! And a particularly rare one for this side of the continent. But still—the fact that yesterday trumped the surprise killing of the most wanted, most heinous terrorist in the history of the world and a unfathomably powerful earthquake that triggered an ongoing nuclear disaster says something about Twitter. It's at its most popular when it gives us a mirror to look into. And next to that mirror is a megaphone to scream at everyone about it. And nothing makes for a good ego screamin' like a non-dangerous earthquake. [Twitter]

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