DogsOfWar

542 posts
Dogs of War was born in a crossfire hurricane. He wrestles alligators in the pouring rain.

The Subtle Art of Queue Picking

It is a mathematical fact that the shortest average wait time is to have a single queue with multiple servers. Yet there are so many institutions that insist on multiple queues with multiple servers. There is some psychology behind this though.

Multiple queues gives people the impression of a shorter queues since each queue may only have a few people in it. Would you rather wait in line with 100 people or with 10 people? It’s a trick question because you didn’t take into account the number of service points for each queue. Walt Disney figured this out long ago. But let’s take a look at the two most common multiple queue scenarios the average person faces and how to pick the right queue for those times when you aren’t dealing with someone as smart as Mr. Disney. Continue reading →

Your Neighborhood Will Soon Be One Giant Billboard

A Southern California company has come up with a new gimmick to get free publicity and expand the areas where they can advertise.  They have offered to paint your home as a billboard for their company, Adzookie, and in exchange they will make your monthly mortgage payment for you.  Once the term of the contract is up in 3 to 12 months they will repaint your home the previous color.  Assuming your neighbors don’t repaint it for you in the darkness of night.

All you have to do is fill out a form and tell them why you should be selected to be a blight on your neighborhood.  They will be looking for homes that get enough eyeballs looking at them to make it worth the mortgage payment.  That means traffic, population density and that their target demographics are likely to pass by.  The demographic would be people who want to use the Adzookie service to push ads onto mobile phones.

Aside from having the word “Adzookie” painted on your house and having to endure constant dookie jokes, there are a few more pressing issues with this. It may be against certain zoning laws that cover where advertisements of a certain size are not allowed.  No homeowners’ association will approve this since it doesn’t conform to the exact shade of beige your neighborhood uses.  Finally, your house will get egged by an angry mob of teenagers on a daily basis because it’s like painting a target on your house.

The company has committed $100,000 to this project so they won’t be able to paint more than a few homes and pay those mortgages which means this is more of a stunt than an actual plan for advertising.

There is a similar, yet successful business model of wrapping cars in an adhesive plastic wrap to advertise many products.  In these cases the drivers are either paid a set amount or given a car pre-wrapped with a contract to drive the car a certain number of miles.

Source SFGate.

The Sad Plight of the Misnamed and Out of Place

Recently Google decided to give Kansas City, KS free internet access.  This is great for Kansas City, KS, but confusing for journalists without maps.  Many of you already know that Kansas City, KS is a small neighborhood-like attachment to Kansas City, MO.  Obviously the names are confusing and it would cost Google far too much money to wire up all of the larger KC.  What other confusing names are out there?

Higher Eduction

Miami University is not in Florida, it’s in Oxford, OH.  Oxford, OH borrowing its name from Oxford England.  The name of the school comes from the Miami Valley which is carved by the Great Miami River.  The river taking its name from the native American Miami people.

Washington University is not in Washington state or Washington DC, it’s in St. Louis.  Not that Google is helping in this situation.

Yes, the University of Washington is located in Seattle, though Washington State University is much closer to Idaho than Seattle.

Pennsylvania probably wins the prize here being home to California University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  Both are name after the Pennsylvania towns in which they reside.  I blame the people who named these towns.

Cities

Vancouver, British Columbia is not on Vancouver Island, Victoria and Nanaimo are though.  It also shouldn’t be confused with Vancouver, WA which is on the other side of the Columbia River from Portland, OR.  George Vancouver was a British Royal Navy captain who explored the Pacific Northwest and like explorers he has many things named after him.

So many towns in Oklahoma.  The following are all located where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

  • Burbank
  • Chattanooga
  • Cleveland
  • Fargo
  • Miami
  • Orlando
  • Peoria
  • Pittsburgh
  • Santa Fe
  • St. Louis
Food

Welsh rabbit has no rabbit in it and may not have originated in Wales.  It’s a savory sauce made primarily of melted cheese and served over toast.  The childhood me is perfectly happy with regular old cheese toast though.  Bread, butter, two slices of American cheese, toaster oven, go.

The marketing of certain foods has also forced some odd name choices.  The Chilean sea bass is most certainly not a bass, it’s a Patagonian toothfish.  Not surprisingly it wasn’t selling well as toothfish so the name was changed and it was marketed as a sea bass.  According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch you should think twice about eating this fish though.

Similar to the toothfish, rapeseed oil just wasn’t selling for some reason.  Again a name change was in order and we now know it as canola oil which gets its name from the abreviation for Canadian oil, low acid.  Even the Canada part isn’t accurate these days since as of 2004, 91% of the canola oil in the US comes from North Dakota.

Mincemeat isn’t made of meat at all.  It may have been a long time ago, but now it’s a combination of fruits, nuts and brandy often baked into pies.  My grandfather loved the stuff and I haven’t found another person on the planet who likes it.

 

What common, places, items, musical acts or schools do you find infuriatingly misnamed?

The Most and Least Expensive Everyday Things

Some of the items we use everyday come in a staggering array of choices from the downright affordable to the laughably expensive.  Let’s look at the most expensive and least expensive item in some common categories of items you might buy.

Production Automobile

The lease expensive new car in the US is the Hyundai Accent GL.  You can pick one up for $10,735 or less if you’re a master haggler.  It comes with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and those old fashioned cranks that let you roll the windows up and down even when the car is off.  It’s a 2 door hatchback that will zip you along with all 110 of its horses.

The Bugatti Veyron on the other hand will set you back $1.7M.  That’s roughly 158 times the cost, but you do get ten times the horsepower.  The Veyron does have power windows and a dual automated manual transmission that shifts faster than any person could ever hope to get the clutch down and the lever thrown.

Median Single Family Detached Home Price

When you’re looking for a place to park your Hyundai Accent there is no more fitting place than the lowest priced metropolitan statistical area to buy your dream home, Youngstown, OH.  The median price of a plot of land with a roof over your head in 2010 was $67,200.  Before all you fancy NYC people tell me about how you can’t buy a doormat for that much, this is for single family detached homes so condos, coops, townhouses and other attached structures don’t count.  Real Americans have a yard to mow and live in the heartland.

If you want to get your Veyron to the most expensive place to buy a home you’ll need to have it shipped by boat, unless you own an airplane that can accommodate a super-car.  Honolulu, HI has a median home price of $607,000 which is down considerably from the peak of the housing bubble.  You’ll get to live on Oahu, go surfing, complain about the people from the mainland and maybe become a private detective in your fancy sports car.

High Definition Television

Everyone has a HDTV already right?  If you’re one of the holdouts and you’re going shopping then be prepared for a confusing number of options.  If you’re starting at the low end though and want to make sure every room in your mansion is stocked with a HDTV then you’ll want to head on down to budget street and pick up a Coby 15″ LCD TV for a very modest $84.  Sure the colors are washed out, the screen is tiny and the remote only has 4 buttons, but it’s not like you’re going to be watching Blu-ray movies on this thing.

But nothing goes with your lifestyle quite like the PrestigeHD Supreme.  This 55″ television is literally encrusted with diamonds and accented with alligator skin.  It will set you back $2.2M.  I’m sure The Donald is the target market for this gaudy beast.  Now, if you want to find a TV that your local electronics retailer can sell you then the most expensive is the Pioneer 60″ Kuro class for $5,995.

Production Motorcycle

In your leisure time you probably like to get out and feel the wind in your hair and the bugs in your teeth.  For that you’re going to need a motorcycle.  If you’re looking for something that gets great mileage and has a name you’ve never heard of then you can’t go wrong with the cheapest bike, the American Lifan LF 200 Sphinx.  This Chinese made machine sells for $2,095.  It has a top speed of 75 MPH and can only carry 330 pounds so check the scale and speed limit before you head out to look for a dealer.

You’re probably not the kind of person who likes to limit their potential so you may want to look at the Ecosse Titanium Series RR Limited Edition instead.  As the name implies this motorcycle makes use of titanium everywhere it can.  Titanium is a very strong yet light metal often used in aircraft.  Other areas use carbon fiber to reduce weight.  All of this gives the rider a great power to weight ratio for the bike’s 200 horsepower engine.  If you have $275,000 laying around and a need to impress bike-geeks then meet your new ride.  It should be noted that the Dodge Viper inspired V10 does cost more, but was never a production bike.

Elements, of the Periodic Kind

All this talk about titanium makes one wonder what element can you pick up on a budget and which one should you dream about hoarding.  Sure you can go grab a hand full of dirt or breathe in some air, but what if you want your stuff pure?  At $0.20 per gram, calcium is the most affordable and has the added benefit of not killing you on contact like some less friendly elements.

But the most expensive element is something you might find in a nuclear reactor.  Californium-252 was forced into existence at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950.  It’s thought to perhaps exist in nature but nobody is sure.  If you want to buy some (you probably can’t buy it) it will cost you $1,000,000,000 per gram.

$1,000,000,000