When I get lazy with blogging, I just post links to some neat stuff around the web:

• Etymology: Why we start sentences with ‘so’, who may have started the ‘my bad’ trend.
• With the BP spill, should we be afraid of eating shrimp that comes from the Gulf? The answer is no, but the following is disconcerting
  

  Federal regulators also stress that seafood is safe. One toxicologist told USA Today that even if contaminated shrimp were reaching the market, oil isn’t highly toxic

  I guess mildly toxic is ok.

• Thinking about writing an app for the Apple App store? Well don’t quit your day job
  

  Supercollider Blog reports on several levels of paid app downloads, the relevant number is that half of all paid iPhone apps get less than 1,000 downloads. The median point is under 1,000. Lets call it 999. That number times $1.95 per paid app gives the ‘most typical app’ the total revenues in its lifetime – the full two years of App Store existence – of $1,948 dollars. This is before Apple takes its cut of 30%, so we are left with $1,363 over two years or $682 per year. This is so ‘successful’ that half of all of the developers of the 164,250 apps – will actually earn LESS THAN THIS. Before you start to cry, remember, there is that Angry Bird game that had 4 million paid downloads and the Bewelled 2 game with 3 million paid downloads. Thats your math there, they are totally skewing the averages, and you are stuck in the ‘long tail’ indeed. Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea?

• I read this headline, and my first thought was what? When do Chinese people have the last name Fat. Eventually I remembered Chow Yun Fat, which is one of the only 5 Asian people that Americans know; so I guess it does make a bit of sense.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: apple, chinese, food, worldissues