Jeremy Johnstone

Let me start off with saying, yes I have stumbled across nudity on Flickr accidentally before (just not in this manner). Suffice to say I was surprised to see it on my Flickr home screen today. I had assumed those photos were manually filtered since I never noticed it before, but I guess not. The photos weren’t appropriately flagged, so I don’t blame Flickr in the slightest bit, just surprised that it took me using Flickr heavily for over 2 years to ever have this happen (probably seen my home screen over ten thousand times).

I edited the screenshots to be “safe” (such a horrible term) for all audiences, but check out what I mean below:

I recently went ahead and broke down and paid for an Amazon Prime membership. I didn’t originally continue my membership after the trial because I didn’t think it saved me enough money to warrant it. Boy was I ever wrong about the savings and I sure am glad I went ahead and got the membership.

Case in point, I bought a new Pelican case on Amazon. Yes, I could have gotten it with free super saver shipping, but I am an impatient person when it comes to online orders. When I buy something, I expect to have it without much delay (5-10 days is unacceptable to me, two day shipping barely cuts it). So, I went ahead and got the next day air shipping (cost me $3.99 w/ my prime membership).

After getting the shipment notification, I notice the billed weight is 55 pounds! We won’t even go into how a ten pound case can have a shipped weight of 55 pounds (maybe it’s because of the size box w/ minimum weights or something), but next day air shipping on that much weight is freaking outrageous! Don’t believe me, look at the below screenshots. Now of course, Amazon I am more than sure gets massive volume shipping discounts, but even if it’s a 50% discount on the retail rate they still lost money on my Amazon Prime membership (only $90 by itself).

So, my question is, how does Amazon make money on this deal again?

Ok, some would say I have taken my passion for Yahoo! to an unhealthily insane level now, but I disagree completely! Today my car got wrapped finally in Yahoo! branding. It’s something I have talked about doing for a long time, just never fully committed to making a reality. Well, those days are now behind us and you can see the newly transformed car here on Flickr:

My Yahoo! wrapped 2006 Honda Accord

I’m going to repost the Q&A from the Flickr set here as well:

Q: Did you really pay for this to be done?
A: No, Yahoo!’s buzz marketing team paid for this.

Q: Does Yahoo! pay you for this?
A: No. I have no monetary compensation for having my car wrapped.

Q: Why are you doing it then?
A: There are a number of reasons, but the simplest of them is that I truly love Yahoo! this much. You might not agree with my passion and ways to express it, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to spread the word about how awesome Yahoo! is.

Q: Where can I see it?
A: I have my car on campus most days. If you are on campus, ping me and I would be happy to show it to you. Otherwise, check my blog and you can find out about my scheduled public appearances with it (aka conferences, Yahoo! events, etc).

Q: Can this be done to my car?
A: Definitely! Ping me and I will tell you where to find out more information (assuming you are an employee of course).

If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to leave them in a comment or IM/email me. I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone has.

The first scheduled appearance off campus of the car is at the car show which is part of Camp Yahoo! 2007. I’ve heard rumors it might be positioned center stage, but we will wait and see if that becomes a reality or not. Unfortunately that is not open to the general public and I am not sure when the first time it will be out in public yet (other than my normal daily driving). Please keep an eye on my blog as I will post future public appearances of the car here, assuming you are interested in seeing it in person.

Finally, if you see me out and about in public, please be sure and come up and say hello. It just might get you something for free by doing so. =) (no promises, but it should be something cool).

Let me know what you think!!

The power of the Internet and the nocturnal nature of my friends is amazing sometimes. After posting my last blog post with the mind teasers, I’ve had four friends IM me and one colleague / friend twitter me in regards to the post. Seems I am not the only one fascinated by these puzzles.

After discussing the second puzzle with Terry Chay a bit, he said the magic phrase which made it all click to me (funnily enough, he hasn’t solved it himself yet). I won’t spoil it for those who are still working on the puzzle, but I can now say Ben/Henri/I were going in the total wrong direction there in the end. I’ll give one clue which might or might not help you (something we didn’t find the value in earlier, but proved to be important in solving the problem).

Given the fact you are selecting five cards and there are only four suits, you are always guaranteed to have at least two cards in a single suit.

I also solved the first one on my own (aka without talking it over with others via IM) and Chris was right, it was pretty easy once you thought about it the right way. I looked up the card trick one on the net to insure I was right and learned it’s actually a combinatory mathematics question. Pretty kewl seeing the math behind the problem and why it’s significant as a question.

One last thing, to the point of the Internet never ceasing to amaze me. Jeff Standen (ex-boss and co-founder of WebGroup Media w/ Ben) IM’d me and said he did a Google search for the answer to my first puzzle and said I was the second listing in Google. This is utterly amazing on two counts, first that it is in Google in less than an hour (this is just my lowly blog after all) and my blog also just happens to be the number two entry (again, since when was my blog important).

I now feel like I can sleep in peace knowing I have solved both problems. Good thing, as I need to be up early in the morning. Tomorrow is the last day my car will be silver for a long time (more to come in a future blog post).

Tonight the entire Yahoo! Web Messenger went out to dinner together (photos coming soon) and had a very enjoyable time. Following the dinner, on the way home Chris (head project manager) gave my friend Ben, Henri (my boss), and I two mind puzzles. One’s easier than the other, but both have had us all stumped for a bit. We decided to tackle the harder one first and after working as a team on it for about an hour at the office, we decided to head home to our respective homes and call it a night. Unfortunately, I can’t get the problems out of my head and have been pondering them since. The two mind puzzles are:

2 Burning Rope Problem

You are given two ropes which when lit take one hour to burn. Neither rope burns at the same rate and neither burn at a consistent rate. Your task is to light the burning ropes and use them to determine exactly when 45 minutes has passed.

Magician/Assistant 52 card trick

A magician has a standard deck of 52 cards (aka four suits of 13 cards each). The magician removes five cards from the deck and discards the rest. He then chooses one as his card, pockets it, and then leaves four cards on the table in a straight line without overlapping and all turned in the same fashion. The magician leaves the room and then the assistant comes in and is immediately able to say the exact card the magician had. How do they do it? There are no secret tricks, just basic mathematics.

I think I might have a solution now to the first one (not going to say it and ruin your challenge), but the second one still has me a bit stumped. Yes, one could cheat and look it up on the Internet, but what is the fun in that? Ponder these and see if you can come up with the answer!