Sam Kornstein

TripAdvisor Going Public

Posted on July 4, 2011July 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Technology

I recently learned that Expedia is planning to spin-off TripAdvisor, with hopes of an IPO later this year. My initial reaction: this is a win-win-win. Expedia gets to cash out, and use the proceeds however they wish. TripAdvisor (employees) will likely have more flexibility to be more aggressive and daring without having to worry about what the parent company says, or whether there are conflicts of interest.* And most importantly, if the company gains the capacity to be more innovative, we’ll all have an even better travel site. I briefly worked at TripAdvisor in the summer of 2005. From my limited experience, I got the impression that it’s a well-run company, with dedicated, serious, and smart employees. In fact I once overheard

Excuse Me, Jeeves

Posted on July 3, 2011January 15, 2018 by Sam Kornstein in General

A study on the “impressiveness” of the British accent: “The main significant effect found in this study was that people who’d lived at least three months outside the US rated the English accent significantly lower than people who’d only lived in the US. In fact, Americans who had not lived abroad considered the English-accented person to be much more intelligent than themselves, but the people who had lived abroad rated the standard American accent more intelligent than the standard English one.” Chris Blattman comments: “It was my first five minutes of watching British television in Britain that burst the bubble. Turns out, there is so much stuff PBS does not re-broadcast.”

Joshua Tree National Park

Posted on July 2, 2011July 2, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Travel

It was 116 degrees today at Joshua Tree. And it felt great. Happy fourth weekend.

That Alloy Converted Heat Into What?

Posted on July 2, 2011June 30, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Technology

Via Popular Science, a new alloy can convert heat directly into electricity. I always had a hunch that turbines were overrated. Here’s the gist of it: “The new alloy — Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10 — undergoes a reversible phase transformation, in which one type of solid turns into another type of solid when the temperature changes, according to a news release from the University of Minnesota. Specifically, the alloy goes from being non-magnetic to highly magnetized. The temperature only needs to be raised a small amount for this to happen. When the warmed alloy is placed near a permanent magnet, like a rare-earth magnet, the alloy’s magnetic force increases suddenly and dramatically. This produces a current in a surrounding coil…” Oh, Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10. Of course.

Google Bicycles

Posted on July 1, 2011July 1, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Technology

I picked a friend up at Google today. This is how employees get around the campus:

Multiplying Fish

Posted on July 1, 2011June 30, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Magic

Well, I (kind of) lied. But it’s even cooler:

Maybe It’s A Chance To Start Over

Posted on July 1, 2011July 1, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Technology

Ezra Klein has an interesting take on Google+: Social networking has grown up alongside Facebook. In its early years, it was a quirky online activity mainly enjoyed by horny college students, and so profiles mainly featured pictures of people holding red party cups. Then, somewhat unexpectedly, Facebook opened itself to the world, and, somewhat more unexpectedly, the world joined. Friend requests started coming in from parents, bosses and colleagues. This caused problems for people who’d created their profiles in the party-cup days. Then the requests started coming in from people you hardly knew. How many of your pictures do you really want them to see? At this point, most of us have Facebook friends dating back to three or four distinct

Google+

Posted on June 30, 2011June 30, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Cartoons, Technology

I’m giving it a shot, if for no other reason then to see what Google is up to. I can’t say I woke up yesterday wishing I had access to a new social networking site. In line with that sentiment, via xkcd, this is timely:

Facebook + Twitter =

Posted on June 30, 2011June 30, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Technology

Google+. This is far from an original observation, but here it is nonetheless: + = Judging by my Facebook newsfeed, I get the sense that making Google+ invite only – for some undisclosed amount of time – was a very good idea. After all, it worked for gmail. Everyone seems to want in, even though there really isn’t much going on yet. At least in my “circles.” Oh man, that will get old.

Yellowstone National Park, Part 2

Posted on June 29, 2011June 29, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

To add to my previous post on my Yellowstone visit, here are some additional shots: There really were just a lot of buffalo. Everywhere: Microbes that thrive on the hot rocks add a fiery orange to the landscape: There were also quite a few natural hot springs, some of which had vents in the rocks releasing boiling water: