Bluetooth, the wireless technology used in computers, smart phones, and other devices is named for Herald Bluetooth, the tenth-century king of Denmark and parts of Norway. Why? Because Bluetooth was a famous unifier, bringing the Danes under a single kingship. This figure of unification was an inspiration to Jim Kardach, who happened to be reading Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s historical novel The Long Ships about the Vikings and King Herald Bluetooth when he was also busy inventing a system to unite mobile phone communication protocols. Hence, Bluetooth became the name for the unifier of wireless protocols as well as warring Danish tribes. Rather than being a stylized B, the Bluetooth logo is also drawn from King Herald. The logo is a modern form of a Viking “bind rune,” a combination or “ligature” of two or more runes, the letters used by Vikings. By combining the Hagall and Bjarkan runes from the Younger Futhark runic alphabet, we arrive at bind rune that combines King Herald’s initials and conveniently looks like an English letter B. The logos angular style is a consequence of the how runes were used by the Vikings and other early Germanic peoples. Rather than putting pen to paper, Viking writing was primarily preserved on wood, stone, or on ceremonial objects such as weapons or jewelry. This explains why many runic alphabets have few round features, as carving such shapes into these hard surfaces would have been exceedingly difficult. Similarly, most runic alphabets have no horizontal strokes, as when carving along an axe handle or staff horizontal strokes would be along the wood grain, making them illegible or even splitting the wood. And that’s why a King who conquered the Danes 1000 years ago has his name emblazoned, in a form he may have recognized, on the screens of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices around the world.
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Bluetooth, the wireless technology used in computers, smart phones, and other devices is named for Herald Bluetooth, the tenth-century king of Denmark and parts of Norway.

Why? Because Bluetooth was a famous unifier, bringing the Danes under a single kingship.

This figure of unification was an inspiration to Jim Kardach, who happened to be reading Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s historical novel The Long Ships about the Vikings and King Herald Bluetooth when he was also busy inventing a system to unite mobile phone communication protocols. Hence, Bluetooth became the name for the unifier of wireless protocols as well as warring Danish tribes.

Rather than being a stylized B, the Bluetooth logo is also drawn from King Herald. The logo is a modern form of a Viking “bind rune,” a combination or “ligature” of two or more runes, the letters used by Vikings. By combining the Hagall and Bjarkan runes from the Younger Futhark runic alphabet, we arrive at bind rune that combines King Herald’s initials and conveniently looks like an English letter B.

The logos angular style is a consequence of the how runes were used by the Vikings and other early Germanic peoples. Rather than putting pen to paper, Viking writing was primarily preserved on wood, stone, or on ceremonial objects such as weapons or jewelry. This explains why many runic alphabets have few round features, as carving such shapes into these hard surfaces would have been exceedingly difficult. Similarly, most runic alphabets have no horizontal strokes, as when carving along an axe handle or staff horizontal strokes would be along the wood grain, making them illegible or even splitting the wood.

And that’s why a King who conquered the Danes 1000 years ago has his name emblazoned, in a form he may have recognized, on the screens of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices around the world.

Riker Sitting Down: A Supercut of Pure Crazy

Hat Tip: Dean Ekkaia

Spotify's nightmare realized: Chrome extension allows MP3 download of any song

A new Chrome extension lets Spotify users permanently download any song currently available from the streaming music service, a massive slip-up that could quickly upset record labels and music…

If you steal form Spotify, you don’t understand the reason to use Spotify.  It’s so you can list to the music, without storing the music.

Now that Spotify exists I never want to store an MP3 on a local disk again. In fact, I haven’t launch iTunes on purpose (damned play/pause button on my headphones) in the last three months.

Relive the awesomeness of Daenerys Stormborn.

Also, read about the linguistics scholar who created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the show.

My home town of La Crosse, Wisconsin is finally becoming the victim of a reality TV show.  VH1 will start airing “Off Pitch,” which focuses on an adult show choir called “Grand River Singers.”

To see more embarrassing clips about my home town, go to VH1.com.

paulscheer:

Here is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done. 

My new Web Series where I recreate classic interviews from the ARSENIO HALL SHOW. 

Please enjoy, THE ARSCHEERIO PAUL SHOW w/ BILL CLINTON (Will Arnett)

Next Episode TUPAC SHAKUR

This is indeed one of the weirdest things that Paul Scheer has ever done. This seems totally insane.

(via earwolf)

Source: paulscheer

Going Into Debt Will Help Apple Avoid Taxes

The statutory corporate income tax rate is quite high—35 percent—so it turns out to be cheaper to borrow the money and pay interest than to repatriate cash and pay taxes.

I agree with half of Yglesias’s proposed remedy for this, dropping the corporate income tax entirely. The numbers show that it’s not a money maker for government and causes all sorts of productivity loss in the form of these ridiculous tax avoidance schemes.

I don’t, however, believe we should replace the corporate income tax with “higher taxes on corporate executives and rich shareholders.” Even if I thought the federal coffers needed the cash, I think it will be more than replaced by the surge of incoming cash from overseas and sustained by the continued ability of US corporations to repatriate cash without losing a third of it to the crooks in Washington.

MacBook Pro declared ‘best performing’ Windows laptop

PC World covered a report from Soluto, a PC services company, which declared Apple computers in the No.1 and No. 6 slots as the best performing Windows laptops.

Soluto explained their findings in the report:

A main factor in this machine’s metrics is the fact that every Windows installation on it is clean. With PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an unfair competition. But, on the other hand, PC makers should look at this data and aspire to ship PCs that perform just as well as a cleanly installed MacBook Pro.

I agree that PC makers should take a look at this data and stop what they’re doing. This is a classic case of putting short term gain ahead of long-term goals. Crapware bundling pays PC makers immediately through deals with the makers of said crap, but over the last decade it has deeply harmed the PC business by making PCs a more confusing, worse performing experience than if most of the hardware shipped with a clean install of Windows.

Microsoft should have made this against its licensing terms of OEMs, but it didn’t seem necessary when PC sales were increasing year after year. Now it may be too late to repair the damage that OEM crapware bundling has done.

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