Geek News and Musings

Why Didn’t The NY Times Properly Forward IHT Links?
At times, the tech geeks at the NY Times show that they understand what it takes to be a modern online newspaper. At other times… it makes you wonder. Valleywag notes that when the New York Times shut down the International Herald Tribune, which reprinted many nytimes.com stories at their IHT.com website, the NYT pointed every IHT link to a single landing page, rather than properly forwarding them to the proper stories at the NY Times — effectively breaking tons of useful links online (including plenty right here on Techdirt). For a company that was just among those complaining that Google didn’t rank its stories high enough, perhaps the powers that be at the NY Times should take a look at its own policies before whining to Google.

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Why Didn’t The NY Times Properly Forward IHT Links?
At times, the tech geeks at the NY Times show that they understand what it takes to be a modern online newspaper. At other times… it makes you wonder. Valleywag notes that when the New York Times shut down the International Herald Tribune, which reprinted many nytimes.com stories at their IHT.com website, the NYT pointed every IHT link to a single landing page, rather than properly forwarding them to the proper stories at the NY Times — effectively breaking tons of useful links online (including plenty right here on Techdirt). For a company that was just among those complaining that Google didn’t rank its stories high enough, perhaps the powers that be at the NY Times should take a look at its own policies before whining to Google.

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Supercharge Your Next Run with a Cup of Coffee [Exercise]

Many people drink coffee to give them a little boost to get through a pile of paperwork or a looming deadline. Turns out a simple cup of coffee boosts sports performance too.

Photo by Steve Key.

While you might be under the impression that for caffeine to have a significant effect on athletic performance you’d have to ingest a ton of it, that isn’t the case. The New York Times reports:

For years, researchers believed that you needed about 5 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. An 80-kilogram, or 176-pound man, for example, would need about 400 milligrams of caffeine, or 20 ounces of coffee.

Now, Louise M. Burke, the head of sports nutrition department of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, reports that athletes get the full caffeine effect with as little as 1 milligram of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. Instead of 20 ounces of coffee, a 176-pound man could drink 4 ounces of coffee, or about two 12-ounce cans of Coke.

While we’d never condone people slugging back shots of espresso to shave a few minutes off their time trials, the benefits of a cup of coffee can be seen outside of competition. If you’re already a coffee drinker, timing your morning or afternoon coffee fix around your workout schedule can help you get more out of your routine. What do you think? Is a cup of Joe before hitting the gym or track a harmless boost or a sure step towards selling your blood plasma for ‘roid money?

Supercharge Your Next Run with a Cup of Coffee [Exercise]

Many people drink coffee to give them a little boost to get through a pile of paperwork or a looming deadline. Turns out a simple cup of coffee boosts sports performance too.

Photo by Steve Key.

While you might be under the impression that for caffeine to have a significant effect on athletic performance you’d have to ingest a ton of it, that isn’t the case. The New York Times reports:

For years, researchers believed that you needed about 5 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. An 80-kilogram, or 176-pound man, for example, would need about 400 milligrams of caffeine, or 20 ounces of coffee.

Now, Louise M. Burke, the head of sports nutrition department of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, reports that athletes get the full caffeine effect with as little as 1 milligram of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. Instead of 20 ounces of coffee, a 176-pound man could drink 4 ounces of coffee, or about two 12-ounce cans of Coke.

While we’d never condone people slugging back shots of espresso to shave a few minutes off their time trials, the benefits of a cup of coffee can be seen outside of competition. If you’re already a coffee drinker, timing your morning or afternoon coffee fix around your workout schedule can help you get more out of your routine. What do you think? Is a cup of Joe before hitting the gym or track a harmless boost or a sure step towards selling your blood plasma for ‘roid money?

Supercharge Your Next Run with a Cup of Coffee [Exercise]

Many people drink coffee to give them a little boost to get through a pile of paperwork or a looming deadline. Turns out a simple cup of coffee boosts sports performance too.

Photo by Steve Key.

While you might be under the impression that for caffeine to have a significant effect on athletic performance you’d have to ingest a ton of it, that isn’t the case. The New York Times reports:

For years, researchers believed that you needed about 5 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. An 80-kilogram, or 176-pound man, for example, would need about 400 milligrams of caffeine, or 20 ounces of coffee.

Now, Louise M. Burke, the head of sports nutrition department of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, reports that athletes get the full caffeine effect with as little as 1 milligram of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. Instead of 20 ounces of coffee, a 176-pound man could drink 4 ounces of coffee, or about two 12-ounce cans of Coke.

While we’d never condone people slugging back shots of espresso to shave a few minutes off their time trials, the benefits of a cup of coffee can be seen outside of competition. If you’re already a coffee drinker, timing your morning or afternoon coffee fix around your workout schedule can help you get more out of your routine. What do you think? Is a cup of Joe before hitting the gym or track a harmless boost or a sure step towards selling your blood plasma for ‘roid money?

Designing the Perfect, Personalized Home Office [Workspace]

Until recently, Sara Rimer had the kind of home office where a filing cabinet ended up as just another surface for clutter piles. Then she called some home office designers, reconfigured everything, and shared her experience.

Rimer's story in the New York Times goes into detail on how her design consultants determined what she'd need as a writer, how it was implemented, and why the softer stuff—inviting lighting, familiar sights, a really comfortable chair—is just as important as proper organization. And if you've ever felt like the label maker needs its own federal holiday, Rimer's office designers can relate.

You probably won’t be spending $1,500 or so to have someone else tell you what you’re doing wrong and point you to the right stores. But Rimer includes some thumbnailed tips from her excursion into efficiency. Here’s a few tidbits:

• Lighting is important: beyond a room’s general illumination, which could be overhead lighting, you can use task lighting, to work at your desk, and accent lighting, like a hanging light, to create an inviting space.
• Choose containers that are an appropriate size to hold what you’re putting in them. They don’t need to be fancy, but if they are going to be visible, they should at least look similar, so the space looks more organized.
• Get the best chair you can afford. “It’s like your bed,” Ms. Whited said. “You spend a ton of time in it.”

Ever brought in an outside consultant, even if it’s just a tidy friend, to fix up your home office? What problems do you still need solved in your little corner of productivity? Tell us the tales in the comments.

End-of-Quarter Layoffs Hit Amazon, IBM, Google, and The New York Times

With the end of the first quarter of the 2009 almost here, even the strongest companies companies are making last-minute layoffs to shave costs. Today, layoffs were announced across the tech sector, from IBM to Google to Amazon. The biggest layoffs came from IBM, where 5,000 people are losing their jobs in the U.S.. Amazon cut 210 people at three distribution centers in Nevada, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Google also announced layoffs of 200 people from sales and marketing (so far, engineers have been spared). In all three cases, the job cuts amounted to roughly one percent of each company’s global workforce. The New York Times also announced a 5 percent cut of its newsroom business operations, or 100 people.

It is not as if the payroll reductions will help save the quarter or even have a material impact on it. But the companies can point to the measures during their conference calls with investors and analysts and project the savings going forward.

We’ve added the job cuts to our Layoff Tracker. To see who is hiring, check out our CrunchBoard.

• Total Layoffs Since August 27, 2008: 448
• Total Employees: 316,246

Company	Date	Location	#	%	Source
Amazon	March 26, 2009	Red Rock, Nev.; Munster, Ind.; and Chambersburg, Pa.	210	1%	NYT
The New York Times	March 26, 2009	New York, NY	100	5%	NYT
Google	March 26, 2009	Mountain View, CA	200	1%	NYT
IBM	March 26, 2009	USA	5,000	1%	LA Times
Imeem	March 25, 2009	San Francisco, CA	6	4%	TechCrunch

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Do You Pay a Flat Monthly Cellphone Bill Pay-as-You-Go? [Ask The Readers]

Everybody knows monthly cellphone bills are a disaster, and according to the New York Times, you’d probably be saving money on a pay-as-you-go plan.

Photo by telethon.

A consumer group called the Utility Consumers’ Action Network wants you to know exactly what you’re paying per minute. Why should you care? Because where pay-as-you-go plans often cost as little as $0.05/minute, if you try to get the per-minute cost of your monthly plan, you may be paying five times as much. UCAN’s survey data suggests that:

Fifty-one percent of customers in the survey paid 25 cents a minute or less, and 49 percent paid 26 cents a minute or more.

The article isn't necessarily claiming that pay-as-you-go plans are always the best route, but depending on how you use your phone, pay-as-you-go could save many people serious cash—an appealing thought these days.

So we’re wondering: Are you on a monthly plan or a pay-as-you-go plan with your phone? If you do pay that monthly bill, do you have any idea what your per-minute cost is? (We can say that we have no idea, and that our bill has never done much to clarify.) Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

Do You Pay a Flat Monthly Cellphone Bill Pay-as-You-Go? [Ask The Readers]

Everybody knows monthly cellphone bills are a disaster, and according to the New York Times, you’d probably be saving money on a pay-as-you-go plan.

Photo by telethon.

A consumer group called the Utility Consumers’ Action Network wants you to know exactly what you’re paying per minute. Why should you care? Because where pay-as-you-go plans often cost as little as $0.05/minute, if you try to get the per-minute cost of your monthly plan, you may be paying five times as much. UCAN’s survey data suggests that:

Fifty-one percent of customers in the survey paid 25 cents a minute or less, and 49 percent paid 26 cents a minute or more.

The article isn't necessarily claiming that pay-as-you-go plans are always the best route, but depending on how you use your phone, pay-as-you-go could save many people serious cash—an appealing thought these days.

So we’re wondering: Are you on a monthly plan or a pay-as-you-go plan with your phone? If you do pay that monthly bill, do you have any idea what your per-minute cost is? (We can say that we have no idea, and that our bill has never done much to clarify.) Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.