Kris Longknife and The Doctor

I'm 10 books into the Kris Longknife series few hundred years in the future space opera, no other reference to Doctor Who then... "Kris fell silent, just what was a frigate? Kris had never heard of that class of ships. How big was it?... Kris decided to wait and see if this new Wasp was bigger than a breadbox and smaller than the mythical telephone booth" bwahahahahaah

Undercover Boss Season 4 Episode 14

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Undercover Boss Season 4 Episode 14 last week was a gym (Retro Fitness which has a hideous colour scheme), They had something like 79 locations and stated the number of members+. I did the math when I watched it and it was an average of 3,333.33+ members per gym. $19.99 per member a month, and they claim on their site to be set to have 300 locations by 2016. 4 company owned locations, 75 franchisee owned.

__________________________________________________ ____________________________________________
FRANCHISE COSTS
Total Investment: $861,250 - $1,522,499
Franchise Fee: $69,000
Ongoing Royalty Fee: 5%
Term of Franchise Agreement: 10 years, renewable

Financial Requirements

Net Worth: $1,500,000
Liquid Cash Available: $300,000

__________________________________________________ ____________________________________________
CORPORATE INCOME
5.17 million and change in franchise fees yearly,
3.15 million and change via 5% of the memberships,
?.?? ??? via 5% on all the shake sales (which he said was 10% of their revenue)

They train you for a whopping 8 days as part of their franchisee program and best I can tell they have less than 25 corporate employees (actually looks like about FIVE corporate employees from what I've found).

So Eric Casaburi, the founder, is probably pocketing 3-4million a year after he covers corporate expenses and payroll. Nice work Eric!!!

Find Retro Fitness on the web

DNA Data Storage

We currently have the technology to use DNA as a data storage medium. In our relentless pursuit of knowledge, the zenith we've reached is 700 petabits, or 87.5 terabytes, per gram of DNA. My curiosity was piqued, and I delved into understanding the weight of a single strand of human DNA and pondered on the data we might be able to encapsulate using our contemporary technology within that weight.

It's astonishing to realize just how intricate and efficient nature is when it comes to storing information. Consider this: a single strand of human DNA weighs approximately 0.000000001 picograms or about 660 billion daltons. Yet, this minuscule strand carries the astounding ability to contain all the information needed to construct a human being.

In our current technological era, we can only artificially store about 0.000000769658 bits of data in a strand of DNA equivalent in weight to a human's DNA strand. To put that in perspective, 1 megabyte is composed of 8,388,608 bits. That's right; our man-made capacity seems almost trivial in comparison.

Now, let's dive a little deeper. We estimate that the 2.9 billion base pairs in human DNA can be represented as 2 bits each, which gives us roughly 725 megabytes. But here's a thought: what if each base pair isn't as straightforward as 2 bits? Could it be equivalent to 2 bytes? Or what if, just perhaps, each base pair is so intricate that it equates to 10 terabytes and we're yet to discover this level of complexity? Imagine the possibility that each base pair is a highly encrypted set of data, which we currently understand as a mere 2 bits.

With all these considerations, our ability to store data in DNA seems to be at a mere fraction of a bit in comparison to nature's staggering capacity of at least 725 megabytes within the same weight.

Drawing from these observations, it's feasible to suggest that nature can store at a minimum of 1 exabyte per gram of DNA. In the grand scheme of things, it's evident that Mother Nature is the ultimate data architect!

Firearms are a huge American business

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Lets take a quick look at how big of a business firearms are in America

The U.S. is #1 when it comes to gun ownership in the entire world, with 88.8 firearms per 100 people. In fact, the second country on the list of most gun owners per person is Yemen – at a whopping 40% lower ownership rate than the U.S.

Whatever your politics, guns are one of America’s biggest industries.

One: Manufacturing. Nearly 5.5 million guns are manufactured annually in the United States and 95% of these are sold to Americans. An additional 3.2 million guns are imported to the U.S. from other countries.

Read more over at THIS BLOG

Just a reminder that firearms are a huge industry in America... do you anti-gun folks REALLY want to put hard-working Americans out of jobs? I'm pro-gun, I'm pro-job, I'm pro-America.