Eideard

Google’s bids for a pool of wireless patents were based on mathematical constants, say sources.

The portfolio of 6,000 patents was auctioned to realise some value from the assets of bankrupt telecoms firm Nortel. During the sale, Google’s bids were based on pi, other constants and the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Google lost the auction as a consortium including Apple and Microsoft made the winning bid of $4.5bn…

The sale of the patent portfolio started as a five-way scrap between two separate consortia and individual firms including Google and Intel. Initial estimates suggested the portfolio would attract around $2bn but the four days of intense bidding saw the total rise sharply.

During its bids, Google picked numbers including Brun’s constant and Meissel-Mertens constant that were said to have “puzzled” others involved in the auction. When bids from rivals hit $3bn, Google reportedly bid pi, $3.14159bn, to up the ante.

“Either they were supremely confident or they were bored,” Reuters’ source said.

It is not clear what inspired Google to draw on obscure mathematics for its bids. However, Google co-founder Sergey Brin is widely acknowledged to be a maths prodigy and the bids may reveal his influence…

Ultimately the portfolio was being fought over by two groups: Google and Intel on one side and the Microsoft/Apple-led consortium on the other.

Reuters completely missed the Third Force analysis, which is – Google is often guided by a sense of humor reflecting the attitudes of the founders.

Unlike many of the concept cars we see at auto shows that are dummied up with clay, smoke and mirrors, Rolls Royce has always pursued an entirely different philosophy, building fully functioning “experimental vehicles.”

Each such car has been meticulously hand-built to investigate how a potential production model will operate in real world conditions since 1919, when the first such vehicle (1EX) was constructed, predating the 1938 Buick Y-Job (often claimed to be the world’s first concept car) by almost two decades.

The “Torpedo” styled 10EX was built in 1926 as a sports car version of the Phantom 1 and after many modifications, lapped Brooklands at an average speed of 91.2 mph. Most importantly, it stayed in the company as a staff car and occasional celebrity courtesy car for six years, being driven by many people of note, such as Lawrence of Arabia who once borrowed it for a European trip…

10EX was built in late 1925. Writing about the development of the 10EX, Henry Royce explained, “The object of preparing this chassis is that, if speed merchants in the form of English peers or Indian Rajahs or others doubt the capacity of the Rolls-Royce Phantom I, this specimen, which we should be able to repeat, can be tried by them… We have no thought of making a freak machine or to depart from the smooth and silent model, but we do think that the owners of the smooth and silent models within their large bodies capable of 80 mph will be pleased to know that the same chassis and engine when fitted to a touring car will be capable of 95-100 mph…”

So there you have it. 10EX is unquestionably exquisitely beautiful, it was one of the world’s first concept cars, has a splendorous and meticulously documented provenance, and … it’s for sale.

Lovely piece of automotive history. Too bad my wallet will never be expansive enough to afford such a lovely beastie.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The Royal Navy’s former flagship HMS Ark Royal has been put up for sale on the Ministry of Defence’s auction website.

Just two weeks after the aircraft carrier was decommissioned at its home port of Portsmouth Naval Base, Hampshire, the Ark Royal has been advertised on the edisposals.com website.

The sale follows that of its sister ship HMS Invincible, which was towed away last week to a scrapyard in Turkey after being sold on the same internet site.

Although the Ark Royal could also be sold for its scrap metal, other proposals for it include a commercial heliport in London as well as a base for special forces to provide security at next year’s Olympic Games.

And a move could be made to turn it into a nightclub and school in China…

The website edisposals.com is run by the Defence Equipment and Support arm of the MoD which has a budget of £14 billion to equip the UK’s armed forces.

Also on sale on the site are three Type-42 destroyers HMS Exeter, HMS Southampton and HMS Nottingham.

Just in case you only want to have a small navy.

The largest gold coin in the world has been sold for $4m at an auction in Vienna.

The Maple Leaf coin measures 53cm in diameter, weighs 100kg and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

The coin was bought by a Spanish precious metal company on Friday, the auction house Dorotheum said.

The auction had been ordered by the administrator of an Austrian investment group that had gone bankrupt.

The group, AvW Invest, had bought the coin in 2007. It is one of only five Canadian Maple Leaf coins that carry a face value of almost $1million and bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II.

It’s worth more when they melt it down – than the face value.

Ten of the pioneering photos of snowflake crystals US farmer Wilson A Bentley began taking more than a century ago are to be sold in New York.

Bentley (1865-1931) is credited with capturing the first images of single snowflakes on camera. He made thousands of the jewel-like prints, no two alike.

His photomicrography technique involved a microscope and a bellows camera.

He caught pneumonia in a blizzard and died just weeks after the publication of his book Snow Crystals…

The sale of his crystal images is a rare event…Chicago art gallery owner Carl Hammer is selling them along with 16 of Bentley’s winter scenes at an antiques show at New York’s American Folk Art Museum.

“They’re remarkably beautiful,” said Mr Hammer.

Snowflake expert Kenneth G Libbrecht said the photos did not meet modern standards because of the “crude equipment” Bentley used. “But he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years,” Mr Libbrecht added.

Beautiful, beautiful. A man dedicated to nature, recording beauty and light.

When the Olympics hosted by Beijing ended, a collector snapped up the 5,000 condoms left over from the 100,000 distributed free to athletes.

The collection has now been put up for a one-off auction, with a starting price of one yuan 15¢ each.

Each condom wrapper carries the motto of the Beijing Games – faster, higher, stronger – in English and Chinese.

The entire lot of 5,000 must be purchased by one buyer at the Exceptional Auction of China Sport Collection on 29 November…

Condoms have been handed out to Olympic athletes since Barcelona hosted the Games in 1992.

“Faster, higher, stronger” – include “bigger” and you have the makings of a successful infomercial.

A man has pleaded guilty to … driving his pimped-up La-Z-Boy chair while drunk.

Dennis LeRoy Anderson, 62, attempted to travel home from a bar in Proctor, Minnesota, in the comfort of his motorised reclining seat after drinking several beers.

On the way he crashed the chair, which was powered by a lawnmower engine and had its own steering system, into a parked car….

The luxury chair, which could reach top speeds of between 15 and 20mph, was even customised with a stereo and cup holders.

Related Link: This coveted item is going up for auction.

While doing this post, I also ran across La-Z-Boy spas and La-Z-Boy races. This is indeed God’s Land-O-Plenty.

Michael spotted in hiding with Elvis

A lock of heat-damaged hair picked up from the floor 25 years ago is to be auctioned off, with bids expected to reach almost £100 per strand.

It belonged to Michael Jackson and was scorched when Jackson’s head caught fire during the filming of a television commercial for Pepsi.

The dozen strands were kept by the advert’s executive producer, who used his own Armani jacket to smother the flames, and they have more than doubled in value since the star’s death in June. The hair is being sold along with the transcript of an interview in which Ralph Cohen recalls how he helped to save Jackson’s life…

Jackson, who died in June aged 50, never fully recovered from the second degree burns. An autopsy reportedly showed he was almost bald.

The collection is being sold by Richard Davie…The hair is expected to fetch £1,000.

Mr Davie said: “This memorabilia has doubled in price since Michael Jackson died … The strands are clearly burnt and were picked up after the incident that left Jackson with second degree burns…

“There will be lots of people who will want to buy these items as souvenirs and those who would like them as investments.”

Rock on!

Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield have purchased the chess library of the legendary Bobby Fischer, including notebooks he prepared for his 1972 World Championship match with Boris Spassky. The Sinquefields acquired the collection through San Francisco-based auction house, Bonhams and Butterfields.

“I am thrilled to have this collection from arguably the greatest chess player in history,” said Rex Sinquefield, founder and board president of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. “I have been a lifelong fan of Bobby Fischer.”

The reclusive Fischer died in January 2008 at age 64. The collection purchased by the Sinquefields includes 320 books on chess; about 400 issues of chess-related periodicals; three sets of proofs for Fischer’s 1969 book, “My 60 Memorable Games”; and a number of bound volumes detailing the match histories of several chess masters, including Spassky.

The Spassky-related works centers on Fischer’s preparation for his historic 1972 match, won by Fischer. The victory ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship….

I, along with many others, have followed the tale of the Bekins storage debacle. If all the materials are in fact in order, this is a happy ending. Well, except that Fischer himself never got the stuff back. Details, details. I am happy for the buyers, and happy that the buyers turned out to be chess patrons who will understand the value and significance of what they have received.

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Three-year-old Pipi Quinlan bought a $20,000 Kobelco digger on Trade Me, prompting immediate damage control by her mum when her purchase was revealed…

Parents Sarah and Reid Quinlan, of Stanmore Bay, were astonished to wake one morning to find Pipi had bought the huge excavating digger in a Trade Me auction.

The technically savvy kid had woken early and, with the rest of her family sound asleep, decided to play with the computer.

With a few clicks of the mouse she entered Internet Explorer and the Trade Me site her mother had already logged on to.

After a few more timely clicks, she had won the most recent auction listed on the site’s homepage.

It was for a Kobelco digger, and she had it for $20,000 – money she didn’t have in her piggy bank.

“The first I knew about it was when I came down and opened up the computer,” says mum Sarah.

“I saw an email from Trade Me saying I had won an auction and another email from the seller saying something like ‘I think you’ll love this digger’…”

“It wasn’t until I went back and re-read the emails that I saw $20,000, and got the shock of my life,” says Sarah.

The auction site reversed the sale after Mrs. Quinlan called and explained what had happened.

And the computer is, uh, now kept out of Pipi’s reach.