Vacation Time Sucka.

Brace yourselves.  There will be no dose tomorrow.  But don't worry, here's a nice big pill to suck down.  I'm no doctor but I'm pretty sure that's the same as taking two.  Hope you're not dead like my goldfish when I get back.

_________________________________________

Spaceballs the cartoon?  Could be great.  Could blow a fat one.  Wait, do I even get G4 tv?

• Spaceballs Animated series

Invisible UAVs sound creepy.  There's one outside the window right now!  This isn't talking about invisible like unattainable scifi invisible, its a little more plausable sounding.  It exploits persistence vision as it rotates to disappear at disances of 75 feet.  Kinda like the wagon wheel effect, only a hovering camera.  I think I'd like to see this in action.

• patend on invisible UAV

Trademarks are not patents are not copyright.  Some companies don't seem to get that trademarks are not for their protection; they're for the consumer.  Apple is one of them.  Misleading names aren't allowed not because you own the name, but because I don't want to get duped into buying an iPod lookalike.  So techdirt's article and summation of the "moron in a hurry" princile sounds about right. 

• Trademark Law Needs Revision

Those cattle farmers are really shooting themselves in the foot.  It was a good idea to scare people off spinnach, but milk and other foods?  This is why biological warfare sucks. (among other reasons.)

• Organic Milk Joins Ban
• Link Spinach and Cattle
  

Just laid out $10,000 for that huge ass plasma TV?  Hope you like irony because the radiation from plasmas often interferes with the IR signals of remotes (tivo series 3 in this case)  Oh well, now you get you visit your new tv up close as you walk over to change the channel.

• Tivo seies 3 and plasmas

Cage-free farm fresh.  These are sweatshop eggs!  What the hell does Ben & Jerry's use eggs for?

• B & J to switch to cage-free eggs

Google explains the internet to Belgian Newspapers/Courts.  They've been forced to remove Newsfeeds from searches and post the release on their main page without comment.  The papers feel that Google should pay them.  *Right*  This post doesn't mention the situation but read between the lines. (remember that middle finger joke?)

• Our Approach To Content

And of course TechDirt has an insightful write up of the stupidity.

• Newspapers are like microwaving hamburgers

This is awesome.  Biodegradable plastic gorcery bags.  I spose they're technically not plastic, they're corn starch and will biodegrade in 4-12 weeks.  Less energy to produce and less gas emitted.  Can I get these now?

• biodegradable shopping bags

Lorem Ipsum.

I joined greendimes yesterday and they sent me a link to their blog.  Fine, throw it in with all the other green rss feeds I get.  But wait, this page doesn't make any sense:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci

Yep, that's some kinda language I definitely don't know.  Why the hell would they send me a link in English to some gibberish blog that I'm obviously not going to be able to read?  Plus the three posts are all the same thing.  This stinks of secret meaning.  And it turns out that 'Lorem Ipsem' is classic dummy text for filling in a document specimen. (classic as in since the 1500's)  So this site is brand new and doesn't actually have any content of use.  Anyone else ran across this noise? 

• Lorem Ipsum - All the facts - Lipsum generator

Lets Clean Some Green

Concrete houses are strong and solid and cost 32% less to cool and 44% less to heat.  The only down side is that they look like ass.  Well, not literally, literally they look like prisons.  Until now.

• Normal Looking Concrete House

This is a cool project.  Some nuts in california had some tape made up with little waves and futuresealevel.org on it.  The idea is to place it 23-30 feet above current sealevel to create awareness.  Social change starts with "my starbucks will be under water?"

• Future Sea Level -World changing

What do you get when hippies and geeks marry?  Geppies, of course.  Or maybe you get s lithium ion 1964 VW bus with solar chargine surfboards and biometric locks.

• VWERL Microbus

B-corps seem pretty cool. 'For benefit' companies that provide services and donate their profits to charity.  Like greendimes.  They're a company that is dedicated to keeping their clients off of mailing lists.  You know that 2-8 pieces of trash that the post office delivers every day and goes straight in the trash.  You can opt out, but how has the time to keep up with all the lists?  Greendimes does baby!  I need that like monkeys need bananas.  So for a dime a day they'll reduce your paper waste PLUS they plant a tree every month for each of its members. Win-win bitches.

• about greendimes on 'Joel Makower'

Towing jets?  Novel idea.  Virgin airways is going to start towing their planes into position on the runway instead of taxiing with the engines.  2% isn't a huge reduction, but its something.

• Virgin wants to tow airplanes

I'll Give You Scraps And You'll Like It.

I wrote up a whole post on this but I can't release it for reasons of national security.  It was really good too.  Such a shame.  Ok, ok I'll declassify a small portion of it.

How the hell is pissing off fundamentalists keeping anyone safe? 

• BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush aides back Iraq report move

I Caught A Red One!

Don't you just love these nice end of summer days? Sitting on the lake pier sipping a cool beer, the mild breeze flitting through your hair. You dangle your toes in the water as you cast and drag your fishing rod. SNAP! A freaking pirhanna bites off two of your toes and swims off to start digesting roastbeef and home .

Apparently I'm all about writing in the second person today.

No, no one's toes got bit off but a couple guys snagged a 16 inch pirhana from a pond in Dundalk. Normally pirhannas will eat anything, but this guy was probably eating the over 1,000 trout the DNR releases there each year. "state-subsidized meal" sounds like carniverous fish heaven.

• Swimming hole yields rare catch - baltimoresun.com

You Know You Love It.

So I bought some Easy Cheese yesterday. There's something fun about just how ridiculous it is. Cheese in a can? How gauche! How lowbrow! How wonderful! But Easy Cheese is full of contradictions. (and some cheese, I think) The medium spaced pain font running across the can top says "No need to refrigerate", its very reassuring. "Oh thanks Easy Cheese, you've got my back." But its also a little worrisome. "but, why?" Why doesn't cheese need to be refrigerated? Is it the can? The pressure? Is it really just plastic and pork fat? Some things we'll never know.

Also on the top of the can is written "Excellent source of calcium". hmmm, really? A quick check shows that a serving has 20% of your daily calcium dose. Alright, but it also has 20% of your daily sodium dose. I'm not saying its a bad source of calcium, but excellent? I can think of better ways to get it. None of them come from a pressurized can. But those guys know what they're doing. The can, the heft, the rate, the color. Its all just right. And little serration in the dispensing tube that makes the cheese look all fancy-like? Genius! I swear I'm still eating it half because I like shooting it out of the can.

Use Your Intuition.

Lets say you're out at a bar. Maybe a pirate themed bar. The service is pretty rough cause they've just opened and you have to get your own drinks from the bar despite the fact that the pattio is sposed to have servers. And said bar itself is pretty sad cause there's only like 8 half full bottles behind it and the bartender is feeling a little overwhelmed by his 3 patrons. You're waiting around for the tab and notice a big jar of what looks like oyster crackers soaking in water. Or maybe chicklets in spittle. After a bit of convincing the bartender explains that they're beans, and yes, they are for eating. He finds the long spoon and dips you out a saucerful. The offwhite surface gleams as whatever the hell these beans were in drips off. They're surprisingly firm considering it looks like they've been soaking for years. Then again, this place just opened. How old can they be? You may be thinking to yourself "I don't think I wanna eat this." And you're right. They taste like balls. Salty, unwashed balls. And you're not sposed to eat the outter casing so the flavor spreads and lingers over every last tastebud as your tounge wincingly steps up to peel the rank little bastard. Sometimes you can just assume the worst and don't have to try it for yourself. Learned the hard way? Definately.

I Made An Aquatic Habitat With My Beer Can.

Doesn't it just keep like a cop-out to dump something in the water and say that its an underwater habitat? I mean, how ever did fish survive without mothballed aircraft carriers and craploads of old tires? They probably did alright, so lets not kid ourselves. We're dumping this crap in the water cause we don't want to look at it. And the newest addition is the old Wilson Bridge. You might have read about when they blew it up, well now they're sending it down the river. Literally. Its being barged down to the county (St. Mary's county for those who aren't sure which county is the county) to house those poor homeless striped bass, blue fish and oysters. Hang on guys, help's a comin!

• Fish Find Home

And while we're talking about fish, more proof that fish and bears don't get along:

• Teddy bear slaughters 2,500 trout | The Register

You Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

Or environmentalist. Whatever. Taking a page from those oh so successful car babe calendar guys, or maybe the teacher calendar peoples, or the plain naked women calendar faction... Eco babes is a calendar produced for the environment. I mean how can you go wrong with 100% post consumer content? But they don't have any kind of preordering set up. Come On!

• Treehugger: Ecobabes. Now They'll Take Notice!

Search Bar Plug-ins

For the 0% of you rocking FireFox 2, check out your little search bar options to find the new Daily Placebo search. That's right, search DP straight from your browser, I know I've wanted this for a while.

That Was Quick.

At $400m Littoral Combat Ships are pretty cheap in military budgets. As an added bonus this new class of LCS can be fitted with mission specific modules that will keep the original investment' equipment up to date. And apparently they can be build on time, the "Freedom" was just launched on the 24th after being concieved of only three years ago. This lightweight addition is designed for coastal operation, hitting 45 knots (51 mph) and requiring under 20 feet of water. Yes folks its the start of a new era in military shipbuilding, the LCS-1 is out and more are on the way. Also, that's still the best way to launch a ship? Don't tell me there isn't one guy in the crowd who's really worried that something is gonna go terribly wrong.

• Lockheed Martin Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Team

"Hot garbage, stinky summer commuters."

Ok, so this is probably more amusing than useful but what the hell. Gawker has a Google Maps mashup that uses the NY city subway combined with peoples' reports of smells in each station. So if you're underground and catch a wiff of something, fire off a description to subwaystink@gmail.com You know, something like:

"Rotting fish juice."

"Mold, wet wool, old plaster ... Dead rats en masse ... Like a mushroom farm ... Dirt and soil ... Weed ... Honeyed rot marinated in hummus ... Stinky feet ... Gangrene ...

"Urine and homelessness ... like something pissed itself to death in the wall."

• Gawker: New York City Subway Smell Map

Its Not As Bad As It Seems.

I feel like this headline is sensationalist and misleading:

• ESPN.com - NFL - Steelers LB Porter faces fines after his dogs kill horse

I mean, holy crap, what kind of dogs do you have that kill horses?  Well it wasn't a horse, it was a miniature horse.  Might as well have been a riding-goat.  Just another case of reporters blowing stories out of proportion.

Bush Meets Gruden, Both Write About It In Diaries.

Seriously? You went to give the Bucs a pep talk cause they lost two games? Or maybe it was more like one of those 'make a wish' arrangements, only for presidents. Bush apparently told told the team to "never give up" but no one would talk about what else he said. I'll give it a go:

'Even if it seems like... the whole world is against you, everybody... all the whiners... you know, in the stands. And you can't even see the first down marker. Cause its really far off... And maybe you're not sure there is a first down marker. You just have to trust your gut and go for it on 5th down. Cause when the field is out there... its for being run on. And if you don't do that then... We're Americans. And that's what we do. We run on 5th down. And we'll keep running. Because we love freedom... ... ... TERRORISTS! ... God I hate this job.'

So basically I think the team can't talk about what he told them cause they have no idea what he was talking about.

"The president has a lot to do. For him to show up here with the SWAT team on the roof and the Secret Service guys, that's awesome,"

Yeah, I'd think the president has a lot to do, but maybe he's tired of hanging around with people who call him the devil and accuse us of equating ourselves with international consensus. You know, the UN. He did have to cut his vacation short this year, I guess he deserves a little NFL fantasy camp.

• ESPN.com - NFL - President drops in on Bucs, tells 0-2 team not to give up

Good Old-Fashioned Competition.

You know about the bagged spinach fiasco going on right now.  E. Coli hitchhiking its way into your stomach courtesy of heath food.  There's a little irony in that.  But come on, how did this happen?  I'm thinking industrial sabotage by the steak farmers.  This strain of E. Coli only exists because ranchers feed their cattle corn.  Some might say its specially developed.  And people getting sick from raw leaves makes eating a barely cooked steak look damn good.  Good thinking guys.  And of course you know what the rest of the world thinks about this event: "They get their salad pre-washed in plastic bags?"

• FOXNews.com - Bagged Spinach E. Coli Outbreak Spreads to 19 States - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News

The Future Is Here, It Brought Paper Ballots.

Yes... I get my Chinese food delivered. And I get my DVDs delivered. And my groceries. Why not my democracy? The voting system is so messed up with hackable Diebold machines , long lines, errors and fraud that we need to think of a better way to do it. You're telling me that in 2006 I have to go to a special place at a special time to tell someone what I think? Pfff... weak. But its OK folks, there's already a solution in place. Everyone use absentee ballots. Mail them in at your leisure and help create the paper trail. I'm not going back to a poll till they start using marbles and dying your thumb purple.

• Ehrlich offers poll fix for Nov. - baltimoresun.com

Update
Now usually I'm all for bleeding edge, but its not meant for widespread adoption if it doesn't work. (and not working is a very real possibility) Listen to the guys who aren't selling anything "Johns Hopkins University computer science professor Avi Rubin puts it, 'Computer scientists are pretty unanimous in our opposition' to electronic voting." This Post article has a funny and angering bit about how the elections office won't admit that computers, in general, sometimes don't work. I mean this is a classic case of 'I don't wanna be wrong.' As the article puts it "admitting error and angering a giant corporation". But I don't even think its the election officials' fault if machines don't work (its Diebold's) but it will be the officials fault if they don't dump the faulty equipment. And as for angering Diebold; we paid you bitches $106 million dollars, make 'em work or take 'em back. And if its neither, then fuck you and good luck pawning these turds off on other states. We'll be calling ahead with our review.

• If Paper Ballots Restore Trust In Elections, Let's Switch -Washington Post

That's it, Diebold, you're on the list!

You Suckas Don't Own The Air.

Here's an unexpected result of having free wifi on planes: airports complaining cause they can't sell wifi access when a plane is at the terminal. Specifically its Boston-Logan International Airport making waves, telling airlines to shut off the service while at the gate. They claimed that it was a security reason and the competing networks might, possibly, one-day interfere. Here's a good tip: don't run your security system over wifi. I swear, airport security is becoming the biggest scapegoat ever. "I want snackpacks to come in bigger cups. Its for security..." Whatever, it doesn't matter because the FCC is charging in to lay the smack down on Logan. Again. Airports have no power to regulate this medium, so you guys need to shut the hell up. Now go get me one of them giant snackpacks.

• Techdirt: FCC To Boston Airport: You Know We Meant It When We Said You Can't Control WiFi

Nail Those Bastards To The Wall.

The Daily Show had a segment about predicting hurricanes this week. They made a nice crack about how there's no accountability at all in the meteorological community. Well this site may just change how you get your local weather forecast if it doesn't change the whole system. Its called ForecastAdvisor and it tracks weather sources and provides accuracy information for the sources. Its fun to see who has the best record at least.

• Weather Forecast and Weather Forecast Accuracy for Your City

I've got Colloquialisms By The Truckload.

Isn't "counting the rings on Saturn" an expression of tedium? Maybe not, but I think I'm going to start using it: "Hey you wanna come help me scotch guard my couch?" "Ohhh... I would but I've got to count the rings on Saturn." Well apparently they do count the rings on Saturn. And name them. And they found a pretty one.

Astronomers ID Saturn's newest ring | The Register

Yeah, They've Got Current.

Why aren't we all up on tidal power like a drunk sorority girl on a mechanical bull? San Francisco has heard the call and plans to drop turbines under the Golden Gate bridge. The pilot test project will generate 1-3 megawatts (about 3000) homes as they determine the costs of the undertaking. Optimists peg the final output at 12 times that much power.

• abc7news.com:

This via Hugg. Which is Digg for green. Awesome.

Welcome! Here's Your Clothespin.

These three articles came up sequentially in my feed. Space tourist headed for space station. Mystery bad smell on space station. Toxic spill on space station. Nice. After all this time you guys finally get a visitor and you stink the place up. For a $20 million dollar vacation you'd think it wouldn't smell like ass in the tin can you rented. Lets hope the view is worth the stench or the review could put a kink in Bigelow's scheme.

• Wired News: Space Tourist Bound for ISS
• NASA reports mystery 'bad smell' on space station | The Register
• Toxic spill on the International Space Station - New Scientist Space

And of course now that there are space tourists, the space tourist traps will be soon on their heels.

As a noted futurist, I'm going to predict that all of this is going to happen within two years. Noted futurists always hustle up their predictions, because nobody wants to hear about stuff that's going to happen in 2078. We're all either going to be dead by then, or more worried about what flavor pudding we're getting than whether we've colonized Neptune.

• wired: laying traps

Speaking Of Fierce Love For Internal Combustion.

A story about racing electric cars at internal combustion tracks.  I read it while thinking about the movie "Cars" which I think made it more amusing.

"It takes some guts to show up here in an electric car, but on this night, a handful are ready to push the limits of their battery-powered engines. They're surrounded by a small group of fans."

The story is about guys tinkering with electric cars to make them faster and fix what they don't like about them.  It likens them to teenagers in the 1950's adding engines and tuning cars.

"If you don't break things, you're not trying hard enough,"

That's a really good way to look at electric cars I think.  When the first automobiles came out they didn't even resemble the cars today.  But with a lot of research and some stupid ideas, we've developed a usable if not essential device.

• Gentleman, unplug your engines

People Don't Always Agree With Me?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.  I just don't get yours.  Case in point:  I really don't appreciate SUVs.  They are the icon of American over-consumption and selfishness.  (having stolen the crown from the big mac)  There's an editorial on Jalopnik lamenting the demise of socially accepted SUVism.  I obviously don't sympathize.

The green movement is winning... Because if we tolerate this, then our children will be next.

What?  That's pretty much just George telling me terrorists want to kill my family.  Maybe it means that our children will become green next.  Oh.  Good.

The SUV rampage has nothing whatsoever to do with fuel economy, the clean diesels on the far side of the Atlantic will do no more damage than ... their beaten old Renault LeCar. It is automotive bigotry based on shape...

Yeah, its not completely to do with fuel economy.  I hate the size, unmanageability and excess involved.  I like to be able to see around traffic.  Sure, I could get a taller car to solve my problem, but why have a 3 ton highchair to chauffeur a bag of groceries around?  Plus if we'd put those clean diesels into lighter cars they'd do even less damage, right?

Now soccer moms ... have abandoned their battle wagons, in case their neighbor spits at them. And they've probably shifted their order to the Prius - a rolling lie when it comes to economy figures.

Yeah hybrids suck, if manufacturers weren't busy trying to sell off all those SUVs the technology would probably be better.  And I'm sposed to feel bad for soccer moms?  If you realize one day that you're a soccer mom you need to find some other way to define your life.

And governments across the globe have bowed to this perverse form of eco-terrorism. The Mayor of London recently unveiled his plan to tax them out of the city

Better than polito-terrorism.  But seriously, space is a premium in some areas.  Most people in cities should realize that.  Bigger apartments cost more, bigger cars should too.  I don't doubt that some people need bigger cars, but if you can get along with a wagon why wouldn't you?

they'll spot that a Ferrari uses more fuel than an Escalade, even a BMW M5 at flat chat will drink a light truck under the table and a Bentley Continental could suck the desert dry on a long haul.

Yeah, we probably shouldn't all be driving Ferrari's.  Imagine everyone commuting to work at 7 mpg in a bright red f430.  You'd never be able to throw the hammer down on anyone (why else do you get a Ferrari?) and everyone would assume everyone else has a small johnson.

And they'll keep coming until we're all going to work on solar-powered trains or worse, one-liter hatchbacks with some batteries strapped on them...

Goddamn right.  Actually, lets get rid of that one-liter engine too.  If we don't need to drive, then lets not.

So I say fight for the right of soccer moms to take one child to school in an oil tanker.

Wow.  Cars are not a right.  Clean air, that might be a right.

Because if we tolerate this, the sports car will be next...And that is a fate that should chill any Pistonhead to the bone.

That could very well be true.  I mean, how long have cars been around?  200 years?  That was a good run, lots of fun.  But you really think that internal combustion engine cars are the future of human transportation?  Don't get me wrong;  I can appreciate a nice car, and wanting to tinker around with an engine and speeding around a track. Its not like we went out and smashed all the phonograph machines.  They just fell by the wayside cause iPods are way better.  Change is going to happen whether or not you contend that a multi-billion dollar, world shaping industry should stagnate because you like the vroom-vroom.

• Hackers Notebook: The SUV Rampage Makes No Sense - Jalopnik

Do They Sell RSS Fiber?

I know, I know, I'm lazy and you're unaware of all the goingsons because of it.  But you should see all the stuff I've marked to save for later.

Here we go:

ewww... And I though store bought jerky made me want to spew.

• MAKE: Blog: DIY Jerky machine

Smart machines make smart armies.  I don't have time to go into apocolyptic rantings though, just imagine cockroach sized robots that solve problems together using AI.  Like sending one to get caught to distract the guard while the rest sneak by.  I know, its a tactic from like any 2nd rate kids spy movie, but they thought of it themselves.

• Experimental AI Robot Army

Computers can't wait to kill people.  What a sad state of affairs, the judges are so corrupt that the Chinese have developed a sentencing program that decides the punishment of criminals.  Punch in the numbers... survey says... death penalty!  Also the Chinese have 68 offenses that may warrant the death penalty, how many do we have?

• Computers to decide death sentences

This is only of note cause I'd mentioned in a knight rider post (look it up yourself, speed posting preempts internal links) about how unstable the Koenigsegg CCX is without that rear spoiler.  Well you can crash them with the spoiler too, turns out.

• crashed-up koenigsegg

Google's started a for-profit charity with a spare billion dollars.  I didn't know you could make money from charity, but mostly its who you're allowed to do business with.  Their first item to develop is a 100mpg hybrid.  Expect a beta version in two days and the full rollout in 2013.

• for profit google.org

News sites suck.  But Belgian news sites are just stupid.  They've gotten court orders to stop Google from linking to their news stories.  Uh, I can't start to tell you what's wrong with that.  Get off the Internet!

• Court Order Stops Google Traffic

I like the difference between a traveler and a tourist.  I think people should consider that more often.

• Bello Mundo

Squigly designed environmental chairs.  Cool, but definately don't fit my decor.

• Sculptural, functional furniture

PicksPal is an online game betting community.  They don't bet real money, but work on a point system to rank betters.  The site owners discovered that they get freaky high probabilies if they take advice from the 30 best pickers over the last five weeks.  They're going to start selling picks.

• PicksPal to screw bookies

More expensive cars for rent.  (insert link to leasing 1.4 Million dollar car here)  Prolly not quite as pricey as the Veyron but still quick.  Got a Highschool reuinion coming up?

• Elise Rentals

Oh baby, vintage remastered does it get any better?  Why do old things need to be redone?  Cause we can't think of anything else to do?

• Star trek is back

You can rent phones from the phone company?  A woman has paid $2,000 since 1985 for two rotary phones.  Her daughters are pissed.

• Easy to hate the phone company

Shut Em Down, Friendster!

Friendster was awarded a US patent for social networking on June 27th.  They haven't decided yet if they're going to go after the other social based friend sites like The Myspace.  I say screw 'em all.  The patent office awarded you a sufficiently broad patent, your service sucks and is getting pounded.  The Myspace is to blame.

• RED HERRING | Friendster Wins Patent

Don't Read This.

Damn Interesting has an article about a disease that affects very few people called PDD.  Its main attribute is loss of the proprioception sense, or the knowledge of where your body parts are in relation to each other.  Because its so rare researchers know little about it.  The first signs of onset are intensely vivid dreams about loss of body control.  It is neither genetic nor contagious, but the more you know about it the more likely you are to develop it.  You shouldn't have read this.

• Damn Interesting » The Seventh Sense

That's What I'm On About!

PC World listed the 25 worst websites of all time.  I'd heard of a few of them (hampsterdance, bonzibuddy, hotmail) but there were a bunch from the .com bubble that really passed me by.  That's OK cause they were either terribly managed or scams.  Most of the sites are terrible in hindsight and are no longer operational.  Take a look at the full list when you have time, but can you guess who took top honors?

Graphically, many MySpace pages look like a teenager's bedroom after a tornado--a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU.  Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits. And in a place where "U are soooooooo hot!!!" passes for wit, MySpace isn't doing much to elevate the level of social discourse.

Its really nice to feel validated. - search DP for "the myspace"

• PC World - The 25 Worst Web Sites

Can I Lease A Lug Nut?

Ok, I'll admit flat out that I don't understand how car leases work. Basically I think its for people who like new things, but don't really want to build any assets. I know this isn't a very good example to try to learn from, but lets look at the Bugatti Veyron lease from Putnam. $400,000 down and $23,595 per month for 60 months comes to $1.8 million. Yes, expensive; but I'm trying to figure out who this is targeted at.

If you've got 400 large to throw down and have 24 extra per month for what amounts to a toy, how do you not have the $1.4 million it takes to buy the thing outright? (Oh you only get to drive it 2,500 miles a year, so no, its not your real car. By the way, that's under 10 hours of driving at top speed.) Maybe they throw in free oil changes to make it worthwhile.

Who is thinking about this, cause I can't come up with a demographic. Ideas?

• Lease a Bugatti Veyron for $24K a month - Autoblog

Please Keep Your Arms Inside The Ride.

I remember learning about the defenestration of Prague in school and finding it very humorous. Not just the throwing people out of windows into poop aspect (how is that not entertaining?) ; but the fact that there is such a grand word for such a simple and, I assumed, self-articulate act.

Its quite the interesting phenomenon to me, especially as its described as a means of political dissent. Which makes me wonder, where have all the defenestrations gone? Have we progressed past such a simple, though wonderfully named, concept? Maybe people don't believe as strongly as they used to. Maybe security is better.

Or is democracy perhaps to blame? We perceive the leaders' power as our own damn fault, and so do not rain this punishment upon them? Maybe the its fact that they will be metaphorically defenestrated at the end of their term, relegated to commencement speeches and charity drives. Better to wait them out than do any heavy lifting.

In any case, I think someone should pitch a new "Defenestration of Prague" ride to theme parks. You know, excitement can be educational. And smelly. Probably more smelly.

• Defenestration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Ego Is Fine, Thanks.

I know, its stupid that everyone making a new webapp or service or game just adds 'er' to the end of whatever they do and then go back and erase the "e". Honestly folks, flickr isn't that cool; think of your own hook.

Nevertheless, check out blufr. Its a game where facts are presented and you try to decipher what is real and what is not. Its great for me cause I'm lying to people all the time. The key is to have enough random knowledge that people think you actually know what you're talking about. Of course being terribly smart and pulling plausible, if not correct, explanations out of your ass doesn't hurt either.

Youngest mother ever: 5 years old. No Way, right?

You've been bluf'd: On May 14th, 1939 , Lina Medina , a Peruvian girl from the Andean village of Ticrapo , made medical history when she gave birth to a 6 pound baby boy at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 21 days. Authorities were never able to determine who the father was.

Of course I do just know useless stuff:

You’re right: Dubbed the birthday paradox, the observation that there is a greater than fifty percent chance of there being at least one matching birthday in a group of 23 is contrary to popular intuition but is indeed mathematically true.

That's the pigeonhole theorem, duh.

• blufr.com: bruising your ego one bluf at a time

Like Catching Water With A Net.

I never noticed how similar the war on music piracy was to the war on terror.  Obviously the scope, funding and consequences are different.  But a large well-defined money-hungry body without much public support trying to capture or stop a fluid cell-based opposition, faulty propaganda reports, and no measure of success?  I must be grasping at straws, cause this can't make sense.

• Techdirt: For All The 'Significant Blows' To Piracy, Shouldn't Piracy Have Gone Way Down?

Get Up On Some Awesome Adventures.

This is a pretty cool ad. Not cause I want or like the Mazda speed3 (but maybe now I do) but its an interesting idea and well done. That and slot cars are the bomb. I feel like some ad creators have a lot of fun and the rest are about to blow their brains out. "Here comes the science"

• Ad Watch: Slide The Mazdaspeed3 Right In The Slot - Jalopnik

Maptime.

Google Earth is cool. Not just the 3d globe bit, but the concept of how its delivered. The part most people think about is the satellite imagry, but actually its a vehicle for delivering spatially referenced data. Take a look at the available road data for instance. Well now theres a section called "Featured Content" that delivers some pretty interesting information. Like this Chimp data from Jane Goodall's blog.Or how about information on national parks?
This last one is pretty cool if you're into looking at new places. Its called 'turn here' and they're video tours of areas given by locals. It can be kinda hokey but an interesting concept.

Lastly, check out this map site called breathing earth. Its a simulation of human population and CO2 release.

• Breathing Earth

What If The Computers Went Down?

The government conducted tests of cyberterrorism readiness in february.  It didn't go well. The report basically says that we're not ready to respond to cyber terrorsim, but we'll soon be able to "measure America's cybersecurity.  We're not there yet."  Right.  Not only can we not respond, we can't even gague how unprepared we are.  This seems like the kind of thing you might want to keep on the DL if, as the administration constantly claims, you were trying to keep information out of the hands our our enemies.  During the simulated wargame test hackers:

infiltrated computer servers, crashing the Federal Aviation Administration's control system, defacing newspaper Web sites and threatening power outages.

I'm more worried about two of those and less about the third.  The real question is - if cyberterrorists defaced newspaper web sites, would anyone notice? 

• Government says simulated Internet attack finds holes in cybersecurity - Breaking - Technology - smh.com.au

I'm Ignoring Traffic Lights From Now On.

Ok, not really.  That'd be dangerous.  But oddly enough if everyone did it, traffic flow would be better and safer.  At least that's the basis of a new traffic design movement lead by Hans Monderman.  He says that road architecture itself should constrain and direct traffic, not signage along the road.  Signage is like a software patch in a broken program; if successfully designed you won't need one.  Most of the philosophy involves reassigning space from motorway to shared space.  Pedestrians, bicycles and cars should all be able to use the same space efficiently; and they do in Monderman's designs.  He's not some freshfaced kid out of traffic design art school.  He's been working with traffic flow for over 30 years and has designed quite a few of these interchanges in Holland.

"To my mind, there is one crucial test of a design such as this," Monderman says. "Here, I will show you."  With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk into the square - backward - straight into traffic, without being able to see oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians ease around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the courage of his convictions.

His designs play to the psychology of drivers and create a social community of participants; rather than the faceless, consequenceless function of high speed intersections.  The lack of signs requires more attention and interaction from drivers, so while traffic moves slower you actually move more efficiently.

The really interesting part is that the road design will change not only traffic, but the city itself.  West Palm Beach converted several larger roads into narrow streets, resulting in more pedestrian traffic.  Businesses and residences grew and property values more than doubled.  Turning interchanges into places you want to be, not just get through.  That's sounds like somewhere I want to live.  And Monderman say that your city will eventually start adopting these strategies.  Or it will die, because people will more places that do.  I find that very plausable.

Wired 12.12: Roads Gone Wild

Foxit Software

I'm so done with Adobe.  Acrobat takes way too long to load for just reading a document.  Go a head, read this document about the state of the solar system.  I hope you don't open pdf files in your browser cause that's just foolish. 

On another software note, my FireFox 2 beta 2 just crashed for the first time.  When I reopened it, it asked if I wasnted to open all the tabs I'd been using. Why yes, yes I do...

• Foxit Software

Taking Out Trash With Hot Air.

I don't think I have a very good concept of plasma.  I get solid, liquid, gas...  but plasma isn't so concrete.  I thought this was because I ever don't see plasmas, but they're around.  Flame, lightning, St Elmo's fire, auroras are all examples of at least partial plasmas.  But what is it?  Ionized gas.  That doesn't do much for me, that's like telling me that a solid is change resistant matter.  I guess I want a definition created by experience.  Like when I was little, learning the difference between solid and liquid.  Which goes a long way to explaining why I'm so childishly fascinated when I see it.  Its some wild stuff when you think about it.

So Florida is planning a plasma arc waste incineration plant.  Plasma arc seems like some fancy kung-fu, much more prestigious than "throw it in a pit."  Trash is to be gasified at 10,000 degrees leaving rubble that is used in road construction.  The plant will take 3,000 tons of garbage a day and output 600 tons of rubble, ' syngas' and steam.  A third of the gas will be consumed operating the plant (it fuels itself) with the spare 80 megawatts pumped into the electrical grid.

Sounds Good.  Of course there's probably some side effect that we don't know about yet that will turn the sky Daily Placebo Green .

• WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Geoplasma - Plasma Arc Incineration

This Is Hard To Explain.

I'll do my best.

You know that phone lines were never intended to carry digital signal.  We had an infrastructure set up for one use and retrofitted technology to fit it.  Modems translated usable computer information into an analog transmitable signal and back because we didn't want to run new wires.  It wasn't optimal but it was in place, so we used it.

Now imagine that there is an infrastructure in almost everyone's home that could be used to get 6 Gbps speeds.  All we need to do is retrofit technology to it and bam, we're rolling.

That infrastructure is gas pipes.  We'd use fiber as the main thoroughfares and deliver it from the local hub to your door using the well insulated, nearly ubiquitous tubes.  A gas pipe modem would cost $200.

Sure its not fiber to the curb, but its in place right now.  A cool idea.  If it works.

• Broadband in the pipeline is a gas

Not Something Esoteric And Hard To Explain? I'm Confused.

There were tons of articles about this a few days ago.  I didn't read them.  You know how you skim something and assume you've got the jist?  Then sometimes it turns out your skimming skills suck.

There is a technique of de-branding your cell phone using sugar.  I assumed that 'Sugar' was a new piece of software that you could run and hook you phone to using a data cable, with the end result of removing the annoying graphics that come pre-loaded.  Wrong.  Sugar is a white granular sweetener used in baking, candy and soft drinks.  You rub it on the exterior decals of the phone and they come off.

How huge of a dork am I for assuming that sugar wasn't sugar?

• De-brand your cell phone or PDA - Lifehacker

The Hog Blog

Now, I've always thought hedgehogs were stupid, but this one has his own blog.  Which is impressive when you consider how much effort it must take for him to type.  The posts are mostly an archive of his wheel usage in the middle of the night.  Nice clean design.  Flash line charts.  Entries are fairly formulaic.  But give him a break; he's a freaking hedgehog.

Hog Blog » Blog Archive » Daily Hedgehog Report for Tuesday, September 12, 2006

You've Never Seen A Whole Episode Of The Office.

I picked up the Office Season 2 on DVD.  The first scene from the one episode I hadn't seen was more than worth the purchase price.  And being able to watch any episode I want in high quality is nice too.  But the real seller is the deleted scenes.  They're not crappy, pre-production scenes like you get with some movies.  The whole show is just clips strung together, and these are some of the clips that needed to get trimmed to make room for commercials.  Its gold Jerry!

You Can Pry My DVDs From My Cold Dead Hand.

I've got a few DVDs.  I never really started buying music in physical format so I don't really know the sting of digital medium takeover yet, but I'm feeling a little defensive about all my discs.  Its quite an investment, so I'd rather they not become obsolete and I'm always on the lookout for what will push them off the map.  Then I'll just be sitting alone muttering to myself about how great 8-tracks and minidiscs were.

I don't really perceive HD-DVD or BlueRay as a threat yet.  Maybe sometime down the line, but right now you can get enough information onto a dual layer DVD.  And hey, if there's enough bonus materials to require another disc I feel like I'm getting something special.  Mostly it comes down to the fact that I don't think I need the resolution they're promising in HD movies.  Standard DVD format seems to do very nicely on my 37in TV.  So maybe one day when we all have 80in plasmas hanging in the living room, HD-DVD will reign supreme, but that ain't soon.

The other possible threat is downloading movies; just like music DVD could be assailed by the convenience threat.  There's two bottlenecks to this approach though, bandwidth and storage.  Both of which are getting better.  Apple is now selling nearly DVD quality movies on their store and estimate that it'll take 30 mins to download one.  Meh, I could see people doing that, but why would you at the same price?  The time isn't quite right.

There was a time when people saved text files on floppy discs because there weren't hard drives.  Then they got 32Mb drives and never thought they'd fill them.  Then they found pictures.  Then they got 4Gb drives and thought they'd never fill them.  Then they found Music.  Then they got 200Gb drives and though they'd never fill them.

I figure I have about a terabyte and a half on DVD, and that's not including my roommate's equally large library.  We don't have ubiquitous 4 Tb consumer hard drives yet, so I don't think this transition is plausible quite yet.  But it will be one day and all that physical property will be obsolete.  Although once nice thing about physical property is that its insurable against a massive loss.  Will insurance companies start to realize this transition from physical to digital property?  And how will they make it work?


Techdirt: How Good Is Your Insurance Policy On iTunes Downloads?

But What Happens When It Rains?

Remember the Wrightspeed X1? Well here's a video of it finally on the track. And its not alone. Its drag-racing a Ferrari and a Porsche GT. The electric light-weight actually holds his own and edges out the super cars by a small margin. Of course its apples to non-production low-weight electric oranges, so the race is useless for determining a "better" car. But it is interesting to see how well an electric car could perform if engineered properly.

Electric car vs Ferrari - Google Video

There's A Clock On The Stove.

HAHA! Get in the kitchen! There's a little blerb on The Sneeze about a vintage battleship game's cover art. It's focus is the two guys playing the game, and then there's this shot of the ladies enjoying watching the game.

While traditionally considered a 2-player game, it turns out Battleship was meant to be enjoyed by 4 people.

As long as 2 of them were women and they were in the kitchen scrubbing pots.

• The Sneeze - You Sank My Teacup

How Do You Commute To 'Nowhere'?

Continuing the theme of "things the government won't tell you about but its for your own good so stop asking questions", there's a popular science article about Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 at Groom Lake. (Area 51) The article is interesting in how people make claims about "non-existent" programs based on existent clues. Its kinda like observing black holes by watching what gets sucked in. (like billions of dollars)

The thing that interested me most was the Air Force's commuter airline that operates in Las Vegas. The 737s and other aircraft are unmarked, yet registerd to the Air Force. They shuttle several thousand people to work on their black projects at undisclosed locations (all of which have runways; makes sense) and back every day.

The Top-Secret Warplanes of Area 51 - Popular Science

Offensive Defense.

Watch this interview of Bush by Matt Lauer in the oval office. Its focused on using torture to obtain information, secret interrogation camps, and the legality of measures. This is not my idea of security. I jotted a few things down as I watched, the parenthetical parts are my impression of Bush's internal monologue. (for the sake of argument lets assume there's an internal monologue)

I'm not going to discuss techniques. We don't want the enemy to adjust.
(to the torture methods we use)

I told our people not to use torture and was assured that they were not.
(wink)

Taking people off the battlefield to interrogate them for information.
(and since we've declared a global war on a concept, the earth is the battlefield and everyone is a combatant. watch your back Lauer.)

Within the law.
(as we interpret it. And if we were more specific you might be able to tell us we're wrong.)

'Secret interrogation sites are against international law.' We agree to disagree.
(see how easy it is to act lawfully? just don't acknowledge the ones you don't like.)

We had walls that restricted information sharing; we eliminated those laws.
(you heard me.)

Second guessed by non-Americans.
(you know, the people we're kidnapping and torturing. Whiners. Actually come to think of it Americans are complaining a lot about this too. hmm...)

Basically, the end justifies the means. And we can't tell you what the means are. And there's no way to tell if the end is met.

The Sietch » Bush Gone Mad

Some Fish Just Need To Be Thrown Back.

Wowie Wow. So I recently posted about Facebook, which made me remember that I also have an "active" the Myspace profile. (active meaning that I haven't actively killed it like my Friendster profile) So I checked it out. Holy-crap. The Myspace truly lets you create whatever you want as you own space on the Internet. I understand now, more than ever, the reason that people are hired to design and implement web sites for people and companies. The term 'unreadable' has never had a better spokesperson. I even submitted my post about striping content to one of my friend's profiles. (and I'm not a big self promoter, the character limit was just too small to include the whole script in-comment) Seriously though, white on white and yellow is not readable. I hate to be condescending about this stuff, which is odd, cause I usually enjoy a good condescension. But some things are intolerable.

So along with my motto for wild wood, ('wildwood, nj: don't bring your kids') I've come up with a new advertising slogan for the Myspace:

"Internet for illiterates."

Has a certain ring, no?

• The Myspace

Just A 'Lil Guy.

I just want to throw out a quick shout-out (I can't believe I just used that phrase) to the "undo close tab" function in the new FireFox. This may or may not have anything to do with that comment in the last post about drunken web development.

Other drunk dork:
drunk tivo
drunk monkeys
wine drunk
manly drinking

You Can't Get Drunk Playing PlayStation.

Every once in a while (right) I like to dispense to you, my adoring public, tidbits of genius that I happen across. Here's one to remember: You can't get drunk playing PlayStation. Write that down. Its just too hand intensive. Really, alcohol consumption leads itself much more readily to less consuming enterprises, like watching football or web development. I have no doubt that some of you may have devised solutions to this problem, but its just not worth the effort. Speaking of which, I'm no stick in the mud but grilling from an apartment is a lot of effort. My window looks out on the pool slash picnic area, and I've been watching a few ladies carry all kinds of supplies out for the last few minutes. Now, granted, I'm not food driven, but this seems like an awful lot of work for a poorly cooked burger. That fire is going out any second; despite the wild fanning.

I've Got Facebook Advertising For Me.

I don't know if you've been keeping track of the new Facebook changes as of late, or the virtual mutiny of Facebook users.  I hadn't looked at it until today, mostly cause I don't really do Facebook and I've got better things to take care of.  As a result I didn't know from first hand experience what the big deal was.  Here's the jist of it for all you who are out of the loop enough not to know, but in the loop enough to care about Facebook.

They added a News Feed to the main page of everyone's site, very much like the google reader RSS aggregator that I recently switched to.  The main difference being that its populated automatically with changes made to your friends' profiles.  Who's now single, who's going to a party, who's now friends with who.  Kinda an interesting idea if you can take that much information in, but they also forgot to build in any privacy settings. So people could maintain a modicum of modesty and not announce changes to everyone they knew.

They've addressed this now, so maybe people will stop screaming.  I don't really care cause I never update my profile anyway, but I did find something interesting.  There's a section called 'notes' that you can write and are put on your friends' feeds.  Sounds like a pain in the ass; but wait, you can import an RSS feed as your notes.  So now all my friends are being pimped Daily Placebo posts in their News Feeds on Facebook.  I figure as long as we're going for information glut, I may a well help, right?

• Facebook | Facebook Blog

Camos Are For Punks.

Having to change from jungle to desert to urban garb? Warfare isn't sposed to be so fashion oriented. Well making a completely invisible covering might not be as ludicrous as you might have thought. Theoretical physicists are working with something called metamaterials that have properties based on their structure rather than their material. Scientists are working to use this characteristic to divert wavelengths around materials and back to their original vector. One of the major holdups for optical invisibility is wavelength size, metamaterials for radar or microwave invisibility should be sooner coming, but optical waves are in the order of a couple hundred nanometers. We can't currently create a metamaterial to redirect such a small wavelength, but it's coming. In the mean time we'll just have to busy ourselves making missiles and planes that are invisible (not stealth) to radar.

• Defense Tech: Now You See Me...

Also check out this chunk from the 'invisible' wikipedia article:

"Theoretical and practical physics offer several causes of invisibility. An object may be invisible if it is:

• "Emitting or reflecting light outside the wavelength range of visible light. (Radiation is generally invisible by this means.) Unfortunately, this would result in any obscured human being becoming not invisible and transparent, but completely opaque and resembling a human-shaped black hole."

You wouldn't have an undetectable army, but you'd have a shit-your-pants scary army. Imagine a photograph that a person had been cut out of. Now imagine you're seeing that lack of person walk around with an M16. I wouldn't mess with him.

Entrapment: Imaginary Style.

Note to self: Don't pitch idea for physics-violating doomsday device to undercover FBI agents.  Apparently law enforcement agencies have no problem taking down people that intent to use weapons that, they not only don't posses, can't even be made.

Maybe there's an art to misinforming people about how destructive weapons are made, so that they can't actually do it themselves.  For example read about red mercury , that looks to me like an effort to confuse people about the construction of nuclear weapons.  Despite its questionable, and probably mythical, existence people get arrested for trying to buy this stuff from the wrong people.  Probably the kind of people that know it doesn't exist and are tracking your movements and recording your conversations.

• Defense Tech: Fake Weapons, Real Jail Time

I Got Your Letter... It Smelled Funny.

A British non-profit called UnLtd has awarded their 20,000 pound Millennium Award to a small Welsh company that recycles sheep waste into paper. Their goal was to:

"develop an idea which would be uniquely Welsh and could produce a product that foreign imports could not compete with."

Yes poop paper - that's not something they'll want to compete with. Good job. Actually its not making paper from poop, its making paper and liquid poop from poop and recycled paper:

"After the sheep droppings are collected, they are sterilised, washed and mixed with other recycled paper. This is then turned into the finished paper and cardboard while the washing water is distributed to local growers as concentrated fertiliser."

I'd be interested to see what kind of volume increase they get after this process. Are they actually making more paper because of it, or just wiping poop on recycled paper?

Lets hope that was the reward for last millennium and the non-profit hasn't shot their wad for this one yet. Cause I hope we've got some better things coming than poop paper. Wait, last millennium we had some good inventions too. Like the printing press, electric motor, instant coffee, toaster, insulin, TV, jet engine, or Pong. I'd say all of those are better than poop paper.

• Treehugger: Sheep Poo Paper Wins British Millennium Award

I'll Only Board Cleavage-Free Flights.

The Register has an amusing and poignant look at the current ban on flying with liquidish materials. Its pretty silly. On the list of approved items are gel-filled bras, which could be used to smuggle contraband on board. I've got a very simple solution, no dames on my plane. Either that or I get to make sure they're not wearing any explosives in the chestal region before takeoff.

• Terrorists could attack aircraft with gel-filled bras | The Register

There's Insufficient Downforce, Michael.

Well I'm tired of reading about people guessing and speculating about the new Transformers movie that's coming out next year. Its time to guess and speculate about the Knight Rider movie ! This mock up is of the Koenigsegg CXX (the car TopGear suggested get a rear spoiler to keep it on the track) as KITT. Of course there are a multitude of other options for what model the reincarnation should be. But I have a feeling it'll end up being whoever pays to get their sorry mustang into the movie, instead of the most appropriate one. I also can't quite imagine the original KITT voice going on any of these cars, which might just ruin the movie for me if they don't change it. It'd be like Sean Connery voicing over all the dialog in a Roger Moore Bond film. Sure, I liked Connery better, but what the hell is his voice doing on Roger Moore?

• KITT-ingsegg: Speculating on the New Knight 2000 - Jalopnik

Lifetimed Tivo Box Holds New Value.

I've been very smug about my Tivo Lifetime subscription because I bought it right before Tivo discontinued the option. Its too good a deal. Well now people's thoughts have turned to series 3 boxes and HDTV recording. But why would a lifetimer like me give up the free ride and be lumped into the masses paying a monthly service fee? Here's Tivo's pitch: you buy a series 3 HD Tivo by the end of the year (800 bones) and then pay us 200 more dollars and you can transfer your lifetime status to your new box. This is intriguing; attaining an unattainable status in the next generation of box. But it simply isn't appealing to me. I'm not willing to pay for enough HD content to need a Tivo for. Plus I'm not about to drop a grand on another Tivo. But something else may be appealing. I was reading speculations about why Tivo was offering this and someone conjectured that it was a way to keep someone from buying the series 3 and selling their lifetimed box on ebay. Holy crap, I could sell my lifetimed box on ebay! How much do you think I could get for it? $500? $600? $1500?

• Lifetime TiVo subs transferrable to Series 3 -- for a price - Engadget

Anything Mandatory Is Rough.

But mandatory military service? I'm not sure how I'd react to that. Well, I know how I (a young white male middle-class American) would react to a draft in this country. But what if I were raised in a culture where a 2 year hitch commencing on your 18th birthday was the norm. This site is an exhibit by a female Israeli photographer and looks to examine the experience of young girls thrust into a masculine machine. An interesting display of a concept that I think little about.

• Rachel Papo: Serial No. 3817131

'Incredible' Can Have Negative Connotations.

What the hell. This monstrosity is called the "Giant Knife" I can't imagine how they ever devised such an intricate moniker. It lists the 85 tools included on the linked page, head over if you're at all intrigued. I noticed that the last 2 entries were "key ring" and "second key ring" really? I don't consider the first one a tool, and you guys have two. Looks like they really wanted to get to a nice round 85. Buying bone tickled yet? (mine neither)

Keep in mind that it weighs 2 lbs 11 oz, costs $1200 and has to be individually ordered for production. I guess the company wasn't sure if they'd sell 3 of these or 8. Just imagine trying to use a socket wrench with 85 other tools attached to the handle. COME ON!

• The Most Incredible Knife - Popular Science

Reroute The Reroute.

Ever since the TL came out with live in-dash traffic advisories, I've expected this problem. Well, not a problem, but a trend. Its obviously a good idea. You've got a map and routing in your dash why not add traffic support and rerouting based on estimated road conditions? And that's what BMW thinks too. They're rolling out a system in 44 US cities that will reroute nav-equipped 3,5,6-series, X5, M5 and M6 models. I can only assume this is the beginning, how long before Hyundai's have in dash computers and this ability?

And therein lies the problem. See this technology is based on getting an using intelligence before the enemy. (that guy next to you in the Ford Probe.) If you know to turn right at the next intersection, you'll be around the accident and on your way. But when everyone has this, there will be secondary traffic jams as everyone's car uses the same information in the same algorithms to compute the same alternate route. And all of a sudden the primary road is devoid of traffic, making the few people driving '96 civics without nav systems laugh all the way to the bank. (if for example they commuted to work at a bank)

So what's the solution? More advanced algorithms? More obscure alternate routes? I'm convinced that we need to let cars talk to each other. I've had this idea for basically text messaging to the car directly in front, left, right, or behind you. But that's only the beginning. If we would use route planning and let properly equipped cars exchange those "flight plans" they could achieve a sort of hive mind. "You go left, I'll go right, and we won't clog up all the roads." Of course that's what's best for everyone and doesn't really play into American philosophy. Maybe your car should observe what kind of driver you are and they'd agree to put slower drivers on the pussy route, and faster drivers on the balls-out route. But that's almost in line with my theory that we should have varying grades of licenses and build a second set of roads underground for those that can't get an 'A' grade.

• BMW to Offer Real-Time Traffic Info in 2007 Models - Jalopnik

Update
Oh, I just got another idea. As long as our cars are talking to each other and observing traffic, your car could query the oncoming traffic to get more recent conditions reports.

Your car: "What's the road like up there?"
Blue Acura: "Effed up."
Red Camry: "I came from (insert road to the east) and it was better."

That'd make for a more social data network, rather than the central content distribution network they've got planned now. Of course that'd either require sensors to determine traffic quality that you car isn't experiencing (across a median), or they'd have to query oncoming traffic for bidirectional information. So the car in front of you (lets say heading south) would talk to the blue Acura (heading north) about road conditions ahead and the Acura would pass that information on to you as you did the same for him. Effectively passing traffic information (number of cars, current speed, average speed, even which lanes are moving faster) down the road to where there is no traffic problem yet.

Tech Ice-breaker Backfires.

Yeah, mobile and social payment systems. I spose one day we'll have cards that interact with each other to transmit payment, but I'm not salivating over it. This is an interesting idea about SMSing people drinks. Drinks can be thought of as a kind of social currency, the standard "I'll buy you a beer" payback. In Australia there's a company working on an SMS drink system where you can send codes good for a drink to a friend's phone that they can then redeem at the bar. Mostly only useful if you're not at the bar with them, true. But TechDirt points out another application for the shy guy: sending a drink over to a lady without getting all nervous about talking to her. Of course if you're sitting in the corner with the hardware to sniff out someone's phone number A) what's the point in asking for her number and B) you're probably creeping everyone out. Better stick to the old standby lines guys.

• Techdirt: Mobile Payments Miss The Mark; Picking Up Chicks Is The Ideal Application

Nice Graphics.

I'd be very impressed if video games were rendered this well in real time. Of course they can do it in a commercial, but its also done in the style that makes me think its GTA.

• Movie Theatre Coke Commercial - Google Video

Exploding Color.

• Sony BRAVIA - The Balls Advert

These are some cool commercials. I hadn't seen the one with the super balls in San Francisco. And this one of paint bombing a building in England is cool too. I think they're for some kind of TV that I'm not going to buy. But nice try guys.

• Paint Bomb Picture Gallery

• Paint Bomb Video

Pimp My Domicile.

Talk about using antiquated technology. Why do we still use water heaters that hold hot water in a big tank? If 8% - 30% of a normal heater's power is spent heating unused water, you could make some pretty big gains using an on demand heater.

• Electric Tankless Water Heaters : Goto Reviews

Really? The average washing machine uses 50 gallons of potable water for every load? Now I'm gonna feel bad about doing the laundry. And its already a chore. Literally. Check out this Bosch washer that makes better use of what you give it. Less water, less detergent, less electricity, less clothing wear, less hot water, less drying time. But there is a trade off, this badboy costs 1200 bucks.

• Treehugger: 13 Gallons Per Wash: A Super-Efficient Washer From Bosch