December 2005 - Posts

Friday, December 30, 2005 6:00 AM

Clearly there is something seriously wrong with people....

Out there, there are women who, as a result of some flawed genetics no doubt, want to wear $3000 hand bags.  These are not childhood playmates of the Hiltons'.  These are working women.  I used to work with one.  She actually purchased a $3000 Prada hand bag.  To belabor a point: She purchased a small 4x8 inch pouch made of cloth, not gold, that is used to hold Kleenex, lipstick, money and occasionally tampons for THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!  She's putting tampons in a $3000 bag!

OK, for those women who still have the "I have to have the $3000 hand bag to go out somewhere" gene, but the "holy crap, I can't afford that so I'm not going to do it" gene is still in place, these people have come to your rescue.

So, you can go out with your tampons safely tucked into your $3000 (rented) bag for the night and be completely paranoid about losing it for a whole evening.  How enjoyable.

Idiots.

Please don't breed.
posted by Tom (Comments Off)
Thursday, December 22, 2005 8:40 AM

I can stop whenever I want to...

Wired has a new article about how American's "need" their gadgets.  Duh!

How many people who are used to carrying them would like living without a cell phone?
And Tivo (or at least the functionality of one) is now as important to me as blood plasma.  (Though I did build a Myth TV box because I don't like some of the things Tivo has been announcing/implementing lately.  I only use Tivo as a backup now)  People ask me when a TV show is on, I kind of stare at them blankly.  Then I say "You don't have a Tivo?" as if I was saying "You don't own any pants?".

Some more projects that I look forward to being completely dependent on:
  • Video surveillance of the house on my PC (doors, driveway, back yard, showers -- just kidding)
  • Fingerprint scanners on the doors
  • Beer on tap
  • Full home automation -
    • whole house music (got it)
    • software-based grocery lists integrated with Palm/Pocket PC devices and the internet
    • Voice authentication and recognition sofware for doors, wine cellar, music playing, etc.
    • Automatic temperature monitoring of the wine cellar (with email / phone alert capability)
    • voice/internet/software controlled thermostats and humidity
    • (Eventually) Integrate the appliances with this system (notification that the dryer is done popping up on the TV or being played through the speakers when listening to music
    • Auto-pause / Auto-mute music / TV when the phone rings
    • Caller-ID popup on all TVs in the house (and possibly audibly announced through speakers).
    • Auto-close the garage door if we leave it open for too long.
    • Driveway trigger to tell us when someone drives down the driveway (Ding! on the speakers, popup on the TV)
      • Automatically pause and then switch the TV to view the driveway
    • Voice control of the TV
    • Touch screen interface for all house functionality in various rooms of the house.
The list goes on and on.  I can't wait to have all of it too :)

I am sure that, once I have these things, and they are working consistently, I will not be able to live without them.  There's nothing wrong with that, is there?
posted by Tom (Comments Off)
Monday, December 05, 2005 8:22 AM

Bruce Schneier is always dead on :)

Here's a good article about airline security by Bruce Schneier.  Every article he writes makes so much sense that it's scary.  He should run for office or something.

T
posted by Tom (Comments Off)
Friday, December 02, 2005 8:12 AM

Grag Bag

I often find myself blogging just 2 lines and pointing to another news article online.  I decided that, rather than stopping doing this, I would just combine a bunch together to make it a little less lame.

So, here goes:

1) For all those annoying people who say "It's ridiculous to stop serving peanuts on a plane" and "oh.. you can just take the nuts off that cake and eat it", here is an example of why people need to be more sensitive to food allergies.  If that doesn't make you think more about it, then you're (notice I actually used an apostrophe and "re" there... huh?) a heartless bastard and you can go screw yourself.

2) Sick of navigating the labyrinth of "press 1 for toys, 2 for lubricants, etc"?  (what!?)  Well, this guy is great.  He's got a website that gives shortcuts to phone systems to that you can talk to something with a pulse.

3) This is just plain hilarious.  It's like something out of a bad sitcom..

4) I was just talking with someone about idiots burning stuff down with turkey friers...  It's pretty common, apparently.

5) Thankfully, some people in the middle east are acting (a bit) rationally about the terrorist attacks out there.  Apparently, Al-Zarqawi's family in Jordan has disowned him for attacking innocent children.  I don't know why this kind of thing took so long, but it is very welcome to me.

6) Google proves that you don't have to let the business weenies run everything.

That's it for this one..
posted by Tom (Comments Off)