Here's the proposition: Everybody pay one penny to send an outgoing email. This will discourage spam, which consumes 33 terawatt hours of electricity every year. A spam email sent to a million people would cost $10,000. No, you say? You don't want to pay to send email? I hear you. But what if it was voluntary? But wait, you say. If … Read More
Shooting Star
This evening marks the height of the annual Perseid meteor shower, when the Earth passes through the dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. On a clear night with little haze or light from nearby communities, one could see as many as 200 meteors per hour. With storms passing through the Triad, I didn't expect to see much. In fact, I plumb near … Read More
Not Your Grandmother’s Measuring Cup
From Coolest Gadgets: Blurb: The Smart Measure Cup does unit conversions, can be pre-set for recipe amounts which will “beep” once you reach them, and the built in cup can be removed for easy cleaning to keep the LCD safe from getting wet. Hey, I like cool gadgets just as much (if not more) than the average guy, but I … Read More
Texting While Driving: Just How Dangerous?
Graphic from a new study: The study, from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (see here - PDF) says: …Text messaging, which had the highest risk of over 20 times worse than driving while not using a phone, had the longest duration of eyes off road time (4.6s over a 6 s interval). That equates to traveling the length of a football field … Read More
But The Red Ones Give You Cancer, So It’s A Wash, Right?
From CNN: Blue M&Ms linked to reducing spine injury The same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery, according to new research. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats … Read More
Research Study Of The Day: Beautiful Women
As reported in the Times Online: Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors. Fuck you, scientists.
I’m Ready For My Tattoo, Mr. DeMille
Not a big fan of tattoos, me. Don't really understand the need to accesorize in that way. Plus, the permanancy thing. What if you don't like it after five years? But finally, I've come across a tattoo that I would consider. It's not really a tattoo, it's a… subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the … Read More
Finally, A Universal Charger
The major players and the European Union have finally agreed to a unviersal adaptor size for cell phones chargers. Jeez, about time.
Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away
Well, she didn't. Kodak is. Someday, explaining "film" to kids will be kind of like explaining 8-track players.
The High Line Opens
A park built on what was once elevated train tracks opens today in Manhattan's West Side. A one-of-a-kind example of urban renewal.
iPhone 3.0
I'm half-following a live blog of the new iPhone 3.0 announcement. A lot of cool features — the ability to find your "lost" iPhone by texting to it and getting a sound (even if sound is turned off, better GPS (turn-by-turn instructions), a Kindle-like reader, better integations with iTunes, cut/paste/undo (finally) and so on. The 3.0 operating system upgrade will be … Read More
“It’s Not The Tool; It’s What You Do With It”
For some reason, Republicans still think that they can crawl their way back up to the political mountaintop… by (among other things) using Twitter. Slate covers the annual conference of the College Republican National Committee (where future Republicans are born — see Karl Rove and Lee Atwater): According to those headlining the conference, who ranged from the baby-faced Rep. Aaron Schock, … Read More
Teen Txt Translator
LG (maker of Voyager and other cell phones) has provided a web service called DTXTR (de-text-er) which translates teen txt shorthand to English, and vice versa. That's because (according to LG), teens text an average of 1700 times per month (wow!); texting is more common than actual phone calls. (And 42% of teens report that they can txt with their eyes … Read More
Catch The “Wave”
Ten years ago, nobody knew what it was to "blog" or "text" or "tweet" or "IM". So what new thingee will we be doing 2-3 years from now? I predict that we'll be "waving", thanks to Google. What is the "wave"? Well, it's hard to describe. Basically, the folks at Google were wondering why we communicate in different ways — … Read More
Delayed Gratification And SAT Scores
Wow. Parents, take note. This recent New Yorker article on the Stanford research is very compelling. The test went like this: put a marshmallow on the table in front of a four-year-old; tell the child that he or she can either eat the marshmallow now, or leave it uneaten for a while (15-20 minutes) and receive a second marshmallow at the … Read More