Bad blogger

I have been at this blogging thing for a while now; I'm not particularly awesome at it, but it helps to pass the time. Now that I have a friend that moved far away she started blogging and is thoroughly kicking my ass at this. Seriously a post a day? It just makes me feel lazy you hear that V, now I feel lonely and lazy.

Motivation Ted Talk

I think that you can see some of this play out in where/when individuals leave companies. The part of work that is detail oriented, and not creative/conceptual (ie lawsuits and contracts) tends to repel the individuals that only want to work on interesting problems. The engineers of great Software companies move from interesting project to interesting project. The example of Wikipedia vs Encarta may not be the very best example of one work method vs the other. That is more an example of free and easy to access vs pay and limited to access. I am sure that there are great analogies for this type of work, the speaker just didn't choose one.

Brilliant knife block

*via Yankodesigns.com

In the last several years I have taken to cooking, and find it a rather enjoyable pass time. Since I have really started to take cooking seriously I have noticed that so much of the cooking process really revolves around prep work, (odd given this is the first job you get when you start working at as a cook) and that your prep skills determine the texture of the food as much as the ingredients themselves. Particularly important to this process is knife skill, and there is absolutely no substitute for a damn sharp knife. Most people buy knifes in sets with a big and bulky block to hold them, I recently received a 7" Shun Sontoku that is the main knife I use for prep, but I do not have a block to keep it in. A product like this where the knife comes in a Modular block would be the perfect thing for your kitchen nerd.

Cute robot for uselessness (Twitter)

Gizmodo damn it this is cute, and useless! I wonder if you can create a cardboard body (or something that looks like cardboard) that is mobile and flexible?

Another way to listen to music online

By now most everybody has heard of Pandora, many have heard of Last.fm, and a couple of people have heard of Slacker radio as ways to listen to music streaming online. Theradio.com is throwing in their hat as another contender, and while I cannot say much for their prospects of long term traction, I do like the ability to play songs from the history something that Pandora at least does not let me do. If that is their only killer feature they may struggle but, I do appreciate it. For some reason I think the stations are better than building your own, all of mine end up being Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's all the time. Don't get me wrong I love Karen O, but I need some variety damn it.

Greatest Country on earth?

*img via Popular Mechanics

Any day now we are going to have to turn in the title of Greatest country on Earth to live in. I realize we still kick ass in lots of ways, but the reasons we suck just keep piling up. The kicker for me is from a Popular Mechanics article about other countries have detailed energy star stickers required from manufactures rather than BS optional compliance Energy Star estimates we have here. Don't we have organizations that are dedicated to this sort of industry watching? Aren't they charged with proactively creating rules and regulations that ensure American receive the high quality information, and quality products?

Popular Mechanics via Gizmodo

Yet another reason to boycott Adobe

I don't hide my dislike of Adobe, but this article about persistent flash cookies that are not cleaned with the remove cookies option makes it clear to me that Adobe does not have its customers needs in the forefront of their mind. I have not been using noscript because it was sort of tedious to approve portions of new sites as I came to them but I am starting to think it is time for the tinfoil hat to go back on.

Lifehacker via Wired

Disabling Voicemail Instructions

If you missed this floating around the blogosphere the last few days crawl out from under that rock and speed up your voicemail prompts. I did this a little while ago based on an older Lifehacker post about the subject but speeding up the time it takes to get to leaving a message may actually make using VMail more useful. Michael Arrington has long said the voicemail was going to be extinct, but I think the reason was that leaving messages was not convenient for people. We can thank the money grubbing carriers for that. I for one look forward to the day that they become the dumb pipe they fear becoming. If they didn't have any control over my experience, it might actually be a good one and if it wasn't I wouldn't be in a contract that prevented my from voting with my dollars via arbitrary and excessive monetary penalties.

USB MicroSD awesomeness

These microsd readers blow my mind. I have a Dell Mini9 and this would double the storage I have and would also add half the cost again, I think I would rather get one of these for $14 and get my own Micro SDHC card for much cheaper.

I think everyone agrees you suck labels

Electronista, Crunch Gear, Engadget, Gizmodo and I all agree trying to revive the album is dumb. You have been focusing on singles for so long now, this smacks of desperation to not be irrelevant.

Also to all the above, it doesn't have to be about Apple making a competing product, this product sucks on its own.

Car Differentials

For those that don't read make this was a pretty interesting video about cars drive systems. It may be dated, but the info is relevant.

Improving the Belkin Lap Desk

Ever since I saw the Belkin Lapdesk I thought that it needed improvement. It needed either passive or active cooling of some form, and I was hopping to not add another thing that needed to be plugged into a wall outlet. This mod adds two active fans that are plugged in to a 12v wall wart, and while I definitely it improves the overall usefulness of the stand it doesn't meet my other goal of not wanting another device sucking power.

I saw an article a few days ago about Icyballs that may be closer to what I am hopping to use. It would require electricity as I am fairly sure I need to have a microcontroller to engage the heat element to reverse the natural evaporation process. I have no experience with this type of work though so I think I am going to need to find a chemistry nerd and probably a welding nerd to pull the whole process.

Random things to want

Ever see a product that you want, but have no reason for wanting it? I did yesterday and today, this Samson usb condenser Mic for some reason seems to have captured my feeble imagination. $60 more than I am willing to spend on a toy for sure, but interesting none the less.

via Gizmodo

Zune, Analysts, and Navel Gazing

Zune, man do you get some hate out of the Apple fanboy camp. I will wager that few if any of them have used the damn device, and all they can say is that it sucks. I can say from using both that either will play your music, and games with the only real difference being the software and pricing options for music. The Zune pass is pretty damn compelling for the younger set, I remember buying several cd's a month in High School I have to imagine that there are several parents that would find this a cheap alternative (though Pandora and Last.fm may make this moot).

The analyst in this article thinks MS should buy Palm and try to emulate Apple seems all kinds of off base with his recommendations, given that the Zune software is not a mobile telecommunications device, and Palm's historical response to those types of situations (remember HandSpring) is not positive. Couple all of this that the stand alone media player may be going the way of the Dodo Bird even the Zune HD coming, we may see the Zune device folded into Mobile offerings I doubt much would come of Palm talks or at best a partnership with Palm so that their device can sync with the Zune software.

Seafair is still great!

The clip is old, but it still makes me laugh and was true just a few hours ago.