Nail meet Hammer

So Gizmodo shared this article from Medical Express in April that postulates that analyzing happy memories makes them less special.  This was an interesting article when I read it back in April, and upon re-reading it I still find it an interesting concept.  Now it could be confirmation bias since the article is all anecdotal evidence, but it does mirror a sensation that I have about memory and emotions.  I tend to be analytical about interactions (whatever I'm a sociopath that way) and recall trying to explain to myself why I felt a certain way about someone.  Names withheld for my own sanity, but at the end of the process I was less satisfied with how I felt about them than when I began.  It all really boiled down to I added weight in my mind to the negative factors and downplayed the positive ones.

It's an interesting concept, and I would like to see more research in this area.  Tangentially related would be the habit of recording everything as it's happening, I'm often offended by the photography bug of everyone and their mother whenever people get together.  No I do appreciate a few photos from an event just as keep sakes, but every 5 minutes the damn cameras do not need to come out and even more so if there are 12 people in the photo you don't need all 12 cameras to get the same fucking shot!  Take a few and share them, use flickr or facebook or whatever, but I hate being trapped in a pose while several cameras take the same photo over and over again.

Kitchen tools and stuff

Well this post is a little nostolgic for me.  I stopped reading Gizmodo over the summer as I finally admitted to myself that I didn't have enough time for my 200+ blog feeds as it was.  It doesn't stop the fact that Gizmodo always posted some really interesting gadgets for the home and kitchen.

This little toy caught my eye because really all of the items in this kit would be fairly useful and in that package I could keep it on the counter without much guilt.




And next Grill Clips.  They are exactly as bad ass as they sound.  Sure they are from Sur La Table[?], but only $15 and grilled veggies are the best part of summer.

Photography information

So this really is mostly for my own interest, but I thought I'd share with other people that might be interested.



Via gizmodo

being deaf

Gizmodo posted an article a little while back on being deaf.  Now the article is written by someone that was born deaf, and is in that 20 something age that is very angst filled anyway, but was pretty insightful none the less for me in my personal life.  My father is going deaf, rapidly.  It's not just a matter of certain tones going away, it's a matter of he's already lost over 80% of his hearing.

This is changing my family dynamic and reading the account of this young man's loneliness in a world that engages largely with our voices was very eye opening.  When there is a gathering of more than a few people, it is not uncommon for my father to not be able to keep track of what is being said.  His most common response is to retreat to his smart phone, that provides him with some entertainment.  It is also getting harder for him to hear on the phone, so he has taken to texting rather than getting frustrated with not knowing what you said.

The article is a little long, but interesting to see a different perspective on life and gave me clues on how to help my father interact with his world.

Mini foosball table

So yeah I'm a sucker for the Foosball, I grew up with a table in the basement and a father that played a lot when he was younger.  Needless to say I tend to be better than my peers at the game, but I still lake that finesse and power my father had for the game.  I don't have the space for a full size table in my home, but maybe I can convince my wife about this size.

via Gizmodo

For those that are interested you can see the catalogue here, there are no prices so it's safe to say you cannot afford it, but a boy can dream no?

I'm never going to quit Gizmodo

They are a bunch of crude, pot smoking, stolen iPhone purchasing scumbags but damn it this post on why the Death Star was a bad Investment was the best thing I have read all week.

All week.

and excerpt for your consideration

5) Practice, Practice, Practice. An entire legion of the Emperor's best troops was defeated by a village of teddy bears fighting with sticks and stones. It's just embarrassing. Clearly they needed better training in tactics, marksmanship, and hand-to-paw combat.

Yeah, that happened in an article.  That was 3 kinds of awesome.

W is for Watermelon Kegs

Gizmodo shared this link from Watermelon.org on how to make a very (very, very) fancy spodie they call the watermelon keg.  In addition to a fancy cut watermelon filled with booze you need a Chrome Spigot[?] ($27 + shipping!!) to pull this off, but I feel like we can all agree that this is the coolest party drink you will ever have made so it may be worth the money.

image via Watermelon.org

L is for LSD

Former Gadget/Technology blog now turned drug, and art blog Gizmodo shared an article about LSD being an aid in treating addictions (as in all of them).


money quote from the Nature article:

"Psychedelics probably work in addiction by making the brain function more chaotically for a period - a bit like shaking up a snow globe - weakening reinforced brain connections and dynamics."

Taking LSD (or other hallucinogens) is to your brain like shaking is to a snow globe.

E is for Energy Crisis

Gizmodo pointed me to a happy thought piece on Wired called no solution to the energy crisis until we run out. The article is really worth a read if you have any vague interest in energy policy and how it will shape our lives, but the real meat of this article is an example of how government mandates can make companies do the impossible.

Short version of his allegory, is that there used to be a real problem with old refrigerators trapping and killing children.  Thing is, for some reason it is really fun to crawl into refrigerators and close the door, which would trap them and cause them to suffocate.  When they where told that this was a problem they blamed the victims, and said it wasn't a problem, or if it was a problem it wasn't theirs to fix, ect, ect.  Any of this sound familiar (we're an oil company why do we have to come up with the next fuel source.  We should focus on producing what we started as...)  Any way the refrigerator lobby tried to convince Congress it was a problem that couldn't be solved, well when the Refrigerator safety act passed they started making fridges that weren't little death traps.  Go figure, and they say Government cannot do anything right.  I'm starting to think, businesses cannot do anything right without a little sharp pointing stick pocking their bollocks to get them moving.

As an aside I only 31 but my parents totally had an old refrigerator and I most certainly did crawl into it and close myself in it so I can relate.  Not to worry it was antique and the motor had been removed so I had an air hole, scary but true story.

D is for drunken grapefruit

So technically this is probably brandied grapefruit, but Gizmodo has a video post (with no way to embed sorry) for how to make a sweet brandied baked grapefruit.  Short story is below


-Cut grapefruit in half, and segment the... uh... segments, with a grapefruit knife (awesome gadget).
-Cover with 1 ounce (two tablespoons) of brown sugar.
-Pour some brandy on top until it's full and let it sit for 30 minutes.
-Put the grapefruit in a pre-heated 350-degree (F) oven for 20 minutes.
-Remove them and add enough sugar to cover.
-Turn your oven to Broil and put the pan in the broiler for about 5 minutes or until the sugar caramelizes.
-Remove from oven. Let it cool a little, and enjoy.

BBQ pizza

Every now and again someone somewhere creates something genius.  Thanks to Gizmodo for sharing this

And now I need that.  Pizza in the house during the winter is a no brainer, but during the summer I'm loathe to turn on that damn oven if I don't need to and realistically you could use this for bread as well.  It might be harder to control the humidity portion (several bread recipes call for a pan of water to be placed in the oven as well.)

What do you think?  I feel like a reasonable approximation of this could be mad with a piece of steel and a welder.

Drawing Cartoon Characters

If you don't follow Gizmodo, I totally understand.  Everytime I get close to unsubscribing from the feed, they post something that just captures me and keeps me coming back.  Today's post on drawing Classic Looney Tunes characters just floored me.  Wax nostalgic or whatever, but man I love watching animators work.

Wireless charging

In a general sense I'm interested in seeing inductive charging in devices particularly entertainment devices.  The ability to lay a device down and have it charge for the next time I want to use it and not have to fuss with the cord to make sure it is charged up (I'm looking at you Barnes and Noble Nook Color).  These devices (phones, iPads or other tablets) are powerful and great to use for consumption of media, the instant on and ready to go nature makes them preferable to other devices (like netbooks) for quick access to information.  The trouble with wireless charging is it typically has to be built in by the manufacturer, which is why I'm excited for this Duracell powermat card.  It offers a retrofit option for devices you already own and gives manufactures a way to do what they do and let the customer make the choice on what inductive charging solution fits their needs best.

USB wall socket

Now that everything is charged by usb it seems like we should be able to ditch those darn wall warts.  Seems a few other people think this too!

The first one is from RCA and it is just an external add on to your existing plug.  It is a pretty basic, easy to install and only costs about $20

Image via RCA

 The second one I found is more involved, you have to remove the outlet and replace it with a new one.  Not for the completely clueless for sure and it's clean look costs $25-30, but I like this look a lot.

Image via Apartment Therapy

brain melt #1 of the day

Have you seen those negative image tests where you stair at an image and then look away to still see them?  Well this one is more awesome than most you've probably seen.  It's a negative and when you blink you see the image in color.  Give it a try I was pretty floored. Stare at the colored dots on the girl's nose in the photo above for 30 seconds. Then look at a white surface (blank browser, mayhaps) and start blinking.

via Gizmodo

Net Advocacy

Alright US Citizens it is the year of net advocacy apparently, so this time up here is a decently informative article on some action of the US Copyright office.  You may have heard a year or so ago that the Copyright office declared that jailbreaking devices is not a illegal.  I thought it was a perpetual ruling, turns out it was a temporary ruling and it is due for renewal.  The EFF has a link to the page you need to submit a response to the Copyright office, and some helpful info for what you should write about.  I've included my response for further inspiration on how to write them.  Now get to clicking, it might become a crime to run that custom rom on your Android phone.

I am writing in support of the exemption for jailbreaking of Tablets and smartphones.  As a hobbiest and consumer, I feel that the capabilities of the hardware that I purchased should not be artifically limited by companies that either lack the ambition or know-how to unlock the power of general purpose computers.  In releasing arbitrarily locked devices they are saying that we don't have the ability to modify for our own purposes, hardware that we have lawfully purchased.  For me this is a question of ownership, if I own the product I feel that I should be able to modify with out impediment of law the devices that I own so long as it doesn't interfere with public spaces (ie interfere with publicly licensed spectrum ect).  I personally own several android devices and have experienced great improvements in the function and performance of the devices that I have jailbroken and installed custom roms on.  In the case of my cellular phone I have seen significant increases in battery life over the course of the day, the piece of mind that Carrier IQ is not installed and the without corporate junk installed almost 2x's the amount of free memory to install programs from the App store that I actually want.  This saved me from having to upgrade to a new device just to have more memory to use the features I need.  In the case of the Barnes and Noble Nook Color, by jailbreaking and installing a custom rom I now have full access to the android market and am not subject to the "curated market" that Barnes and Noble is now offering.  The device is quite capable, but B&N only want it to be used as a portal for buying books from them.  They would prevent me from installing competing book sellers offerings, and having the benefit of expanded choices as a consumer.  This type of lock-in on a consumer device that I am expected to purchase before I am able to reap the benefit of buying books from them is akin to Shell selling cars that only run on Shell gasoline.  It is preposterous on its face and should not be allowed.  Thank you for your consideration on this very important matter.

Android Synth software

Gizmodo dropped a link to some software to play with on that new Android tablet you know you got for Christmas.

The tool called Audiotool Sketch looks like it could be pretty cool for those beat nerds out there.



On the market page there appear to be several related synth tools in the market so don't feel like this is the only one, it was just the first one I'd heard of.

SOPA

I think I've mentioned it before, but given how unbelievably poorly this law is shaping up I thought it was time to post a little round up and information on what you can do should you find this proposed bill as abhorrent as I find it.

First Gizmodo has a pretty solid run down on why this bill is murderous for the internet as we know it.  The gist of it is that because sites that host infringing content typically are not US sites, court orders and take down notices do not have force of law.  To make it so rights holders have a way to see their interests looked after (keep in mind who the government works for here kids) they can have that sites DNS records blocked or erased without due process (remember foreign entities) with no appeal process.  This fundamentally undermines the way that DNS and the internet works and is from an infrastructure point of view a very bad way to implement this.  We would be following in the footsteps pioneered by The Great Chinese firewall.  Not the best role model, I would say.  Next up there is third party transfer of liability, that is a legal way of saying that if the search engines don't expunge records that rights holders get taken down fast enough they can be sued for the infringement that they are "facilitating".  Finally the whole framework amounts to a tool that can and in the hands of companies like UMG will be used to stifle free speech.  It literally blows my mind that a congress that claims to be in the business of lessening the power of government would like to handover such a huge power grab to private companies.  Or it would blow my mind if it wasn't business as usual over in congress.

Gizmodo has a link to a petition you can sign to ask Obama to veto the bill.

Gizmodo also has a story up of all the companies that are supporting this bill so you can know if you still want to give them your patronage.  The most notable of them is the Registrar GoDaddy, they have caught a decent amount of flack for this so I don't feel the need to pile on any more.  I will note that I have chosen to take my business elsewhere.  Yeah broken websites for a little while, but I think it is important enough to take the time to do.

Now I would like to post a link to a video that has a pretty decent attempt from one of the bills co-sponsors on what they want the bill to do.  They are trying to extend a physical metaphor to police the internet is the short story.  Once again Congress just doesn't understand the technology they are trying to regulate and should not be allowed to work on it.

Not covered in this post is the related and already passed 2008 Pro-IP law used to take websites down currently.  This is a really strange use of ICE and Department of Homeland Security, (read excessively broad interpretation of the Patriot Act powers).  Some people have gone as far as suggest that the current USAG should face criminal charges for his mis-use of laws.

Real movie

I'm not sure how I feel about this, Gizmodo says there is a real movie in development based on a comment thread on Reddit.  It sounds gimmicky, Marines vs Romans, but more power to them I suppose.  I would rather it was fleshed all the way out into a book or graphic novel before it gets picked up by a studio to be debauched and ruined, but hey that's the positive outlook you can expect from me.

Get off Jobs dick

So this festering pile of shit article lit my fuse this morning.  An ode to how nothing was ever made nice before Steve "Aka God" Jobs descended to earth and made them nice.  My first problem is that Jonathan Ive designs Apple products, seriously look at the mans resume.  If you want to jump on someone's dick there is the man that makes these things look the way they do.  Period.

Next point Compaq before it was subsumed and defiled by HP made this product, now for the fan boys at Gizmodo that literally picked every ugly tablet that existed and ignored the best of class product for the time frame before iPad's existed I say I loathe your failure of an editorial process.  Now the downside it had a Transmeta processor, and as much as I would love for that company that paid Linus Torvold a ton of money to basically not work there to have put out a great product, it wasn't a good processor.  The revision that boasted an intel mobile processor was much better and share basically the same design.  Omitting this from your little glamour shot was shitty.