Today I’m on reserve duty, so there will be no more updates today. See you tomorrow, and have a great day.
70s Sci-Fi Watch
The useless gadgets fairy visits us again, bringing us this new 70s Sci-Fi watch, whatever that is. As watch usage drops in favor of time-telling cellphones, it’s amazing someone even comes up with new watch designs like these.
Anyway, if you can figure out how to use this watch to tell time, let me know. On second thought, keep it to yourself. I haven’t been wearing a watch for years.
(via Gizmodo)
IM Waiting
I’ve been using IM (instant messaging) software for years. Currently I have 55 contacts in my MSN Messenger list. Generally speaking, at any given moment around 15 of them are online. One of the things that keep happening to me is that days can pass by with no one talking to me and then, all together, three of my contacts will start a conversation.
Personally I can’t handle three conversations at once. Actually I can, but I don’t stay as focused as I would like to be, especially if any of the conversations has any emotional value to me or to the other party and requires my full attention.
My idea is to have a call waiting feature for IM software. You define how many conversations you can handle and, assuming you’re already having that number of active conversations, when one of your contacts tries to send you a message she gets a message saying that she’s “IM waiting”. Just like phone call-waiting. Naturally, you will be notified that you have an IM buddy waiting for your reply, so you will have the choice of talking to her.
Note that this is different from having an “on conversation” status (or an automatic “busy” status, for that matter). This kind of status would let people track your talking habbits, so it would be the wrong solution.
Red Shirt Society
If you ever watched the original Star Trek series, then you know what happens to the unknown bastard wearing the red shirt at the bridge or going on an away team.
That’s what the Red Shirt Society is for.
“Their Law” Number 2 In The UK, Prodigy Month Over
“Their Law” by The Prodigy went down to number 2 in the UK after one week as the top selling album, but that was expected as number 1 this week is Robbie Williams’ new album. The fact that Prodigy is still number 2 means that sales are still strong, which is great news.
This is the last day of October, and therefore the end of “Prodigy Month” for this blog. I will still post Prodigy related news and stuff, but the Prodigy theme will be gone by tomorrow.
The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything
Lately, some of the older links I used to think of as funny spring to mind. The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything is, as you may have already guessed, a big button that doesn’t do anything. And it’s been not doing anything since 1994!
Try it. It really doesn’t do anything, and I don’t mean in it in the “how to do nothing” sense.
Grid Game
Grid Game is a simple and not a very competative game. It’s just fun to play with. I reached a max score of 1278.
Proof of how geeky Slashdot readers are
In a response to the latest Slashdot poll, which was “Number of Open WAP Access Points Around You Now”, one user wrote: “Define open. I mean, does WEP count?”
If you don’t get it, then you’re not as geeky as you may think. Here are some links that may help you get the joke:
- Definition of WAP in Webopedia.
- Definition of WEP in Webopedia.
- One article of many about WEP security.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
If you ever wondered where the phrase “all your base are belong to us” comes from, then your search is over. It’s actually a pretty funny story. You can read it in the history page on the official video site, or view the actual video (followed by a hilarious Techno track). You can also read it all on the “all your base” page in Wikipedia.
The Infinite Cat Project
The Infinite Cat Project is one of those things that can only happen by chance. Here’s the story, as told on the website:
“It all began innocently enough when a user on an Apple help web site posted a picture of his cat, Frankie, contemplating the beauty of a flower. Shortly afterwards another user posted a picture of his cat bristling at the image of Frankie on the monitor. I decided this was too much fun and advanced the concept as The Infinite Cat Project which is, simply, cats regarding cats regarding cats in an electronic milieu. If you like this web site then thank your lucky stars that the world is populated with cats, Macs, and people with wayyyy too much time on their hands.”
Here is a direct link to the first 25 cats, including the original one, Frankie.
(this post is dedicated to Shaul. I hope this clears the 0.22$ I owe you for clicking the Google ads)