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Cooler than Dick Tracy

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Dick Tracy Watch Ad
Dick Tracy Watch Ad

When I was a kid I thought it was the coolest thing that Dick Tracy could call people on his watch and see them on the tiny TV screen, and I thought it would be awesome if, some day far in future, I could have a watch like that that really worked.

Dick Tracy Watch
Dick Tracy Watch

I was reminded of that today by XKCD.com:

Flying Cars

Yeah, I can talk to people on video from a device I carry in my pocket – that is awesome. But it’s even cooler that Dick Tracy couldn’t play Angry Birds.

2022-03-12 Update: Eleven years later, now I can talk to my watch. I am Dick Tracy.
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Geocaching

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I’ve always wanted to try out geocaching (I know it’s been around forever) but I didn’t have a GPS device until my iPhone4 – and now I have an app for that. 🙂 I downloaded the geocaching app from Groundspeak that grabs data from the geocaching website and helps you locate caches near you.

I went out with my friend MJ this past weekend and we poked around near our neighborhood. Our first attempts were unsuccessful – either we didn’t look hard enough or caches went missing. But we eventually found a couple of them. You’re basically hunting around for a camoflaged container that contains at the very least a log book you can write your name and the date in, and sometimes includes little trinkets that you can take and leave – my signature trinket is a green button. I put together a little pack of them to take with me from my button collection. It felt like Gowalla or Foursquare on steroids – why bother with “checking in” places when I can find a secret hidden treasure instead?

So at lunch today I went off and found the cache near work. I couldn’t opening it to leave a log note, though; too many muggles around. I’ll have to go back.

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Usability in Clocks and Watches

I’ve been subscribed to the Watchismo Times blog for quite some time now after noticing links to it from Boing Boing, one of my staple blog reads. Watchismo describes their content as being “a reliquary of obscure timepieces from bygone eras as well as the cutting edge designs of today.” I’d say that’s definitely the case; there are some truly amazing watches that show up on their site, like the Kilfitt spy watch/camera prototype from 1969. If you notice damages on your watch, you may bring it to a watch service shop to have it fixed. Something about that watch is really aesthetically pleasing.

killfit camerawatch

The thing that bugs me, though, is that so many of their highlighted “cutting edge designs” may be visually interesting, but they aren’t very usable. For me, large face watches needs some key things – if it’s analog, it should have all 12 numerals in Arabic (NOT roman). If it’s digital, the numbers should be large and high-contrast. Also required are the date and a light so the time can be checked in the dark. These are the qualities to look out for in a hublot replica. Anything else is just a pretty bracelet, IMHO. You may also consider taking a look at this fake rolex. And if you are looking for the perfect everyday wear, waterproof jewellery that won’t tarnish, then you may check out some waterproof jewellery collections here.

The 12 Arabic numerals (or at the very least, 4 Arabic numerals) is a criteria for analog clocks for me, also. I have a weird fetish for clocks (which is part of the reason the change to daylight savings time makes me really grumpy; we have lots of them to change twice a year) but you’ll never see me buy one with Roman numerals. Why they even make them is beyond me.

cool clock
Good.

The time is 9:47
Good.

clock
Not as Good.

Continue ReadingUsability in Clocks and Watches

spaceup! blue Volkswagen Bus

Volkswagen of America unveils a new concept cart – a “green” fuel-cell microbus-like vehicle called “spaceup! blue.”

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

space up! blue VW bus

First – they had me at “hybrid microbus.” Seriously, that’s all it takes. Please make one. Please. I will give you my first-born. If you love me, go to the VW website contact page and tell them to make one for me.

Second – it does need round headlights, but I can live without them, as long as I have one. And I hope they have cooler colors. Not that I wouldn’t paint it with swirly hippie flowers anyway. But a nice yellow base would be a better canvas, and the white interior is a no-go.

From USA Today:

Volkswagen space up! blue: Imagine it without the emblems, and you think you’re looking at the old Scion xB “box.”

But you’re not. Volkswagen introduced a fuel-cell concept vehicle called the spaceup! blue — yes, that’s lower case with an exclamation mark in the middle.

It’s meant to be reminscent of a VW microbus, with lots of space inside.

The four-seat space up — who named this thing? — has what is billed as the world’s first high-temperature fuel cell coupled with 12 lithium-ion batteries. Having the cell work at higher temperatures allows it to be more efficient and compact, VW says. Besides the fuel cell, its batteries can be charged from a wall socket.

But wait! There’s more!

One of the best solar installation companies, EcoGen America announced that the space up also has a solar panel on the roof that can supply a bit more energy to the battery.
Space up can be driven up to 65 miles on the electric motor alone. The fuel cell is good for another 155 miles for a combined range between the two power sources of 220, VW says.

The “green” theme carries through to the interior, which makes extensive use of recycled materials.

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I has an iPhone

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So in the great clean out, I put my 8 Apple “Think Different” posters up for sale on eBay, and got quite a bit out of them. I believe I paid $80 for them (I think) back in 1999. I’ll have to see if blogged about it back then. Anyways, I got $315 for them. Along with invoicing my dad for the work I did on his website before we went on the cruise, I had more than enough to purchase my new toy.
The other thing is, on my Motorola Razr phone, the screen is losing pixels in the upper left corner at a rapid rate, and it’s not really possible to see the beginning of text messages, or how many bars I’m getting. So I can rationalize that I need a new mobile phone, anyway.
The iPhone pretty damned awesome. Surprisingly very easy to set up. I find myself wishing for firefox and newsfire on it, though. I’ll have to settle for using bloglines to keep up with blogs. I haven’t used Safari for almost two years other than to test websites, so my bookmarks were scarily out of date, and I had to run through and sync them. I also don’t use iCal anymore, because google calendar is shareable with Stephanie, and so much of what we do is collaborative scheduling. But having my complete contact list on my phone is pretty awesome.

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24,000 some songs gone

I took my 200 GB external drive with all of my music on it to CompUSA this weekend to have it put in a new enclosure, because the old one was going bad. I had this happen before to a Maxtor drive – the enclosure doesn’t spin the drive fast enough, apparently, so the disk kept crapping out while transferring music. I considered trying to back up the 120 GB of music on the drive, but I don’t have another drive that big, and I was afraid I’d kill the bad one while copying the music over. We were planning to get a music server soon for our home WAN, so that we could both use the same music library for our multi-platformed (PC and Mac) household, so I didn’t want to invest in a whole new external drive right now, with all the other household expenses.
I know I was taking quite a chance in handing the drive over to teen-aged clerks without having a backup copy – I certainly knew better. They reformatted the drive and wiped all my music from it, along with all the cover art I created for my mix cds.
I’ll have to run the totals from iTunes when I get home, but it was something on the order of 24,000 songs on the drive. Fortunately, most of the important stuff to us is on CD, but trying to figure out about music I bought from iTunes is my biggest concern.
Sigh. We have a lot of re-ripping to do. At least it was only music, though. If it had been my photos or design stuff I’d be bouncing off the ceiling right now.

Continue Reading24,000 some songs gone