Into the Void

National Geographic Self-powered Emergency Radio

Every summer, Mr. X does what he calls “The Gathering of the Flashlights.” A leftover habit from our Philadelphia Folk Festival and camping days, The Gathering is Mr. X’s ritual of collecting all the flashlights in the house and replacing batteries and bulbs.

Well, National Geographic emailed me an ad for the gem pictured above - the National Geographic Self-powered Emergency Radio. What self-respecting engineer wouldn’t want a flashlight with a hand-crank? Let’s face it, folks, Green is more than a bumper sticker. 90-seconds of cranking gives an hour worth of battery for the radio. No fumbling in drawers in the dark trying to find the right size battery.

Ok, so National Geographic is more impressed with the radio aspect. And it’s a cell phone battery charger. It even gets international shortwave radio bands.

Oh, get this - it also has a red flashing beacon and a siren.

I think I’ll get the National Geographic Self-powered Emergency Radio for Mr. X’s birthday.

Fortunately he has no interest in anything other than flashlights so he’s not likely to read this.

Senseo® - Gourmet Coffee Everytime Anytime™

Right before the holidays I broke my Senseo single-cup coffeemaker. It’s been utter hell. I even resorted to grinding beans in the blender with banana, vanilla, and soy milk…

In the course of looking for good deals on a new Senseo, I found the above website. You take the quiz, you share the Senseo with a couple of your other friends’ email addresses, and a couple of days later they send you an offer by email to get a new Senseo for $15 shipping and handling. You can’t beat that!

It arrived today, two days later. I’m amazed.

The coffee pods for the Senseo come in packs of 16 or 18 for $4 or $5 a pack. If you’re used to a 10-cup coffeemaker, 30¢ a cup sounds pretty pricey. However, if you drink that overpriced swill from the Coffee Nazis at St*rbuck’s you’ll save over $1 over a Tall latte. Use 2 coffee pods for espresso or a Grande, and you still save. Heh, I like my caffeine thick.

Why do they call their small coffee “Tall?”

When I got tired of the limited selection of coffee pods for the Senseo, I bought an Ecopad Refillable Coffee Filter from amazon.com. It saves me money and enables me to use whatever coffee I want. I’m rather partial to Cafe Bustelo. Anyway, I’ve tried other coffee pods for the Senseo and they don’t work well - I think they don’t allow enough pressure to build up in the Senseo.

The best part of getting a Senseo is you don’t have to learn a whole new language just to get a cup of coffee. Has anyone else noticed that if you don’t say your coffee order right, St*rbuck’s is sold out of your first choice in scones?

About a year ago there was a video circulating on the net about a computer game. You all know I’m too boring for computer games, but this one had a tie-in with physical, cultural and technological evolution. You can’t beat that.

[The name, Leslie, tell them the name!] The game is called Spore. Better pre-order that puppy. It’s going to sell out fast.

You know you want it. If you think you don’t want it, go grab another can of Monster, sit your hyper little butt down and watch the 36-minute video below. In the video, developer Will Wright demonstrates an alpha version of Spore at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference. You’ve never seen anything like this before!

So why is so cool about Spore? Well, you get to design one-celled organisms. The fun is in configuring your creations and watching them feed and grow and evolve. Give them a new limb, watch them figure out how to use it, that is, watch the software figure out how to use it! Put them together, watch them build a community, watch them build a nation. Give them technology and they’ll incorporate it into their culture.

Plus the game is published by Electronic Arts, the folks who brought us The Sims. These guys have been creating games since Commodore 64 days. I can’t remember being this psyched over a silly computer game. I pre-ordered it and am waiting waiting waiting impatiently for the release date.

Technorati: evolution Geekess Spore The+Sims Will+Wright

SkyScout

SkyScout is a digital planetarium. You point it at the sky and it identifies whatever star or other celestial object you point it at.

I…
WANT

Technorati: celestron sky+scout planetarium

SanDisk Takes Action Against Alzheimers

For some reason, Sandisk believes that selling special purple flash memory will fix Alzheimers. I have no idea why I think this is funny. I fully expect to spend the last few years of my life not remembering from moment to moment what I am doing. Oh, look, a plate of half-eaten something I don’t know the name of… should I eat it? Shudder.

They’re going to find out that Alzheimers is caused by a low-fat diet. Those plaques? They land in the empty spaces left behind when the brain - which is largely fat - melts away.

Sandisk was one of the major backers of the Secure Digital card format. I recommend the product highly, no matter what color it is.

Technorati: memory Alzheimers

Just testing that I can still post by email…

From the Samsung Blackjack of
Leslie Ellis

… From my latest toy.

—–Original Message—–
Sent: 8/12/2007 9:06 PM
Subject: Solid-state harddrives at Tiger

Solid-state harddrives at Tiger

or http://tinyurl.com/2×6jjo

VODKA - p.i.n.k. Spirits - Vodka Infused With Caffeine and Guarana - Mixed Drinks - P.I.N.K.

My shrink recommended I try a new beverage called “P.I.N.K.” Well, I think he was recommending it. I didn’t exactly get stern warning out of the conversation. I picked up a bottle today and brought a sip or two to enjoy while I polished up a couple blog entries for publication.

Errrrr, well, it was actually more like a mug of the stuff. The mug shown in the picture is the Pendulum Resources mug available at the The Bipolar Planet® Manic Mall.

So what the heck is P.I.N.K.? Well, it’s 80 proof vodka from the Nederlands pumped up with guarana and caffeine, the equivalent of 1/2 can of Red Bull per 1-1/2 oz. shot, but without the awful sweet vitamin-y taste. It is very expensive at $45 per bottle, very trendy, trés chic, and utterly unremarkable tastewise. The liquid isn’t colored pink, only the bottle.

This stuff must have been created with the manic in mind.

Count me in.

P.I.N.K pink vodka guarana energy drink vodka caffeinated vodka Red Bull manic Red Bull Bipolar Planet

New Hauppauge WinTV Products for Windows Vista - PVR Wire

I was looking at TV tuners for my husband’s computer the other day and thought “who needs TV on a computer?”

Shortly after that he sent me an email entitled “birthday” with a link to the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 TV Tuner USB Stick Hybrid Video Recorder. Must have been reading my mind. It was on sale and had a rebate. At $59.99 I couldn’t turn it down.

He doesn’t read this blog. I hope.

The WinTV-HVR-950 plugs into a USB2 port on your computer and receives over-the-air High Definition TV broadcasts. You can view in realtime with a fast enough computer, or record them in MPEG2 format so that you can burn them to DVD later. The 950 receives the American standards, that is, standard NTSC broadcasts or ASCT over-the-air high definition digital. There is also a version for the European market.

The WinTV-HVR-950 doesn’t require any batteries or recharging since it gets its power from the USB port. It comes boxed with WinTV-Scheduler software, a USB 2.0 extender cable and a small antenna that is good for nearby over-the air HDTV stations. If you live out in the hinterlands, Hauppauge suggests that you get a rooftop HDTV antenna.

WinTV-Scheduler is perfect software for people who don’t bother to read instructions and don’t want to do anything fancy. It installed in a couple of minutes, detected the WinTV-HVR-950 with no problem. With a single button-press the software scanned the airwaves and came up with a couple of local High Definition public television stations. Another button controlled tuning. And still another recorded the show for later. The scheduler function allows you to record your favorite shows when you aren’t at home. It can also receive analog cable, according to the literature. I didn’t try that.

And then I thought, “I wonder what that weird-@55 card slot in my laptop is?” There’s a slot on one side of the laptop where the PCMCIA port should be, and in the beginning there was nothing online about any weird-@55 card slots. Maybe if I’d read the Dell manual. Eh, who reads manuals?

It turns out that our laptops both have slots for something called ExpressCard/54. Nobody sold anything for the ExpressCard/54 until recently, unless you count a remote control for Windows Media Center that gets stored in the unused slot. (I have XP Professional, thanks.) If you pull the card slot’s dust cover halfway out, it makes a nice holder for your Red Bull. That’s about it.

Well, the wait will soon over. Hauppauge is coming out with the equivalent of their WinTV-HVR-950 for the ExpressCard/54. It called the “WinTV-HVR-1500.” It was supposed to be out in May.

ExpressCard NTSC Hauppauge ASCT WinTV

Netflix Watch Now!

Netflix started rolling out their WatchNow instant video feature in January. If it hasn’t shown up in your account yet, try the link above to activate it.

Oh, but try it in Internet Exploder. It doesn’t work in Firefox.

Netflix WatchNow tests your connection speed to choose what video quality to stream. Other computers on your network can take away bandwidth, so if you plan to do any downloads or play interactive games online, well, don’t. Wait until the movie is over.

By way of Uneasy Silence.

Molex 54819-0572
USB On-The-Go (OTG) Mini-B Receptacle, Right Angle, SMT Solder Tails and Shell Tabs, with Cover Tape, Lead-free

FYI, this is a drop-in replacement for the [tag]miniUSB[/tag] connector in the [tag]RCA Lyra RD2850[/tag] MP3 player.