Into the Void

I am having serious trouble keeping my debit card in my pocket on this one. I suspect that sometime between now and tomorrow morning I will yield to temptation.

The Chip PC Jack is a computer that fits in a standard electrical outlet. WANT!

A “Thin-Client” computer is one that runs a pared down operating system, in this case Windows CE. That’s the same OS that runs on many PDAs. However, the Chip PC Jack supports a standard keyboard, mouse and monitor. Two monitors, if you want, either VGA or DVI with separate adapter. Many of Microsoft’s productivity apps, i.e. Office, are available for Windows CE.

If you want much Geek Mojo, this is it.

Hey, Girl Scout friends! Now THIS is a knife.

Get one of these bad boys and you can throw away your tool chest, cutlery, fishing tackle box, and corkscrew. Oh, and fire your auto mechanic. It’s all there.

I can’t help it, I love to window shop at amazon.com. I have NO idea what I was looking for when I found this. I was thinking about getting one for hubby for Christmas as a joke.

What’s really strange is that as I was typing this in, hubby came in with the Hammacher catalog. They’re selling one that has every tool Victrinox ever made. It’s about 5 times the width of this (and 5 times the price) and is simply bristling with screwdrivers for hardware that most people will never even see, much less need to tighten.

Neowin Giveaway >> 31 Days of the Dragon

If you haven’t heard about the HP 31 Days of the Dragon, hear about it. They’re giving away a kick-@55 computer every day for 31 days. Neowin wanted to get folks to participate so I generated an mp3 about what I’d do if I had a dragon. Which I don’t.

The first thing I thought of was Puff the Magic Dragon. Most of the folks who were around for that whiny little gem now pretend that they never puffed, or if they did, they didn’t inhale. Trust me, guys, your mom and dad - or grandma and grandpa - burned enough rope to reach Colombia and back. They already [b]had[/b] their dragon and they traded it in for an Escalade.

So then I thought of the Dragonriders of Pern. It had its moments, but all-in-all I want a dragon, not a horse with wings. If I wanted a horse with wings I’d get a Unicorn - or is that a Pegasus? Well, it would have to be the one that doesn’t need for me to be pure of heart.

How about the dragon in The Hobbit? Smog was it? No, Smaug! Jewel-encrusted underbelly and all. If I had that sucker and his treasure I could buy a laptop the size of New Jersey. Too late, that little bugger Frottage or Frodo or whatever his name was killed Smaug, took the loot, and wasted it all on half-pints. And beer. Not a bad deal, actually.

I briefly considered that Robo-dragon in Dr. No, but even as a kid it didn’t frighten me. I need something really scary.

And then I thought of it! Here’s my dragon and what I would do with it. Kneel before me!
the_lesliator.mp3

– The Lesliator

http://www.laptop.org/

It’s here, the ideal gift for early adopters.

We’ve been hearing about the $100 Laptop for months now. It seemed like a pipe dream. A laptop for children in third world countries? It would have to be an engineering marvel. The kids often live in houses with dirt floors. They often don’t have electricity. Internet infrastructure - or even telephone service - is non-existent in rural towns. They’ve probably never seen a computer before. They’ll have to learn the OS and the software without the a priori assumptions of a Westerner. Getting computer teachers trained has to be a logistical nightmare! How can this possibly work?

The answer is one that wouldn’t occur to most of us… Cooperation on a global scale!

It’s the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. This program attempted to design, build and distribute laptops for under $100 to children in third world countries.

In December OLPC had a promotion where if you donated a laptop you could buy a second laptop. PLUS you get a year of free Sprint wifi access at places like Barnes & Noble, St*rbucks, etc. that you can also use with any other wifi devices you may own - laptops and PDAs. The Sprint access alone is worth the price of the laptop.

The XO has totally new hardware with VERY low power consumption. The XO has a very cool GUI called “Sugar” that’s usuable even by kids who can’t read yet, much less read English. Sugar is based on a trimmed down Linux OS with programs written just for it. Programs like a music synthesizer, Turtle Graphics, word processing, a web browser and that’s just the START of it!

Since The XO is intended for third world countries, it has wifi - no ethernet infrastructure is necessary. They’ll automatically connect at power up to other XOs that they find. This enables the kids to work on collaborative projects. Not just chatrooms, but writing music together in the music workspace! Collaboration is the key to the future.

The XO has two antennas and uses them to triangulate and display a 2D map of surrounding XOs and wireless access points. It took a while and I had to change some of my router settings, but I was able to connect to the Internet with my XO.

There is an available hand crank to charge the XO if you don’t have electricity in your village. I think they said there’s a solar battery charger available too. They also have wireless teacher access points that enable the kids to get on the Internet and see what’s going on in the rest of the world. This is a really ambitious project. I did what I could.

I’ll post an update if the Give One - Get One program runs again. Your donation is partly tax deductible. And you’re doing something good for less fortunate kids. It’s a win-win game.

My XO Laptop is almost here. Watch this space for a
technical writeup and demo video.

—– Original Message —–
From: OLPC Customer Care
To: banth@…..
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 2:30 AM
Subject: Your XO Laptop

Dear Donor,
We wrote you several days ago to let you know that your donation is in our
shipping queue for the shipment of your XO laptop.
We are awaiting the arrival of new inventory so that we may ship your laptop
to you. We will send you another update in the next few days when we have
specific shipping information.
We appreciate your generosity and patience.
Sincerely,
OLPC Donor Services

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

Under the Hood: Inside the Apple iPhone | Video Imaging DesignLine

Since I have little interest in spending a week’s pay on a telephone, I rather enjoyed seeing one disemboweled.

Dell bollocksed up my account information and I’ve been trying for days to get them to correct it. They are very polite, but completely ineffectual.

This latest in a string of ineffectual support people yelled a fax number at me in big red letters. I have no idea what I’m supposed to fax. I printed out the email and faxed that. Hmmm.

—– Original Message —–

From: AC@Dell.com

Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 11:02 AM

Subject: Customer account maintenance request xxxxxxx received 7/27/2006 7:56:00 AM

We were unable to process your request.
For business name and/or address changes we need the e-mail directly from the customer with the BUSINESS NAME in the address.
Please fax to 1-800-727-4000

Thank you,
Customer Account Maintenance (CAM)
DeLL,Inc
ac

 

There is no business name.  I am not a business.  I am a person.  I cannot imagine what part of “Please correct my billing address” you are finding so
difficult.

 

I am so amazingly disgusted with the level of support I am receiving from you people that I am going to send the computer back.  I’m going to buy a Gateway or an eMachines or build something myself.  I don’t care which.

Please give me an RMA number.  I want to send the computer back to you tonight so that I can order a replacement immediately.  I have work to do and I don’t have time for this.

 

 

Leslie

New use for those robotic vacuum cleaners.

What sort of add-ons could you have for the Roomba?
Angle: For the Roomba, there is a group that’s working very seriously and looking at the idea of using the Roomba as a physical avatar. I might log into a Web page and see what the robot sees, hear what the robot hears and be able to drive the robot from my Web page.

If I read this right, I can now become one with my vacuum cleaner.