Wonderful

"For the first time since WWII, UAW membership has dropped below half a million hardhats," and I'm sitting in Labor Law.

The All Seeing All Dancing Totally Wireless Completely Waterproof Next Gen iPod

No, I have no real information, this is simply what I'd like to see.

I've been thinking about the iPod, and where they can go from here. More memory, sure, and more longer battery life. But how to make really interesting changes? Well, waterproofing would be cool. But how? You say? Well, relatively simply.

The current iPods have their (potentially waterproof) shells pierced in 1 or 2 places.

1. Clickwheels; not a problem on touchscreen models
2. Power and sync jack

So you can get rid of the first problem w/ the touchscreen they're already using. But the power and sync? That's harder, except it's not.

Power: Wireless power transmission over short distances and of low amounts isn't hard. It already exists. Just use a small piece of transmission material, you lay your iPod on it, and the juice flows without any wires.

I personally think that mousepads should be made of this stuff, and used to charge wireless mice. Put that together with the next gen of iPods, and Apple could ship some pretty cool mice and pads, which also charge your new iPod...

Sync: gotta have my Firewire/USB, wait, I don't. I have Bluetooth. I WANT Bluetooh in my iPod. I hate dealing with the damn wires to my earbuds. They get pulled out, they get tangled, they get in the way, get rid of them! And I know we can build buds that are wireless. These guys already have. Yes, I know they're $500, but I have no doubt that Steve and the course of time won't significantly and quickly lower the price. And if you don't want to use the Bluetooth standard, I have no doubt that Apple isn't completely capable of developing their own standard, just give us a dongle for our (older or non) Apple systems.

Sooo, you can seal the iPod. Use it in the pool, use it in the rain, keep it in your bag and listen to your wireless headphones.

Think people would pay a bit extra for that? I know I would.

It's been a while...

I know it's been a while, but I've got a couple of great posts (and by that I mean even greater than normal, which is quite hard).

For now, underused phrases;

1. "That dog don't hunt"
2. "I don't have a dog in that fight"
3. "Let's run that rabbit now"
4. "Needs must when the devil drives." (can be shortened to "needs must")
5. "Jesus H. Christ" (and no, I have no idea what the H stands for)

This post subject to updates as I think of other things I'd like to add. Check back frequently

Google Reader: Or How I learned to stop worrying and love lost productivity

This thing is amazing. Simply amazing. I think everyone is plugged into RSS feeds by now. Up until recently I was using the Live Bookmark feature of Firefox to track mine. That works ok, but it can take up a bunch of screen real estate, and having those little orange waves taunted me meant I had to turn the bookmark toolbar off to get anything done.

Solution: Google Reader. It's a feedreader, like Feedburner, but it's brilliantly integrated with other Google services. Want to e-mail a story; just click the "E-mail" button and start typing, your Gmail contacts will autofill as suggestions. Read a lot of blogs? Put them into folders based on priority or subject. Want to keep a list of specific kinds of posts you like, like recipes you like? Just create and tag the feeds. Feed just look really cool, or is worth remembering? Star it, just like in Gmail.

But the best part is sharing. I can take any post from any blog I read and "share" it with my friends. Here's a site that Google generated for me to let you'll (non-reader users) see my stuff. It's also available as its own RSS feed.

But if you'll were using reader, it would work even better. You'd be able to share things with me (and other person you chose to share them with) from the blogs you read, just the same as I do with you. I'm hoping soon they'll add the ability to annotate others posts, which would make it damn near perfect in my opinion.

This is another example of a web 2.0 service that is highly dependent on the network effect. I know it's not all that compelling with 4 people actually looking at your stuff, but if this was integrated into facebook... (hint, hint, Google should have bought them when the stock was at $700...) We need one online service to rule them all. Sure, putting all your data with one company is scary, but it's the only way online sharing and identity management are ever going to reach their full potential. Considering that, who do you trust? Microsoft, nope. Apple, nah, the walled garden is nice but I'd rather not be locked in. Google is the only person with any hope of making central online identities work. I profoundly hope they do, I'm sick of having so many different networks to manage (or neglect, as the case may be).

---And now, for something completely different---

Pure Brilliance; all blogs should be required to use the phrase "party liquors" at least once a week.

And while I'm plugging blogs, let me give a shout-out to two of my favorite, Of Dogs and Horses
and A few of My Favorite Things. I know they're in my blogroll, but their authors deserve special mention.

A top hat, for $56. Well worth it, in my opinion. Damn not having a job, I can't buy things like Rolls Royces and top hats. Of course I do have time to blog about them, so it's not all bad. And honestly, when all you're doing is blogging, the maintenance is pretty cheap.



















LIVE UPDATE: Emily just triggered the "democratic" rule in conversation. She was insisting that we could enter the 24 Hours of Lemons, simply by buying a junker, buying a Chilton's guide, and taking off for the track. Yeah, whenever someone says "that's all we need, trust me" it's a red flag.

Runner's High

So, zee Germans have confirmed that the "runner's high" exists. When you run a long way, or at least when these distance runners did, they got a flood of endorphins into the brain.

I'm not sure I can vouch for the marathoner cited in the piece, when I got done all I wanted to do was lay down, cry, and make the pain stop. But after good run, when I'm feeling good, I feel a lot better than when I left the house. Up to the point that feeling when I'm in a bad mood and feeling pissed off, the best thing I've found to put me in a good mood is a run.

Really (really really) big yachts

So being superwealthy has it's perks, but so many challenges. For instance, you have to worry about whether the Emir of Dubai has a larger yacht than you do? It looks, for the moment at least, that Eclipse (not an exact image, none are publically available, but a predecesor which is believed to have influenced the design of Eclipse) will take the crown, since Al Dubai isn't technically in private hands.














For my super wealthy readers who aren't interested in such crass displays of length, might I recommend the WallyIsland.














Sure, it's still a bit (or more) tacky, but you'll look like a James Bond villain, and it is ONLY 325'. Positively restrained, as such things go. (Via UnCrate).

My question is this, why not just buy a old warship? I mean, there are tons of old destroyers, some cruisers, and even a few smallish aircraft carriers in the hands of gov'ts who can always use some extra scratch. Or, help with their (poorly regarded) bonds.

New construction is interesting and all, but come on, for this kind of money you could something ridiculously cool. Someone can always build a longer ship (which you're going to have to dock at the container port, anyway) but you could have the FIRST aircraft carrier in private hands. Not that you'd ever want to launch Harriers, but isn't it worth something to know you could?

This looks pretty sweet

It's been a long time since I consumed much Tom Clancy media. He just sold his soul to a French company, which is kind of funny, if you think about it.

So, he's a brand, not an author, but he's rich as hell, and this game looks pretty cool.