Category: Cool

CDs, toothpicks, light bulbs, tinfoil, florescent bulbs, Christmas tree ornaments, soap and grapes — apparently all things that can potentially be put in a microwave. Link via Hack A Day.

I wish I had the $1200 or so it would cost to make this. It would allow you to digitally record up to six TV shows at the same time (current Tivos, etc… are limited to one). Now the trick would actually be to find six thing worth recording at the same time (a much more difficult task). Link via the entertaining Hack A Day who also has a link to build your own $200 PVR.

I’ve had way too much fun today playing with this toy.

But sometimes, people truly deserve to.

All too often, the ring of Debi Faris-Cifelli’s cell phone means there is another abandoned newborn at the morgue, another forsaken child for her to name and bury in a shoebox-size coffin under a white cross in the California desert.

Last week, though, Faris-Cifelli — who has had to rely on donations, grants and fund-raisers to give babies a decent burial — got a very different call.

She had won the California lottery.

The jackpot: $27 million.

Thanks Barn for the tip

No this isn’t a sales pitch or a spam. Recent federal law passed that said all Americans can get a free credit report every 12 months. Eligibility for an annual free credit report is determined by your state of residence based on the rollout schedule set by federal law. The western states are the first on the list, starting today, and that includes Oregon. The sites are getting hammered, but you can request your report from the three major credit bureaus by heading over here.

So how is everybody’s score? I had a 780, as of two weeks ago. How it’s that good, I have no idea, as I have no frickin’ money, but apparently I could get money on credit easily. Thanks, but no thanks.

I think the guy‘s a riot and good for the NBA, but his latest blog post about his new hedge fund funded by gambling isn’t going to make the NBA too happy. Thanks Dan for the link.

We’ve all seen them: The little magnetic ribbons on peoples cars that make the owners of said cars feel better because they “Support The Troops.” They feel like they’ve done their part to support the troops by sticking a magnet on their car that the troops will never see.

This guy is starting an Anti-Magnet Campaign, and I support him 100%:

Why are you doing this?

We believe that there is strong possibility that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan might be a little far away or maybe even a little too busy to be checking out the pseudopatriotic magnet on the back of a 1986 Geo Metro as it drives down I-95 or sits in an Olive Garden parking lot.

Why do you hate America?

We don’t hate America, we hate that people think slapping a stupid magnet on the back of their car has meaning. Mostly everyone in this country supports the troops and hopes they will return safely. Maybe you should be telling them directly in person, on the phone or in a letter and not driving around with a big magnetic banner you probably got at Wal*Mart that simply attempts to prove to everybody but the troops that you support the troops more than everybody else.

Link via BB (just digging through my old links, don’t mind me).

Boss gives employees visits to brothel as holiday bonus. Full Story.

When somebody’s calling me with a computer problem, or they see an error on their screen, they’ll usually tell me something generic like “I got this error on my screen.” Oh, that’s useful. “What was the error?” “Oh, I don’t know, it just went bonkers.” I go on to tell them I need the exact error message before I can diagnose something, I don’t care how cryptic it is. Then they try to read it to me, and something gets lost in translation.

Well apparently you can hit ctrl-c on any Windows dialog box, and have it copy its contents to the clipboard where you can then paste it into Notepad, or whatever. Then they can copy the dialog into notepad, print it, or e-mail it my direction, making it far easier for me to fix something. Thanks to Neil (who has a much better graphical demonstration) for pointing this out.