Reading Material

Brilliant Idea That Needs To Become A Reality

It’s a USB plug that will plug in and work whether it’s upside down or not. I can’t even count how many times I’ve had to blindly plug a USB device in and get the orientation of the plug wrong. I’d say at least 75% of the time I have it upside down because I can’t usually see the plug I’m plugging into very well. This needs to become a reality sooner rather than later.

Best Action Sequence Ever?

Yes, it probably is…

Anybody know the name of the movie? It looks awesome!

Ikea Stores Are Mazes

Just in case you didn’t know that already, here’s the science to prove it.

Quick Before-Bed Time Killer

You need to escape the sewer.

Facebook Games Parody Taken To Next Level

First, there was Cow Clicker, and now its creator has announced the launch of the Cow Clicker Platform: the web-widget Cow Clicker Connect, the programmable Cow Clicker API, and three new official Cow Clicker products that implement them, the Facebook game Cow Clicker Blitz, the iPhone app Cow Clicker Moobile, and the Moogle search engine. It’s all part of cowclickification.

Google Voice Now Lets You Port Your Number

While Engadget says it’s limited beta, it’s showing up on my account and I’m tempted to jump on it. Anybody using their GV number as their full-time number have comments on pros/cons of doing this? Obviously Google’s presentations are pretty slick, but I’d like to see how normal people are using it. I’m out of contract with Sprint now, and have an Android phone, so I’m thinking this might be the perfect time to try this. About the only thing I thinking of that aren’t working 100% right now would be MMS (not critical as I don’t use it a ton) and changing outgoing caller ID on my phone calls from my cell, but I’m sure there’s a way to change that.

What Happens When You Mess With The Physics in GTA4?

This (brief naughty language warning):

It’s like Carmageddon with a modern graphics engine. Tthey need to make a version of that game that works on modern XP-era or newer PCs, as the various hacks out there are just that. I had far too much fun playing that game in college.

Any Home Theater Wizards Out There?

I’m trying to help my parents out with some home theater stuff for the house they’re building (just about finished). I’m trying to find an all-in-one receiver that will play Blu-Ray (or DVD, but preferably BD), as the built-in entertainment center area only has room for one more component (as the DirecTV DVR takes up one of the two). Now that’s not a big deal, as there are hundreds of those types of things out there, but I need one a bit more powerful and specialized: I need one that uses bare-wire speaker connectors (as he has in-wall speaker wire and I’m not using something with proprietary connectors like most of them have) and ideally has dual-zone support (as he has speaker wire running to the kitchen, deck, and bedroom as well).

Does such a beast exist? I have a thread open over on AVS Forum, but I figured I’d ask here if anybody knew of such a beast. Dual-zone support isn’t as crucial, but it sure would be nice.

Update: Made it more clear that I need one of those home-theater-in-a-box type of setups that will play the DVDs as well as power the speakers. Realized I wasn’t as clear as I could be with that. I basically need one box that will do it all. I have an Onkyo TXSR508 so I know all about multi-zone stand-alone receivers, just didn’t have a clue if a HTiB setup was capable of doing this.

Time Killer For The Day

Dang you Robert: I’ve lost many a lunch break thanks to Darkest Days. I hate you a little bit.