Visit the Shaks

My desk is a mess, and I'm sick and tired of all the cords! Everything on my desk plugs into something else, or multiple somethings else.  My monitor has two cords.  My keyboard and mouse? Cords.  My external hard drive?  Cords.  Printer/scanner?  Cords.  TV tuner and remote control sensor?  Cords.  My telephone?  Two cords. Cable modem and router?  Cords aplenty.

The only good thing about having all those cords around is if I ever need to lasso a runaway steer, I can just use some of my many power cables.  Other than that, all my many electronic umbilici do is get tangled up, make it impossible to move anything around, ensnare those trying to walk by, and collect a ton of dust because I can't get around to the back of the desk where they are to properly clean.  I, for one, am tired of living in a tangled-up pit of allergens, so I'm going to ask you, the readers of Shaktronics, to do me a favor.

Buy me a couple of CordHogs.

It's either that or I might make a noose out of my thousands of feet of extraneous wires and hang myself if I can't get organized.  I'm quite possibly the least anal retentive person on the planet, and even I'm going mad because when I slide my feet under my desk I feel like I'm stepping on a gaggle of octopi fighting over a pot of spaghetti, and I'm tired of accidentally unplugging things with my big dumb clodhoppers.

Image Credit:  Create Digital Motion

So since you’re here, I bet you read comic books as a kid, or have kids that read comic books.  Spider-Man, that nerd turned superhero, is one of the most popular and enduring characters in the comic book universe.  From his gestation in 1962 by creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and until right now, Spidey and his alter-ego, Peter Parker, has been one of the best selling comic books in history, spawning numerous animated cartoons, three (or more) movies, and about a million different tee-shirts.

He doesn’t have the powers of a Superman, but he’s got some of the coolest powers in the comics universe:  Spider senses that warn him of danger, super agility, surprising strength, and most importantly of all, the ability to pretty much climb any surface at will thanks to his exposure to a radioactive spider bite.  Wouldn’t you love to be able to climb up the side of your house to clean the gutters, climb up a tree to get the cat down, or scale the Empire State Building to win a bet?

Well, thanks to Professor Nicola Pugno, of the Polytechnic of Turin, you may well be scaling walls like your friendly neighborhood costumed do-gooder, as he’s discovered a way to create microscopic nanotubes that hook onto the tiny inperfections in solid materials, allowing the wearer of these special gloves and shoes to climb pretty much anything. 

The possibilities of these gloves makes them ideal for fire rescue, window washing, and space applications, as grip in these situations is immensely important and a single slip can send a would-be rescuer tumbling to a gristly death.  Surely someone would need a whole nanotube suit to cling tenaciously to a glass building, right?  Not so.

The holding power of gloves would depend on the number of contact points. Because nanotubes are so tiny, billions of them could be built into hand-sized fabric. Gloves with a palm surface of 31 sq ins (200 sq cm) could support 14 men, each weighing 13 stone (83kg), dangling from a ceiling. The grip of the gloves could be released with little effort by a peeling motion, which would break the adhesion little by little.

Special thanks to Sarah, editor of Den of Geek and the biggest Spider-fan I know, for pointing me in the direction of this article.  Excelsior, true believer!

One of Sony's goals, and I don't feel like I'm wrong in saying this, is a little thing called convergence.  Simply put, it is the principle of one gadget to do all your tricks at once.  That's one of the reasons the PS2 had a DVD player built in, and why the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player built in.  They want their video game system to be the center of your home entertainment system (even though a stand alone DVD player and a Wii would run you about half the price of a PS3 and spare you the indignity of backing a possible loser in the Format Wars).

While Apple has yet to roll out their Blu-Ray enabled iMac, Sony has rolled out a drool-worthy all-in-one VAIO LT TV/PC that not only has all the guts you'd want in a computer running Windows Vista Ultimate, but is flat enough and large enough to mount on the wall!  It features a 1680x1050 widescreen display, a 1.3 megapixel camera, 802.11n wireless support, 2GB of RAM,  a Blu-Ray player/recorder, HD-cable readiness, DVR functionality, wireless peripherals, and a variety of upgrade options, you've got geeks in lust all over the world.

The only weaknesses are the high cost ($1900 or $2900 for the model with the recordable Blu-Ray drive) and small size as televisions go (22 inches).  Still, you could do a lot worse for your office and it's a great replacement for the cable box collecting dust on top of your old analog TV.

Photo Credit:  Ars Technica

Today we don’t have much of a special theme, kids.  Sorry, but it’s been kind of a dead week, technologically speaking.  BUT, we do have something cool that money can’t buy.

If you live in the Pacific Rim area of the world (Western North/South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand) or most of the rest of the US and Asia, you’ll get to see something pretty awesome Monday night/Tuesday morning.  It’s even worth waking the kids up, because you’ll get to see a lunar eclipse.  Unfortunately, Europe, Africa, and Western Asia will miss the whole thing, but those of us on the Eastern Seaboard will still get to see some of the action.  Sorry, Europe.  At least you’ve got the iPhone now to hold you over, right?

Here’s what to look for and how to look for it, from MSNBC and Space.com:

The eclipse will begin when the moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth's shadow about an hour before it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbra, however, is all but invisible to the eye until the moon becomes deeply immersed in it.  Look for a slight hint of shading or smudginess on the eastern (left) edge of the lunar disk about 40 minutes after the moon first enters the penumbral shadow. 

The most obvious part of the eclipse will be when the moon is passing through the dark umbral shadow of the Earth.  On this occasion, the full moon will track just to the south of the center of the Earth's umbra; deep path almost through the center of the umbra which will result in a total phase lasting an unusually long 1 hour 30 minutes (the maximum possible is 1 hour 47 minutes).

Because some of the sunlight striking our planet is diffused and scattered by our atmosphere, the Earth's shadow is not entirely dark.  Enough of this light reaches the moon to give it a faint orange or reddish glow even when it's totally eclipsed.

Wake the kids up for it.  Generally, every year I drag out of bed to watch the Leonid meteors or lunar eclipses and stuff like that, and while I may grouse, it’s always worth it in the end because it’s things like this that can fill a kid with a love of science and nature.  Plus it’s cool.

I know it’s short notice, but totality begins at about 4:30 am Eastern Time this morning, so set your alarm clocks ahead of time.  If you missed it, I’m sure you’ll be able to find some awesome video online while you prepare yourself for the next lunar eclipse on February 21, 2008. 

The war is on.

Emboldened by their limited successes in forcing Apple to offer DRM-free music (Thanks to EMI and later, Universal Music Group), the competitors to the digital music business that Apple’s iTunes has dominated for so long have renewed their assault on Steve Jobs and company.  Apple’s iTunes works on a very proprietary system that only works with iPods.  The music industry doesn’t like that, and you can’t really blame them as they want their music to be used by whoever wants to buy it in whatever MP3 player they might have.

So, EMI pushed Apple and said, “Either you lose the DRM for our songs, or we walk.”  Apple, knowing that an iPod is useless without music to play in it, caved.  Seeing the success EMI had, Universal Music did the same thing.  Considering Universal is the largest music group in the known universe, Apple caved double time.

Seeing that there is demand out there for people more willing to give the industry what it wants (no DRM and variable pricing on MP3s), Real’s Rhapsody, MTV’s Urge, and Verizon scrapped their individual services and unified their digital music services.  Rhapsody provides the music and software; MTV provides promotion, playlists, and editorial content; and Verizon provides the cell phone music market that Apple has failed to crack.  Wal-Mart, one of the largest sellers of music on the planet, also launched its store, with cheaper, DRM-free downloads (doing what it does best in undercutting the competition).  Yahoo, looking to capitalize on its web presence, is also launching its own Yahoo music store, which will allow users to stream samples of songs before deciding whether or not they want to buy them.

What’s all this mean?  Well, in the short-term, look for competition to give the record industry more leverage in their war against Apple.  In the long term, it means the physical CD as we know it is pretty much done for as a means for distributing music. How will this conflict end?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Image:  The Age

Ladies and gentlemen of the international community, are you ready? After a hugely successful launch in the United States (as well as tons of hype in the media and a lot of complaints from the general public), the iPhone is coming to Europe. So who gets it where?

If you use T-Mobile Deutschland (Germany), O2 (Great Britain) or Orange SA (France), you get to use the iPhone!  Don't you feel lucky? 

The details of the iPhone agreements were actually pretty fascinating, and it shows just how much power Apple yields in the consumer electronics world thanks to the success of the iPod. Granted, I don’t know a lot about how mobile phones are paid for (I just know I got mine for free with my mobile coverage plan), but apparently Apple is doing things in an unusual manner. Here are the interesting details noted by Sci-Tech Today:

• Carriers pay 10 percent of revenues from calls and data transfers to Apple.
• The iPhone is not sold at operator-subsidized prices (the discount that allows people to get free or low-cost phones).
• According to research firm iSuppli, about $334 of each $599 iPhone is profit, excluding distribution and development costs.

How insane is that? I know Apple is used to fat profit margins in the PC world. Apple is also known for doing things their way, no matter what everyone else might say, which makes Apple a difficult corporation to partner with (to be as polite as possible). In fact, Apple’s insistence is the reason why there wasn’t a pan-Europe launch.

At one point, Vodafone, the largest wireless carrier on the planet, had reportedly been steaming ahead in negotiations for pan-European iPhone distribution, but those talks apparently fell through.

Two reported sticking points had been the large share of revenue for Apple and restrictions on carrier content. In addition, Vodafone has been concentrating on 3G devices, while the iPhone currently uses the slower 2.5G EDGE technology.

(Carolina) Milanesi said that an iPhone deal "didn't really fit in with the Vodafone DNA." That company, she noted, has been emphasizing services, and Apple's insistence on restricting content runs counter to that effort. Also, she said that Vodafone has been pushing its own brand of devices.

It remains to be seen if Apple’s thorny relationship with content providers (see also iTunes) will hinder the company in the future. Right now, Apple is in the driver’s seat with the iPhone, but Apple has a longstanding corporate history of screwing up a good thing (though at least the 300-page phone bills are history). Steve Jobs’ Midas touch can’t last forever.

Image Credit:  ZDnet

Google Earth is one of the coolest things that you can install on your computer. I have it on one of my computers, and I’ve spent hours playing with it. I’ve found my house, the houses of friends, the Great Wall of China, all that stuff.  It's a ton of fun for the personal user, and has been a boon for news agencies. 

It’s very cool, but after awhile you run out of things to eyeball. Fortunately, there’s one place where you can never run out of neat things to check out, because it’s always in the news. That place, kids, is space. The final frontier, for both Captain Kirk and Google Earth.

Using thousands of high-resolution images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope it promises to allow users to float and zoom in on more than 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies.

"Never before has a road map of the entire sky been made so readily available," said Dr Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who co-led the institute's Sky team. "Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone's home computer."

If you have Google Earth, time to grab that update. If you don’t have Google Earth, I recommend you go download yourself a free copy here, so you don’t miss out on what promises to be one of the coolest additions ever thought of for an already cool software package.

If you catch any ETs out joyriding as you peruse the far reaches of space, make sure you tell me. I’m into that kind of thing.

Image Credit:  The CBC 

So you’re raising a budding geek child. Good for you; as a geek myself, I can honestly say I hope my dorkishness gets passed along to my children as I find being smart is immensely helpful in everyday life. Now, there are certain things you can do to make sure your child grows up to be brainier than the median.

Step 1: Get the bouncing baby geek some geek-themed matryoshkus, or Russian nesting dolls. What better way to teach your child the difference between bits, kilobytes, and terabytes than with hand-crafted wooden nesting toys? Not only is the kid learning about computer storage hierarchies, he or she is also developing the hand-eye coordination necessary to pwn n00bs in the face at video games (very important).

Step 2: Teach when your child isn’t expecting to learn anything. It can be as simple as having the periodic table of elements on your shower curtains or using fantasy football to teach your child about statistics and probabilities (like, say, the probability that Rex Grossman won’t be starting for the Chicago Bears by Week 6).

Step 3: Say your kid’s getting a little older, and he needs a more engaging toy. So what do you get the geek in your life (or maybe the father of a potential geek in your life)? Well, I can’t think of anything cooler than Takara Tomy’s Transformers MP3 player. That’s right, guys; it’s a working Soundwave. Pair him up with a set of Rumble and Frenzy headphones and I think you’ve got yourself the best possible way to listen to Weird Al’s epic track from the Transformers (animated) movie, “Dare to be Stupid.”

Photo credit:  Prime Diary

I can’t speak for you guys, but I personally have a metric ton of passwords that I have to remember on a daily basis. I have blogs I maintain, I have email addresses (one or two on every email service from AOL to GMail to Yahoo to MSN), I have multiple messenger services, I have logins for my computers, I have logins for my online banking stuff, and of course I have my ATM code. Just pondering it all makes my head spin.

That’s where the Mandylion Password Manager comes in really handy for the cool kids who might have one stuck on their key ring. Check out its listed features, per ThinkGeek:

· Manages up to 50 login records simultaneously

· Generates cryptographically strong passwords

· Complies with all DoD, Govt. & Industry Password Security Policies

· Multiple tamper-resistant features and lockout alarms

· Manages Root and Group passwords

· Cradle connection via USB

· Kit containing: token, a configuration cradle, Policy Master Configuration Software (Windows only)

· Dimensions: Approx. 2.5" x 1.5" x .375" (65mm x 45mm x 10mm)

· One-year warranty

Of course, the one big drawback of having all your passwords stored on one key fob is that if you can’t remember your passwords, you also run a good risk of either losing your keys or forgetting the button combination that unlocks your password storage device. Of course, if you do lose it, the odds of someone successfully cracking your Mandylion are slim to none, but then you’d have to go back to remembering all your passwords without the help. That being said, I might end up picking one up sometime soon. I’m tired of forgetting all my passwords and hoping I guess them correctly.

Are you bored? Are you lonely? We all get that way.

You know, most of the activities we do on the computer are solitary things. You sit and listen to music.  You write posts for an electronics website. You watch viral videos of cute bunnies falling asleep or puppies romping. You look at LOLCats.

But you’re still alone (even while you’re playing MMORPGs, chatting, instant messaging, and hanging out on social networking websites, you’re still by yourself). We all need friends. Until they invent a computer that can hug you, there’s a friend for you from the good people at Solid Alliance.

Meet Tengu, the lip-synching USB toy! He’s a blinking little smiley face; all you add is music or TV sounds, and there he is to hang out with. So long as you’re talking, he’ll be there to talk with.

But, uh… if he starts talking back? I suggest you call a psychiatrist, ASAP. Even the guys at Everything USB (where I found Tengu) don’t have a USB-powered counselor.

The iPhone backlash has already started here in America, which just goes to show you that no matter how slick your interface or how cool looking your minimalist handset just might be, there’s no way to please everyone with a proprietary business model, oppressive DRM system, and a locked $600 phone tied into AT&T’s cell phone service. I’m not an Apple basher. Far from it, in fact; I just would like the freedom to use my insanely expensive phone on whatever network I choose without hacking it.

You’ve heard the horror story about the $3000 AT&T bill from a guy using his iPhone as a laptop replacement, I’m sure. That’s pretty bad, all things considered, but one time I ran up a $250 bill on a Verizon calling card by making a ton of long distance calls in the olden days before everyone had a cell phone.  Unlike Dave Stolte, I just paid the bill I ran up and watched my usage from then on rather than crying until the company threw out (or reduced) the charges I ran up.

Now the first batch of iPhone-related AT&T bills are coming in, and guess what? People are getting 300 page invoices! Trees throughout the nation are weeping at this tremendous loss of plant life.

Phone owners getting their first AT&T wireless bills have been posting videos and complaining on message forums about bills as thick as Moby Dick that detail every call, every text message, every moment spent on the EDGE network.

AT&T Inc. acknowledged that by default, customers receive these detailed paper bills, but said users can switch to a much shorter summary, or do away with paper entirely, at any time.

So here’s how it boils down: one guy ran up a ginormous bill because he was basically too dumb to read the paperwork and figure out how his new cell phone plan worked for international roaming, and other people are complaining that they’re getting TOO MUCH INFORMATION about the plans they have, the charges they’re incurring, and the stuff they use on their phones? Is there no pleasing people?

I think I’d rather know what I’m doing on my phone and know what I’m being charged for rather than being surprised by a $3000 bill, wouldn’t you? I mean, I’m paying for it either way, so a cardboard box full of calls made and text message logs just means I’m getting my money’s worth. Plus, if your power goes out like mine did this afternoon, you can cook your meals over a bonfire of AT&T paperwork.

Everyone, meet the cutest creation ever. This cuddly little fella is named Pleo, and he’s the next evolution in the virtual pet. Everyone remembers the Tamagotchi, the Aibo robot dog, and all those other constructs designed to interact with humans in some manner. But they were cold and didn’t have much personality.

Pleo, quite frankly, is as cute as a basket of newborn kittens, as inquisitive as a basket of newborn puppies, and like any real baby animal, he grows, learns, adapts to his environment, and responds to your treatment. Cuddle him, feed him, train him to do tricks, pet him, love him and he’ll grow into whatever sort of pet you want him to be.

What exactly is Pleo? According to the creator (the guy who invented the Furby), “Pleo is an autonomous robotic life form modeled on a one-week-old Camarasaurus dinosaur. Pleo is designed to mimic life which means Pleo thinks and acts independently, just like a real animal.” He also senses light, movement, touch, shows emotions based on how you treat him, registers surprise, independently explores his environment, and even gets tired after a lot of new experiences and movement.

I cannot explain just how much I want to snuggle that little critter! Pleo, who’s going to retail for an MSRP around $350, comes out October 15, 2007, in the United States and is available for preorder now at Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Best Buy, and toy retailers throughout the world.

Special thanks to Gear Diary for making me aware of this adorable little fella’s existence.

I’m a fantasy football junkie. I can’t help it. The NFL is the penultimate fantasy sports event for me, and this year I’ve found myself in no less than five fantasy football leagues (in addition to my fantasy Barclays Premiership league, my fantasy NASCAR league, and the tail end of my fantasy baseball league).  To say I’m a huge fan of fantasy sports in general is an understatement.

I’ve played fantasy football with the same core group of guys for four years or so now (at least in my main league), and we’ve recently made the transition to a keeper league. Of course, since we’ve been using the free and mediocre Yahoo Fantasy Sports, we had to depend on the good fortune of our commissioner to not only find our old league in Yahoo’s database but also to remember who everyone wanted to keep for our keeper league (we keep up to two people in exchange for first or second round draft picks).

Now, Yahoo is fine for a casual group with nothing on the line save pride (though the Fox Sports fantasy football league is much better as it provided free real-time stats and scoring, but nobody listens to me when I make recommendations). But if you want to get involved in a money league, or take your fantasy league to the next level, I couldn’t possibly recommend anything other than RealTime Fantasy Sports fantasy football. It’s one of the best fantasy management systems out there.

Every fantasy league runs into problems, and RealTime Sports solves them all. Commissioner approved trades prevents the, uh, dumber players from being fleeced by the smarter players. Blind bidding for free agents, wavier wire pick-ups, contracts, decimal point live scoring, online drafts, live chat rooms, drafting of individual defensive players, and the key… the ability to set all the rules yourself. No mandatory scoring, no two choices, nothing but complete control over your league with the ability to change scoring and rules on the fly.

That’s the whole point of fantasy sports. You get to play GM, commissioner, owner, coach, scout, and draftnic. Your brain (and the performance of your virtual team) dictates your performance as you compete against friends and strangers. You can run things your way and nobody can stop you.

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re not alone? Do you feel cold chills race up your back? Does the hair stand on the back of your neck, even when there’s no one around? Do you wake up in the morning and find your Cheetos are missing? Does your refrigerator seem to hold a portal to an alternate dimension? Does your house suck your children into the TV where they can only be rescued by a Southern midget psychic?

If so, you might have ghosts. Now, I’m not Dr. Peter Venkman, so I can’t properly diagnose if your house is indeed a spawning point for Zuul, but the Solid Alliance Ghost Radar probably can. That’s why I recommend you head over to Everything USB and pick yourself up one ASAP.

The way the USB Ghost Radar works is it detects spikes in electromagnetic patterns like an EMF reader used by professional ghost hunters (I know, I know, oxymoron). When you get yourself an electromagnetic freak-out, you’ve got lights and noises. So when your USB Ghost Radar detects a ghost, you get yourself your very own ghost rave.

Now, because I like to pretend you guys care about MY life, I have a ghost story. You can stop reading here if you want, but you’ll be missing the best part of the story, so I tell myself.

When I was in college, we were about 15 minutes away from what was known as the haunted bridge. It was the site of a Civil War battleground that was a hotbed of paranormal activity. Needless to say, as a huge dork, I was there constantly.

Being the way I am, I’d deliberately try to antagonize the ghosts by whistling Dixie or whatever, and normally I’d feel some activity. Cold spots, strange noises, orbs, the usual stuff. Of course, I’d never had anything follow me back home.

Except for one time.

On the drive home, the lights in my car went out. My headlights. So I pulled over, turned the car off and back on, fiddled with the lights, and they came back. So I kept going back to my dorm room. I get into my room, turn on the lights, and sit down at my computer. My computer promptly messes up. Not unusual, since this was Windows 98. So I restart. And it freezes up and crashes again. And then a third time.

The entire time , I feel something behind me. The back of my neck is nothing but prickles, and I’m freezing cold in the relatively warm spring night. Whatever it was, I’d irritated it to the point where it wasn’t going away. I actually had to call up a friend who has experience in all that supernatural mumbo-jumbo to talk me through blessing my dorm room to get whatever it was out.

Needless to say, I stopped harassing ghosts.

(Photo credit:  Novelty Flash Drives)

It’s summer, and the kids are getting ready to go back to school, if they haven’t already. I hope you’ve all had time to rest and relax, and go on a nice vacation. If you haven’t, though… well, there’s still a little time, and I have just the destination.

Pack up the kids, pack up the SUV, pack up the rocket ship, and take a vacation in space!

Well, okay. You can’t go there next week. You probably won’t be able to go there until 2012, but for the low low price of $4 million for a 3-day stay, you’ll be able to live la vita cosmonaut without all the hassle of bribing the Russians to go up and hang out on boring old Mir.

Just check out the activities you’ll get to do:

The hotel, "Galactic Suites," will allow adventurous travelers to enjoy a spectacular starry view from their hotel rooms, see the Sun rise 15 times a day and take part in scientific experiments while they're not using Velcro suits to crawl around their pod-room walls.

Just think about it, all the fun of living in space without all the pesky stuff like ‘spending years in training,’ ‘getting a Ph.D.,’ and ‘logging thousands of hours of flight time.’ Finally, mankind’s oldest dream is within reach of anyone, provided they can find a few million dollars.  I think I’ll start saving up now.

I don’t know where you live, but it’s probably hot. It seems like most of the country is in the grip of a terrible heat wave, and air conditioners are working overtime to try and keep the nation’s BO level at a tolerable mild funk. Of course, as temperatures crack triple digits, our technology to keep cool falls under greater strain.

This is where Murphy’s Law comes into play. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and the more you use a piece of equipment, the more likely you are to break it. Unsurprisingly, the hotter the weather gets, the more you depends on that AC to keep you from frying eggs on your forehead.

Why did I remind everyone just how hot it is outside?

Well, my car is ancient, and as such, stuff is starting to go wrong on it, including the air conditioning. On your average internal combustion engine, the air conditioning runs off the same drive belt that runs the power steering and all the other important technical stuff that I don’t really understand. When you turn on the air conditioning and the compressor cycles on, it adds additional strain to the power steering. The main bearing of the power steering is threatening to go out every time I put that extra strain on the drive belt by turning on the air conditioning.

I’m trying my best to avoid using the air conditioning, but if I have to choose between sweating buckets sitting on a burning hot leather seat and wrestling with the wheel and being cool, I’ll take my chances with manual steering. Or I could refrain from using my car’s air conditioner, preserve my power steering, and graft an air conditioner onto the roof of my car like University of Houston graduate Scott Dawson.

You gotta see this to believe it. It’s incredible that A) he thought to do this, B) it actually works, and C) nobody’s stolen the air conditioner yet. There are probably easier ways to save $1200, but none are quite this impressive.

(photo credit:  MyFox Houston)

As I’m writing this, it’s the day of my 26^th birthday. That means most of the day I’ve eaten tasty, bad for me food. It’s what we do on our birthdays, probably so we won’t live to see quite so many of them in the future thanks to an overdose of sugar, fat, alcohol, and barbecue sauce (at least in my case). But just because my day of celebration is about to come to an end doesn’t mean I’m quite ready for the party to stop.

In fact, I want to spread the party to you, my friends in the techie brotherhood. That’s why I’m glad I found something as educational as it is delicious, thanks to Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Introducing Circuit Snacks!

A snack that’s both delicious and educational, Circuit Snacks are a great way to learn your way around basic electronics without all that pesky soldering. Plus, if you screw up, you get to eat your mistakes. I suppose you could eat your mistakes if you’re wiring your own circuit board, but eating all that silicon and wire can’t possibly be good for your digestive system.

Unless, of course, you’re a Cylon (Jack’O’Lantern).

Feel free to try this at home, budding engineers. If you get results good enough to show them off, comment here and let me know what delicious stuff you used to make your edible circuitry. If you somehow manage to build a working robot using only foodstuffs, then… yeah, definitely get in touch of me, because you are the baddest engineer on the planet.

(Photo Credit:  Oskay) 

“Second Life,” the massive multiplayer online role-playing game from Linden Labs, has become something of a cultural phenomenon.  What’s interesting is not that it’s an online game, or that it’s got a huge subscription base. After all, compared to “World of Warcraft,” “Second Life” is small potatoes, but there is a key difference between the “Second Life” free model and the “World of Warcraft” subscription model.

That difference is how players generate money. In “World of Warcraft,” you run around and kill stuff. In “Second Life,” you can get a job, find a place giving out free money or… and this is key, buy Lindens with real-life money via PayPay. Legal tender can be exchanged for virtual cash, and this is where “Second Life” runs into problems.

You see, gambling is illegal in a lot of jurisdictions, and when you exchange real money for Lindens, poker chips, or anything with real monetary value, well, you run afoul of gambling laws in various states, nations, and cities. Given how lawsuit happy people are in this day and age, the only thing Linden Labs could do to protect itself is to ban gambling all together.

San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which operates "Second Life," imposed the gambling ban last week, citing in a blog "conflicting gambling regulations around the world."

The company may remove violators' virtual equipment and may suspend or terminate accounts. Linden Labs also threatened to report user information to authorities.

[snip]

Steve Nelson, chief strategy officer of Berkeley-based Clear Ink Inc., which provides virtual-world consulting services, said "Second Life" casino operators would be the hardest hit by the ban but it could also result in an overall downturn in spending.

"It's a funny psychological thing, because even though for some people it's a small amount of real dollars, they are dollars that circulate in the SL economy," he said.

That’s the rub when it comes to “Second Life” and potential legal issues. They, either foolishly or wisely, moved to take a stand (at least publicly) against gambling in their system so as not to run afoul of the United States government, which has taken a strong stand against other international gaming interests operating through the internet.

So what does that leave you to do in “Second Life”? Why, one thing that keeps the internet thriving: lots and lots of sex. 

I want this.

While I have my doubts about its usefulness, and indeed whether or not it’s legitimate, I cannot express how much I actually do want to buy the M200G Volantor, a flying car made by US-based Moller International.  What sci-fi nut and gadget geek wouldn’t want one of these, if only to fly down to the store and pick up a gallon of milk or a loaf of Soylent Green? 

Company founder Dr. Paul Moller calls the craft "the ultimate off-road vehicle" as it is able to travel over any surface.

"It's not a hovercraft, although its operation is just as easy," said the aeronautical engineering boffin.

"You can speed over rocks, swampland, fences, or log-infested waterways with ease because you're not limited by the surface."

Best of all, you won’t need some sort of special Flying Car drivers license, or any sort of special training. You just pony up the price, which may be as little as £44,340 or $90,082.83 depending on just how many people are willing to drop a fortune on George Jetson’s first car, hop into your flying car, and drive… err, fly off into the sunset.  Your very own flying car, cheaper than a Bentley and much, much cooler.

You know, my birthday is Wednesday, so if any of you loyal readers feels like making your new buddy Ron incredibly happy, you know how to do it.

So you’ve found yourself a special lady and you want to get your romance on. Good for you! That’s why I’m here; not only am I an expert on electronics and zombie movies, I’m also a personal trainer at The Lovenasium, and I’m going to help you get that 25-35 year old woman of your dreams to fall in love with you.

I know you could do things the old-fashioned way, and woo your lady fair with the traditional methods: dinner, movies, your personal charm, good looks, roofies. Those all work, but they also take time, and require you to have, you know… good looks, charm, and money. If you had that stuff, you wouldn’t need my advice picking up women.

So we’re going to cheat. Just you and me, a little technology, and some inspiration from your friend and mine, Lloyd Dobler. Grab yourself a Hits of the 80’s collection (all the best music of the 80’s in one fabulous collection!), ‘cause you’re going to need it.

Your first step is to rip your Hits of the 80’s collection to your hard drive using iTunes, Windows Media, or the ripping software of your choice. Then you have a choice, and the way you go depends on just how authentic you want your “Say Anything” romance festival to be.  You could always just upload the tunes to your iPod, stick your iPod in an iPod boombox, like Harman Kardon's Go and Play, and go stand in her yard blasting Peter Gabriel.

But that’s cheating, and I want you to do this right. But who in the hell owns a tape deck anymore? You can’t use a mix CD, because if you hold that over your head, it’ll probably skip. Plus CDs are lame and emo, and nobody wants to be emo.

That’s where Ion Audio’s TAPE2PC USB tape deck comes in. It works with both metal and CrO2 tapes (if you can find tape at your local store). It’s expected to retail for £100 (or $204) and should be available in time for the holiday shopping frenzy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

You plug that bad boy into a computer, stick a tape in, and make your very own mix of just the right amount of The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Bananarama to win Ione Skye’s heart but good.