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A penny for your thoughts - Or more accurately, $0.0101867. It seems that the price of zince has now increased to the point where the metals that go into making a penny are now worth more than a penny. I say drop them altogether!
—Mike @ 17:14
Scott Adams' "Good News Day" - The popular author of the comic strip Dilbert, Scott Adams, wrote in his personal blog today about his 18-month battle to regain his voice following a diagnosis of something called Spasmodic Dysphonia. He eloquently describes how he "re-wired his brain" and just now seems to have cured himself. Quite an amazing story -- take a couple of minutes to read it. [Thanks, Mace]
—Mike @ 22:33
The latest efforts to ban trans fats - The Disney folks are the latest to jump on the growing movement to ban deadly trans fats.The company aims to remove trans fats from Disney menu items by the end of 2007, and have outside vendors remove trans fats from menus by the end of 2008.A NJ state legislator recently introduced similar legislation, but has been ridiculed mercilessly by talk radio. I understand there are other pressing issues, but I happen to agree with the effort. It's not like trans fats are a real food -- they're a concoction invented by some corporation decades ago in an effort to make some profits, without sufficient testing, and has eventually been found to be very unhealthy. I have no problems banning something that's SO bad for people, has no benefits and isn't a natural food. Isn't that one of government's main purposes, to protect citizens' health?
—Mike @ 22:37
School trains teachers to fight gunmen - Now here's a different recommendation for what to do if a gunman breaks into your classroom and starts ordering people around. I bet this kind of thinking would have gone a long way in preventing past air hijackings too, if people had been conditioned to immediately react that way. 9/11 may not have even been possible under such a scenario.
—Mike @ 22:41
Odd watches -
Barbara thought I'd enjoy seeing this really different collection of watches from around the world (and she was right!) Some pretty amazing specimens. I think the "Yantar - Submarine" appeals to me the most. What's your favorite?
—Mike @ 21:51
Fall is kind of late this year... -
but up at the lake house, it's all about the altitude and the latitude, so the leaves were already approaching peak last weekend, when these photos were taken, on a warm and calm autumn afternoon. Taking in the swim float is always the hardest part of starting to close up for the season.
—Mike @ 23:44
Recent doings - Last night, a small group of us was scheduled to go see some of our local high schools in marching band competition, but Mother Nature decided to throw some hard frosts at us the last few nights, so the group decided to wimp out and go bowling instead. I did worse than I can remember doing in my adult life -- an 85 and 101 -- but I blame it all on the Anti Monkey Butt Powder that Eric brought along, that we were all smearing on our hands (that's a new one on my excuse list!)
We celebrated mom's 75th birthday earlier this month with a spectacularly successful surprise party, and presented her with (among other things) a Memory Book that family members have been writing in for several months now -- I think it's her favorite gift. She's read it through ten times already.
Recent movies of note: The Illusionist (ok; Veronica liked it a lot), Little Miss Sunshine (we were laughing so hard, people in the theater were looking at us), and Man of the Year (an impossibly stupid technical explanation for a computer glitch ruined the plot for me).
By the way, IMDB has beefed up its My Theaters area so its really easy to select, order and recall your favorite list of movie theaters, or to see when a particular movie of interest is playing within your list of favorite theaters. A nicely implemented feature.
Among new restaurants we've tried out lately are Maggiano's in the new Bridgewater Village (a tad on the pricey side, and rather impressed with themselves), and a new Mexican restaurant in the same area (which I won't name) where we spotted the cutest baby mouse running along the walls INSIDE the dining room (we alerted management without uttering any "eek!" screams).
—Mike @ 21:06
Permanent Phone Numbers have returned - A company called GrandCentral is offering the latest version of a personal "phone number for life", and the technology and features may finally be right this time. Even the free version offers a plethora of customizable options, includingand lots more.
- the ability to have incoming calls ring at multiple places,
- personalized greetings depending on who's calling,
- automatic recording of calls,
- live screening of voice mail with the ability to connect to the call at the touch of a button,
- one place for voice mail, phone or web access
—Mike @ 14:23
The Ultimate Pool Player -
Click on the video to play it. It takes only a minute, but what I want to know is, how long did it take to design, set up and debug?? [Thanks, Barb]
—Mike @ 17:24
There may be hope yet for allergy sufferers - Experiments are underway with a new type of vaccine that seems to successfully lessen the effects of hay fever (ragweed pollen), and holds promise for being adaptable to many other types of allergies.
I underwent a seemingly endless series of weekly allergy shots when I was a kid, for hay fever. Sometimes it got so bad my parents would have to drive me around in the air-conditioned station wagon just so I could get some temporary relief, so I'm really glad to hear that kind of suffering may be a thing of the past some day soon. Although I still feel the effects of ragweed pollen on the days when it's heaviest in the air around this time of year, my symptoms today are only a tiny fraction of what they once were. Whether that's a result of the allergy shots, or it's something that I would've outgrown naturally anyway, I have no idea. But I'm grateful in either case.
—Mike @ 09:20
The next X-prize - The same folks who put up the $10 million for the first successful pair of private space launches are now promising the same amount to "the first private team that decodes 100 human genomes in 10 days", in the continuing effort to develop custom-made personalized medicines.
—Mike @ 08:58
"Electronic Paper" devices for consumers are here - The Sony Reader is out in time for the holidays, with a display screen that resembles text on paper more than it does a traditional computer display. The e-book reader weighs less than 9 ounces and at only 1/2" thin, it's more compact than many paperbacks. With the ability to connect to a PC, you can "search and browse thousands of electronic book titles". You can also copy photos, music or your own documents to it. Here are some additional links about the product:
—Mike @ 13:26
More? - There's additional reading available in the Archives.
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