Archive for November 4th, 2005
It is the kind of invention that would make Wallace and Gromit proud.
An engineer has
devised a tool that takes seconds off the chore of cutting toast soldiers. "There has always been a danger of cutting your soldiers too fat or too thin. If they are too fat then obviously they can't fit into the opened neck of the egg which is infuriating.
"But if the soldiers are too small then there's the risk of a catastrophic failure after they're dunked into the yolk. The simple act of withdrawing the soldier may cause it to break in half, forcing the person who is eating the egg to resort to a teaspoon."
November 4th, 2005
Recently, San Francisco exited Daylight Saving Time. Being from Hawaii, where people live in grass shacks without electricity and don't subscribe to complicated ideas like DST, I don't know squat about what it's all about. So naturally I was very curious as to why 'they' would want it to get dark earlier all of a sudden in late October. Upon doing some research, it does make more sense. In the summer, we shift the clocks to utilize more of the abundant daylight time, then revert back in winter. The main reasons seem to be energy savings, road safety, and crime prevention (and making the public happier in summer?) - I just got confused since the reverting part of it makes less common sense. I guess time is very subjective... Some
interesting things to note is that Indiana has a crazy screwed up system, Hawaii and Alaska don't utilize DST, and the idea is quite old - dating back to Ben Franklin. The whole weird Indiana thing makes me ponder about driving from one town to another over a state line and losing or gaining time. That must be very surreal.
November 4th, 2005
The
everlab 1 hour circle is a quirky product that is more fun that functional. It simply draws a circle every hour, on a wall, on a floor - with a pencil. There's something about the simplicity that is quite fascinating and beautiful. I wonder how much pressure it exerts onto the drawing surface - it must apply a decent amount of force and torque to be able to make a pencilmark... So how can I hack it do to even cooler stuff?
November 4th, 2005
It's not surprising that celebrities and TV faces can spread a
meme very effectively. One of my least favorite is the use of the word "
underwhelm" that has been spread by, mostly, reality show hosts (idol, apprentice, etc). Supposedly, it was coined in 1956 to mean that something has failed to impress. Uh huh. I was pretty surprised that "
whelm" by itself is also a word, according to most official dictionaries. And though I suppose the addition of new words to our vocabulary is a good thing, (Shakespeare made up some good ones) some of these
new words just leave me feeling, well, underwhelmed!
November 4th, 2005
It's probably common sense that crap like Starbucks specialty coffees are not very good for you, but the
nutrition facts (or should that be 'lack of nutrition facts'?) really drive that point home. Take a 670 crumb cake, and wash it down with a 430 calorie Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino® Blended Coffee and I'm sure you can feel your arteries clogging. But don't go thinking that going next door to Jamba Juice is any better for you. A large (Power) size
Peenya Kowlada packs a punch at 960 calories! So it shouldn't be surprising that Starbucks and Jamba Juice are actually the same company... Gotta love corporations.
November 4th, 2005
