BrainWyrms

The power of pyramids revealed
3:50am:
Kreative Power <http://www.kreativepower.com/product.htm> is supposed to be
coming out with a new type of power strip at CES. Take a look at the
pictures and gawk in wonder.




[via Engadget<http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/powramid-e-900h-from-kreative-power-why-didnt-you-think-of-thi/>]

Another piece in Iron Man's armor
3:04am:
Heads up, it's a HUD for your head.

Or part of your visor, one of the many components you are piecing
together in an attempt to complete your own Iron Man suit before the
movie hits Blu-Ray. (You are of course future proofing your HD
content by supporting the better optical format, yes?)

original engadget story ::
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/lumus-opticals-loe-based-glasses-get-pictured/
pictures from Lumus ::
http://www.lumus-optical.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=31

Go BOOM?
5:00pm:
http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2007/12/31/odds-increase-for-a-martian-asteroid-impact/

I second that motion...
2:31pm:
From Hart [ http://hartssong.livejournal.com/ ] ::

Rescue Alert
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tor/467152147.html

I wonder how much drama this one made when it first went live.

A logo for DRM-free media?
5:58am:
http://open.neurostechnology.com/content/unlocked-media

Neuros is proposing a logo to brand DRM-free media. I'd post it here, but
so far my attempts to get it on Flickr have resulted in an odd half image.
Anyhow, I think it's interesting. As soon as Amazon started selling their
DRM-free MP3 files, I bought my first tracks... I have too many DAP/PMPs and
too many of them dying to ever want a locked down track. I'd have to rebuy
my music every few months - or lock myself into a single provider/player.

Which is probably half of the game, eh?

Oh, and I have to get Jayde [to design] some Zazzle.com shirts... I'll be
half a year early for her born day.

Where have I been?
7:26am:
November was a bad month.

I moved. I missed Jaydem's born day. I got a cold. I missed elegiac's
born day, as well as Tyr & Mira. My grandmother passed away. My niece lost
her grandfather. I got another cold. I tweaked my back. I spent almost a
week bent at a 90 degree angle. My cold turned into a deep lung cough. I
couldn't sleep laying down because my cough would just not stop. It then
added a head cold to the mix.

On the good side... My department at work was essentially shut down for much
of the month, so I didn't have to deal with anyone else at work. I was able
to get a flight down south, so I was able to attend my grandmother's
memorial service. I discovered that eating while landing seems to prevent
my normal extreme discomfort (pressure changes inside my ears, sinuses,
stomach, and TEETH.) My job covers 3 days, paid, for bereavement. And I
think I stopped smoking (again x 3.)

December is turning out better... but that's pretty easy. I still can't
sleep laying down. I can't carry anything that weighs more than 10 lbs.

I'm waiting for 2008. It's gotta be better.

Oh, and it looks like work is going to a "WorkShare" program for Q1 '08. 32
hour work week, with eligibility for partial unemployment for the 8 hours
we're missing. Maybe "It's gotta be better" was an overstatement.

Comcast ACK!
11:30am:
Still trying to figure out what service provider to go with for broadband in the new place.  I'm partial to Charter (for exellent naked internet) but they aren't the cable company in the new town.

My second best would be ATT, just because I already have 4 cells from them.  I'm still trying to figure out if I can get service from them at my new address.  So far it is looking like a decided maybe.

After that... [gulp] is Verizon and Comcast.

Please Verizon!  Please please please don't make me go back to Comcast!

... (a few minutes later) ...

ATT doesn't seem to care for the house address.  I've put it in the form a number of different ways and each time the response that I get back is one along the lines of ::

     "I don't understand.  When you say 500 Aspen St, do you mean 500 Aspen St or None?"

And I think I pissed off their web scripts because now I can't even get to the form.  I get redirected to a screen telling me that I need to call a customer service representative.  Sometimes that kind of thing happens to me when I keep hitting back back back while the web server is trying to process the form that I sent.  Heh.  So at this point, I don't know if ATT offers what I am looking for, and I kind of doubt I am going to find out.  What a shame.

On the other hand, if I sign up for a year(!) I can get naked Verizon for $29.99 a month.  Sadly, that is a 768/128k plan.  Good enough for one user at a time, kind of tight for two.  Of course, I could just go month by month but then the price jumps to $47.99!

Holy cow, that's how much Comcast charges!  BAD VERIZON!  And Comcast will give me 4Mbps for that price.  Of course, they are going to charge me an additional $99 for a "professional" installation that I certainly do not need.  I mean, seriously?  I appreciate having the option of an installer, but I do not appreciate being required to use one. 

Do. Not. Want.

Don't take this test...
9:12am:
I got a friendly mail from my bro-in-law the other week.  Or so I thought.

I wonder if he specifically choose to send me this link from Flixster, or if he got his addy book swiped by the signup process.

	My Flixster

I also found the latest blog posting by Gaiman to be rather fascinating.  I'd never heard of "World Book Day."  Why the heck haven't the states stolen this excellent idea?

PS3 news
11:38am:
New 40GB Model to be Available in North America on November 2nd for $399;  Effective Immediately, 80GB PS3 to be Priced at $499

Yeah... the 40GB has NO backwards compatibility.  None.  Say what!?  I honestly thought the tech reporters were all being stupid when they were discussing the European and Japanese releases.  My bad, I guess Sony was the one being stupid.  I'm not buying this model.  Period.

And with the 80GB down a hundred bucks, it only needs to drop another $200 before I'd be willing to pay to play... oh, but that would be if it had the emotion engine.  I don't quite understand why the software emulation is such a bad thing for the PS3, but it is unanimous that backwards compatibility is somewhat sketchy and certainly not as good as having the full hardware.  So I think I'll be passing on the 80GB model.

And the sad thing is that I think it's pretty clear that there will be no future models added to the line up that incorporate the emotion engine.

So... I guess I'm going to be shopping for a 20GB PS3 with a price roughly $150-250.  That gives me a full on, "fer real" PS3/PS2 with a 20GB hard drive that I can upgrade anytime I need more space.  That's the real deal there.  All of the full blown power of the REAL PS3 for less than half the price of the shitty new models...

Of course, there are two problems with my carefully laid plans.  I don't have a few spare hundred laying around right now.  And I seriously doubt I can find a WORKING PS3 for less than $350.  Prices on Amazon look to start roughly $50 below retail... for the currently available SKUs.  On eBay?  A really quite check gives me a 20GB PS3 with Buy It Now for $260 (S/H $22).  Oh, look, it's a DEAD PS3 for 250.  [smacks forehead] 

I wonder if the used PS3 market will stay as ridiculous as the used PSP market.  Even DEAD PSPs cost a lot.

Linux Hippies Get Instant Internet & Scry is Scared of Socials
11:51am:
I'm behind on my news, so I don't know when Asus brought out the P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n, although much of the information I found on it was dated roughly around the 8th of October.  This particular mobo is currently listing for $360, which means that it about 4x more than I am interested in paying.  And it is an Intel board with DDR3 memory... both of which I am irrationally resistant too.

But it has an interesting feature that Asus is calling "Express Gate".  This is their branding of Splashtop, an embedded Linux distro.  Basically, you get the ability to "pre"boot into Express Gate where you can get into a custom version of Firefox or a version of Skype.

Now, this is not quite as cool as when I first heard about it... when I thought I was hearing about a FULL linux distro that was embedded on the motherboard.  That would have very sweet.  This is just nifty.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Veronica Belmont, late of Buzz Out Loud and soon of Mahalo Daily, popped out a new website a few days ago.  http://swordandlaser.com/ is apparently a new social network... erm, a new book club.  The first book up, "The Golden Compass." 

Except, I'm confused.  To quote from S&L: "Hopefully we can all acquire the book by next Wednesday, and then we can plan on talking about the first chapter! The next book will be decided by a vote, and it’ll probably be a “classic” of some kind. Enjoy!"

I can read this two ways.  One says that Veronica intends the book club to read the first chapter of classic SciFantasy books for the next few months (years?) and the other says that the first two sentences have no relationship to each other and should not be squished together into one paragraph.

The whole thing makes me nervous though.  I spent a whole ten minutes crawling around the "social" side of S&L and found myself really really wanting to get involved with these other scifantasy fangeeks who seem to take it all way too seriously... just like me.  It looked like a group of people where I might actually fit in.  And have fun. 

And that scares me a bit.