They're called TerraCycle, and they go one step beyond what most of us think of as recycling.

Really. TerraCycle sells an organic fertilizer which is basically, um, worm poop: they feed table scraps to earthworms, collect the residue, and — this is the neat part — they sell it in used beverage bottles.

That wasn't quite the original plan, says Popgadget:

File this under "I wish I'd thought of that."

In Wes Craven's 1984 chiller A Nightmare on Elm Street, the part of Elm Street was played by Los Angeles' Genesee Avenue.

And now 1428 North Genesee, which you'll recognize the moment you see it, is for sale for $1,095,000.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the place needs "some work."

Victorino Matus wonders if the magic has gone out of magic:

Cyclical? Or something else at work?

But that's only the front of the cabinet:

I sat through every installment of "...Revealed," somewhere between transfixed and awed. And pace Mr Dallas, I don't think my interest in magic was at all diminished by getting a look behind the scenes: if anything, I got to marvel at how everything had to come together just so to make the illusions work.

And what's more, illusions are constantly evolving: while the basics remain much the same, the execution changes constantly, and there's enough competition among magicians to ensure that there will be even spiffier tricks to come. I remember back in the 1980s watching a variation on the old sawing-a-woman-in-half theme on some cable show, and saying something to the effect that "You know what would jazz this up? If they sliced her lengthwise." Sure enough, a few years later, I was watching another magic show on cable, and the assistant was propped up perpendicular to the table, and a circular saw dropped from the ceiling to split her right down the middle. The next step? Earlier this year, Cris "Mindfreak" Angel ripped someone in half on a park bench with no equipment at all. (Oh, come on. It's a trick.)

Fred Casto, who heads up the International Brotherhood of Magicians, saw no lasting damage from Fox's brief foray into illusion exposure:

It will certainly work on me.

With the rise of blogdom, the next Grand Illusion should be obvious: set up a giant blender on stage and introduce a litter of puppies.

Oh, come on, it's a trick.

What do you give somebody who has everything?

Why, Nothing, of course.

The sales pitch is certainly encouraging:

Hard to tell from the packaging, but I don't believe this is actually vacuum-packed.

(Via Popgadget.)

My knees are bad with a small b, by which is meant that they didn't actually give out on me during an unexpected bout of exercise on a Saturday night. I don't think they're going to get so capital-B Bad that I'll give up the walking shoes in favor of wheels, but if it ever comes to that, I want a ride in one of these:

There's always the question of whether any overstuffed limousine should be tagged with a term like "Dignity," but what the heck: wheelchair users are just as entitled to bling as the rest of us.

Bicycles, of course, are, um, "people-powered." But some people provide more power than others. This Urban Terrain bike has electric-motor assist, just like a Honda Civic hybrid, to kick in when it sees a demand for its services: going uphill, for instance. (Downhill, the motor takes itself out of the loop entirely.)

The drawback, of course, is the extra 9 lb of battery pack, which takes about five hours to recharge and which brings the total weight of the bicycle up to almost 50 lb, on the high side for industrial-strength bikes. Still, if you're wanting a bicycle more for a commuting device — it folds up nicely — than for a workout machine, you might find this little darb endearing, and the $1199 price is not too daunting.

If I ever have time to key in a thousand or so titles and authors, I, too, can be part of the LibraryThing. So far, they have 82,000 members and 5.9 million books, which is about six dozen books per member; while there are the usual vast numbers of extremely popular titles — some 6,000 folks report each of the Harry Potter books — over 1.2 million titles are listed as "unique." I'd be tempted to join just to see that list.

(With thanks to Jennifer, in whose Margin Notes I found the link, and David, who made the following rash statement: "The title of [this] post is pretty cool because it starts with the letter V and ends with the letter X. Tell me where you can find any other entry on any other blog with THAT spiffy feature! Uh-huh, I thought not.")

Probably not. On the other hand, this is the closest thing yet to carrying moonbeams home in a jar:

Yeah, I know: this isn't exactly newtech. I have a couple of exterior lights that run off the same principle. But this thing, which looks like you captured the Mother of All Fireflies, has higher gotta-have-it factor, important to those who seek to be better off than they are.

Not the same as pie in the face. Pay attention here.

Step 1:  Select a color of yarn for each digit.

Step 2:  Ascertain the digits of pi, keeping in mind that you'll run out of yarn but you'll never run out of digits.

Step 3:  Knit.

Step 3.14159....:  Apply directly to the forehead.

Chance that I would recognize this pattern, were I to see it on the street: next to nil, since I'm not at all proficient at counting rows.

But you gotta love it: a hat with a secret message.

The Nobel Prize for Peace, in a stunning disregard of recent tradition, was awarded to deserving recipients: Grameen Bank and its founder Muhammad Yunus, pioneers in the field of micro-credit.

The Grameen ("Rural") Bank was founded in Bangladesh in 1976 with seed money of $27. Today the bank has over six million borrowers. It works like this:

Says Mr Yunus:

(Previous discussion here.)

I normally don't call attention to Nobel laureates — they always get plenty of press — but in an era when you're expecting the Peace prize to go jointly to, say, Madeleine Albright and Spalding, it's a pleasure to report that the awards committee didn't screw up this time.

A Web directory: routine.

A Web directory that lists local Halloween events: useful, at least this time of year.

A Web directory that lists local Halloween events and is called GooGhoul: why didn't I think of that?

(Yes, I suppose they are baiting the lawyers. What of it?)

I suppose I could crosspost from those other sites, but this way I spike their stats just a hair. (Not that anybody reads them anyway.)

On that sorta-functional invisibility cloak: I want one.

And this is the neatest CD-R idea I've seen all year.

I have always had a high regard for Honda's cars. Despite this, I've never owned one, and have gotten very little seat time in any of them; it's simply that their priorities and mine have never precisely meshed at the point of purchase. (I was considering a used Acura TL during this year's whirlwind auto-shopping extravaganza, which ended with the acquisition of a not-too-dissimilar Infiniti.)

Back in July, Honda announced that they would be selling aircraft, and on the 17th of this month they started taking orders for the HondaJet, for delivery in three or four years. Autoblog reports they've already sold 100:

The HondaJet will be built in the US, at a location to be determined; Honda Aircraft is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Some of the features:

The HondaJet sells for $3.65 million; originally, they'd planned to build 70 a year.

Who needs Earl Scheib? All it takes is Rustoleum, a roller, a couple of brushes for the tricky stuff, and this guy's amazing nerve.

I would not recommend that you try this on your fading Lamborghini, but I have to admit, the results aren't half bad.

(Via the Consumerist.)

But this will help:

This would be nice on days like today when your Florida room looks more like Labrador.

(Aside: I know, I know, I know.)

It's a shower curtain displaying the Periodic Table of the Elements, and not only will it enlighten you while you lather, rinse and repeat — assuming you can read backwards or had the temerity to mount it in reverse — it will keep water from splashing onto the fluorine.

(Sorry about that. I do tend to boron and on. And my apologies if you prefer to wash your hair in the zinc.)

(Xenon Popgadget, which is not responsible for this content; they just lead me to the source.)

I've never played tournament Scrabble, and I'm starting to think that it's a good thing that I haven't: here's a chap who scored 830 points in a single game, including a single play for 365. What's more, his opponent scored a not-even-slightly-shabby 490. And by the reckoning of tournament experts, these guys really aren't that good.

For the record, my high game is 515, in which I had a 203-point play. I'm sure at least some of you can beat that.

(Via Vincent Ferrari, who probably can.)

Life in Erica's world:

"Cumbersome" is putting it mildly. So why not this?

Yeah, it might be a pain in the tuchas to set up — once — but if people's time is worth anything at all, and surely it is, the return on investment should be considerable.

(Why, yes, I do use Lotus Notes. How did you guess?)

This will definitely make your Camaro more bitchin':

(Via Treehugger.)

Seen at Popgadget, the ideal gift for the geek girl in your life: a big, floppy bag made from real floppies. A dozen of them, in fact, mounted on a black vinyl liner, which contains various pockets on the inside and a removable magnetic latch on top. For those who read hangtags, here's what this one says: CARRY YOUR STUFF IN GEEK-CHIC STYLE WITH A PURSE MADE FROM TWELVE (12) GENUINE 1.44 MB COMPUTER DISKETTES. ALLOCATE INTERIOR POCKETS TO MANAGE INTERNAL FRAGMENTATION. TOTAL AVAILABLE MEMORY: 17.28 MB. Now all I need is a geek girl. [sigh]

That is to say, bicycle locks in serpent form, which probably won't scare off malingerers but which do add some reptilian, or optionally non-reptilian, color to the Bicycling Experience.

Also available: a bird that collects paper clips.

(Slithery items seen at Popgadget).

Christie's is selling a junior-high paper by Britney Spears on Sophocles' Antigone, handwritten on lined paper, which they expect to bring $500 to $700.

She got an 88, which isn't too shabby, though I still think I trust her judgment more on semiconductor junctions than on Greek tragedy.

(Via Salon.com's The Fix.)

We definitely have a wiener here: How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs.

Of course, if you insist on including the buns, you will be off by approximately twenty percent.

(Via Rocket Jones.)

At the beginning of this month, Texas began collecting tolls on a stretch of State Highway 121, from Carrollton to the Denton County line. And no, there aren't any tollbooths:

About time they did something useful with a traffic camera. Of course, you'll pay more without the toll tag, but this is pretty much the rule with any toll road these days.

Will we ever get something like that here? Steven Roemerman asked the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority:

I guess he's right.

"Hip-Hop Is Dead," says Nas, but there will always be rhythm, and for a while, anyway, there will be the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, which plays music sorta like Leroy Anderson but without all those pesky traditional musical instruments in the background.

Having paid some dues in my time as a typist and occasional 10-key operator, I can understand the urge to produce some serious syncopations from the Smith-Coronas, undulations from the Underwoods, rhythmic rolls from Remington Rands, and that's what BTO (not to be confused with other musical operations with similar initials) does. There's even a CD, The Revolution Will Be Typewritten.

Me, I learned on one of these, though I never did seem to display any real talent.

(Via Rocketboom [video clip])

This little bit of advice came down through a listserv today: how to make Microsoft's Search Babe Ms. Dewey vanish before your eyes, albeit temporarily.

Wait for her to finish her spiel, go to the text box, and type lord of the rings.

It works as well for her as it does for those Hobbitual ring-wearers.

This picture was received with "WOW" in the filename, and it might well be justified: this tree is around 80 feet tall, reportedly, and at least three-quarters of it is covered in lights. If you'd like to see it in person, so to speak, it's near NW 19th and Land, which would be three blocks west of May.

A lot of them went to these guys:

I, of course, disagree as to the matter of their obsolescence, but they do make some neat trinkets, some of which found their way to my tree.

The following 45-rpm Holiday Ornaments were received:

• Julius LaRosa, "Domani (Tomorrow)" b/w "Mama Rosa", Cadence 1265, 1955
  
• Johnny Rivers, "Summer Rain" b/w "Memory of the Coming Good", Imperial 66267, 1967
  
• Amii Stewart, "Knock on Wood" b/w "When You Are Beautiful", Ariola 7736, 1979

Incidentally, only one of these (the Julius LaRosa) was pressed on actual vinyl; the other two were pressed on styrene.

Also arriving, a set of LP Coasters, as follows:

• The Mills Brothers, Yellow Bird, Dot DLP 25338, 1960
  
• Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, That Travelin' Two-Beat, Capitol T 2300, 1965
  
• David Frye, Radio Free Nixon, Elektra EKS 74085, 1971
  
• Various, History of British Rock, Sire SAS 3702, 1974
  
• John Travolta, Travolta Fever, Midsong International MTF 001, 1978
  
• Terry Garthwaite, Hand in Glove, Fantasy F 9564, 1978
  

Only the Bing/Rosemary disc is mono; the British Rock album was a two-disc set in automatic sequence, and the present specimen is Sides 1 and 4. (The other disc would have been Sides 2 and 3.) The John Travolta album is a compilation of two earlier LPs, John Travolta and Can't Let You Go, which made #18 in Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell's infamous book The Fifty Worst Rock-And-Roll Albums of All Time, which I quote herewith:

I am compelled to point out that #19 in said book was Days of Future Passed.

And while I could mourn the destruction of perfectly good vinyl, I suspect it wasn't all that good. From the manufacturer's FAQ:

(Thanks, Wampy. These are Seriously Neat.)

But Zirconia, just the same:

And even the most modern designs still produce massive quantities of waste heat. How well does this magic spritz work?

Now that's impressive. How did these guys get this good? I pulled up their FAQ and found this:

The UK used to get about a quarter of its energy from nuclear power; today it's less than 20 percent and dropping.

Autonet is rolling out a wireless-Internet package that runs off Verizon's EV-DO network. And "rolling" is the operative word, since it's intended for use in your car.

I bounced this idea off Trini, and she was quick to point out an application: "Set up a music server at home, and take your tunes wherever you go."

It's a little pricey — $399 for the hardware, fifty bucks a month — but someone who travels more than I do might find this an absolute boon.

Samsung is showing a refrigerator equipped with RFID. What for, you ask?

God only knows what this will cost:

Can it tell a good tomato from a bad one? And, perhaps just as important, will it flirt with the checkout girls?

I mentioned elsewhere that I was buying one of these, and now that it's been here for 36 hours, I feel I can give it a reasonable assessment.

The actual hookup is ridiculously simple: you run the usual phone cord from the wall jack into the LINE IN jack, connect the phone to the PHONE jack, and connect the answering machine to the ANS MACH jack. It does require an available AC outlet.

The documentation, alas, is not very good. The manufacturer (I bought this from a reseller) would like you to envision this as a complete "household telephone management system," and their manual focuses on all the positive benefits of the system with various available-at-extra-cost extensions, while I suspect most buyers just want to know the quick-and-dirty negative stuff: "How do I keep this SOB from ringing my phone?"

I did note with some amusement that one number is already keyed into the memory: the manufacturer's tech-support line.

How it works, with my particular options enabled, on any given incoming call:

• The number is compared to what's in the database. The search order: number exact match, number wildcard match, name exact match, name wildcard match.

• If there's a match, the database record is pulled up and the specified action is taken. (In this case, the action is: route directly to answering machine, do not ring.)

• If there's no match, the call rings through.
  

This is at the lowest level of screening, which I anticipate will be all I need. At the highest level of screening, only numbers that are in the database and tagged for automatic approval will be allowed to ring through. People who get threatening calls might consider the highest level. (There's one intermediate level.)

There are remotes which can be added to this contraption; it's possible to set an incoming call from, say, daughter's scruffy boyfriend, to ring only at daughter's extension. (Of course, he calls on her cell phone anyway, but such is life.)

In practice, operation is pretty seamless. If you dial an outgoing number, the machine will display it, in case you want to go ahead and enter it into the database without waiting for a call from it. (Which, incidentally, is how I set up my initial ban list.) Of the three incoming calls so far this weekend, one was a test from my cell phone, which was let through; two were from telemarketers via a wildcard match, who were sent immediately to the answering machine with no ring. The ban list contains wildcards for all four common toll-free NPAs (800, 888, 877, 866) and two numbers which annoy me on a regular basis. Hardware geeks will note that there are eight actual DIP switches on the back, for setting various arcane options. I didn't need any of them.

Verdict: Pricey, perhaps, but it sure is quiet around here.

Suck UK, once derided as the most overrated design team ever, is selling scads of these, in this table-vase form and a wall-mounted version, each around $65 at the current exchange rate. It's deucedly simple, too: you fill the barrel with water, then insert the stems. Even your average garden-variety hoplophobe can handle it. (Maybe.) If this isn't dangerous enough for you, they also sell coat hooks in the shape of British darts. Given my inexplicable fondness for things that aren't especially safe, I'm surprised I don't already have a brace of these; on the other hand, there's nothing inherently unsafe about these things, unless you expect to subdue an intruder with one — in which case, roses are recommended, what with the sharp, pointy bits along the stems and such. (Seen at Popgadget with a better title.)

Any questions?

This message is presented as a public service by the Federation Office of Intoxicant Control Policy.

Actually, it's not that big, and that's the charm of it. The Rakku Shoe Wheel is about two and a half feet (as it were) in diameter, and it stores a minimum of 20 pairs of shoes. (You might be able to get two pairs of flats into one pocket, but don't try it with heels.)

I don't see this as a solution to my shoe-storage issues, but then I'm a guy and therefore don't have that many shoes. What's more, I wear a 14, which won't fit in the pocket; the maximum size allowed is a men's 10½, which is more or less the equivalent of a women's 12½, which I've never seen on anyone outside the WNBA. I like the looks of it, though, and the price — $65 — doesn't look too heinous.

(Via Popgadget.)

I am convinced that Microsoft put more effort into developing that farging puppy for XP's search utility than into the utility itself. (The lovely and talented Ms Dewey offers none-too-mute testimony to this tendency of Redmond's, in case you've forgotten Microsoft Bob.) When I gave up my W98 work box for a sorta-new XP machine, I grumbled about this and sought out alternatives; eventually Trini came up with the idea of Copernic Desktop Search. I duly installed it, and in whatever spare time the machine had, Copernic indexed what seemed to be every last file on the box, and I'd moved over about 12 GB of stuff. Eventually it caught up — as of this week it bothers only when it sees new or changed files — and I decided it was suitable for my home box as well. The big difference: instead of 12 GB of stuff, I have about 60. The indexing, inevitably, is taking longer, despite the higher horsepower of this machine; so far 103,125 documents have been indexed, with 1,538,854 keywords. To my amazement, it's even sorting through my mail, and I have about ten years of mail accumulated. (Not counting the deleted items yet to be flushed, there's a third of a gigabyte of mail to be inspected.) I am impressed with this application: it's quick (it gets used several times a day at work, often in rapid succession); it opens a handy little search box in the XP taskbar; and it doesn't suck up every last bit of memory in the machine. Moreover, there's no animated assistant. (Yes, I know there's a Registry hack to banish the pooch; the utility itself is still seriously retarded next to Copernic, or for that matter next to the old Windows 98 search.)

My experience with quilting totals one hand-decorated (and appliqued) square donated for a Good Cause many moons ago, so this statistic jumped out at me:

And I bet that six-tenths of a machine is a pain to keep running, too.

This bit of news comes from Kathryn Jenson White in a two-page feature on quilting in this week's Oklahoma Gazette, along with the revelation that quilting is a $3.3-billion industry in the States, and that there are at least thirty active quilt guilds in Oklahoma.

Nor is it an old-lady pastime:

While looking for stuff on guys who quilt, I found this:

Some of this I'd learned in school and forgotten; much more of it I never knew at all. All the more reason to pass it on, I think.

Okay, a screen for your projection TV is no big deal, even at 90 inches diagonal.

But an inflatable screen for your projection TV: well, there's no middle ground. Either this is exactly the sort of thing you're looking for, or you wouldn't buy this in a million years even if you won the lottery and your significant other demanded that you put a home theatre system out by the pool you're supposed to put in.

I tend to lean toward the latter, if only because Woot buyers are the fastest frickin' clickers in the online shopping universe, and it took almost nine minutes to log one sale. (As of now, twelve minutes later, there's no second sale.)

Update, 10 am: It appears they've now moved four of them. Perhaps this is their way of making sure they have nothing to do while the game is on.

Inspired by Lastango, here's a list of things I have that simply refuse to die:

• Ace Clipper 702: Ace describes this as "the stapling plier that all others are modeled after. It's perfect for laundries, dry cleaners, checkout counters and factories. Built to Ace's traditional high quality standards for commercial use, the Clipper features all steel construction, chrome finish and 2½" throat depth. It loads a full strip of Clipper undulated staples which have twice the holding power of normal staples." I bought mine in 1969; I'm convinced it will outlive me.

• Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 720C: This came out in the late 1990s, before HP had perfected the art of the disposable printer. The drive belt on this model can shred, I am told, but so far mine's going strong after nearly a decade.

• Onkyo CP-1036A semiautomatic turntable: This 1980s relic is as smooth and quiet today as it was when it was new, despite constant cartridge changes (and head swaps to make those changes simpler), and short of actually screwing around with the leads, it's seemingly impossible to get it to produce any of the dreaded 60-Hz hum that indicates improper grounding.

• Realistic 12-181B "Weatheradio": The infamous Radio Shack VHF receiver in the shape of a cube, tuned to the National Weather Service. (Photo here.) I've had this for about twenty-five years; it asks only for a fresh 9-volt battery twice a year.

• Hoover 1248 upright vacuum: I bought this new in 1976. It's on its third drive belt ($3), and God knows how many bags (type C, not too hard to find) it's been through. It's getting less use now that I have hardwood floors underfoot, but it still knows how to deal with a rug.

• Casio SA-53 digital watch: Purchased circa 1984. A succession of crummy bands, though the current one has now lasted ten years. (Photo here.) It keeps fairly indifferent time, and 362 batteries are no longer ubiquitous, but I refuse to start buying watches on Woot.
  

Addendum: While rooting around in the bedroom, I found the original Casio clasp-type watchband. I have no freaking idea how this thing ever worked.

For eight years or so, SETI@home has been using people's spare CPU cycles to look for life on other worlds. While no certified aliens have been pinpointed yet, the system has apparently solved a crime:

The only way this story could be happier would be if the thief were blasted into deep space.

(Via Bitter Bitch.)

Once in a while you'll hear mention of a state's economy (usually California's) being as large as that of some entire nation (usually France). Some kind soul on Flickr has ginned up a US map in which each state is labeled with the name of a country with a similar-sized economy: Texas = Canada, Illinois = Mexico, Tennessee = Saudi Arabia.

Dr B will be amused to see Oklahoma = the Philippines.

(Via Zack Wendling.)

Everybody loves Guitar Hero on the PlayStation 2. (Okay, maybe not everyone, but work with me here.) Of course, there's the fact that not every budding Hendrix owns a PS2, but this didn't stop Toni:

There's a way to go yet — for one thing, the whammy bar is disabled — but it's always fun to see someone finding yet another application for the little beige doorstop, which, I might add, was my first computer, back in the Pleistocene era.

(Seen at Engadget.)

I was waxing semi-lyrical today about National Lampoon's infamous Sunday Newspaper Parody, a complete edition of the Dacron (Ohio) Republican-Democrat — which, incidentally, has been reissued — and in the process, I gave special attention to the Swillmart ("Where Quality Is A Slogan") advertising flyer by Bruce McCall. I ran a Google search for possible Swillmart images, and came up with this.

And then, just because, I ran the text search for Swillmart, and Google responded:

Feel free to write your own joke.

I have one of the IBM Model Ms myself — manufacture date, 4 October 1990 — so I'm pretty sure that this M-based retro keyboard will be at least decently reliable. What's more, I suspect that committed typewriter fiend Andrea Harris might want one of her own after she sees this, though I hate to imagine how much it would cost to do an entire production run of these.

(Seen at Engadget; no actual typewriters were harmed in the manufacture of this keyboard, although obviously some had been dismantled beforehand by someone else.)

Which, you have to admit, is a better name than Lamp/Lamp.

(Via Popgadget.)

Otherwise, this is neat: Edible Chess. One possible drawback: neither descriptive nor algebraic notation allows for nutrition information.

(Via Pop Culture Junk Mail.)

It's, well, um, it's a chandelier made of Gummi Bears.

"I wouldn't sit under that," insisted Damocles.

"I've mailed information vital to the survival of the rebellion through this R2 unit." Apparently these are legit: for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, the US Postal Service has come up with a commemorative mailbox. This is a bit disturbing, I suppose, though no more than, say, if C-3PO were doing Old Navy ads. (Idea for a sure-fire hit: a piñata in the form of Jar Jar Binks.) What's most likely to happen to one of these boxes: someone hauls it away from the Post Office in the dead of night, then (1) faces ten years for theft of government property and (2) ends up on Fark.

In point of fact, I can't vouch for its courage, but it's certainly intimidating at first glance. According to the blurb, you push a button and the little basket begins to spin, slowly but inexorably, while toaster-level heat is directed at your old stale croissants or muffins or whatever for up to 15 minutes. Of course, this will also warm up your kitchen; whether this be blessing or curse depends on the conditions prevailing right before you hit the button. I briefly entertained the idea of getting one of these, just to see what it would do with a blueberry (unfrosted) Pop-Tart, but sixty euros (including € 0.25 to support some arcane European Union environmental mandate, and not including whatever horrid sum it would take to ship out here to the New World) seemed like an awfully high price to pay for a brief moment of amusement, though I'm sure there exist call girls whose profession demands that they disagree with this viewpoint. Still, this gizmo has high-enough WTF factor to justify its appearance here.

(With thanks to Emalyse, who saw it first.)

I dread getting bloodwork: it's not so much that I swoon at the sight of bodily fluids (though I will happily look at the opposite wall when given the opportunity), but that it's so darn hard to find a convenient vein. Most of the time, it takes two tries; more than once it's taken three.

The VeinViewer from Luminetx was invented a couple of years ago to address this issue, and it's now available to healthcare professionals at retail. Using near-infrared light to spot the blood vessels and a computer-assisted imaging system to project the locations directly on the patient's skin, it's the next best thing to X-ray vision: it shows exactly where the veins are located, saving both time and unnecessary sticks. I'm sort of hoping my doctor reads this, and sort of surprised I didn't call this "You're So Vein" or something similarly silly.

(Via Popgadget.)

Mama's been playing Accordion Hero II.

Disclosure: I had no idea there had been an Accordion Hero I.

Well, the first sentence, anyway:

I think I miss her already.

(From Slublog via Electric Venom.)

The Oklahoman's Richard Mize has a story this morning on something I probably should have anticipated, but didn't: Real-estate listings on YouTube.

And it's not like no one's been doing video of homes for sale — Cox Cable has a whole channel of such — but what's the first place you look for video? Yep.

Still, I don't think a lot of buyers, at least at first, are going to use YouTube as their first search tool. Doesn't mean it won't work, though: last time (and I emphasize last time) I bought a house, the Expert I had engaged emailed me links to MLS listings that looked promising, and adding YouTube links to such mailings is a simple matter of cut-and-paste.

Here's a sampling of YouTubed listings, which you may find interesting:

• 3400 Hemlock Lane, Quail Creek
  
• 2000 NW 22nd Street, Gatewood
  
• 1508 Faircloud Court, Edmond
  
• 209 NW 17th Street, Heritage Hills
  
• 1408 Northern Hills Road, Norman
  

These run generally three to four minutes, though the Edmond listing runs about nine.

Bloodwise, I am type A, and Rh-positive.

If this works out, I won't have to care anymore:

And, less A and B, you're left with O, the "universal donor" — provided you can get past that tricky Rh factor. Plasma, of course, is another matter.

(Seen at I See Invisible People. Title comes from this.)

You might remember this from February, when I said something to the effect that "committed typewriter fiend Andrea Harris might want one of her own after she sees this." Well, she's seen it, and she wants it. I wonder what she'd think of RSS feeds via telegraph sounder. (Me, I want this rotary-dial GSM cell phone, just to see how T-Mobile, which is desperate to sell me some high-zoot electrotoy with a camera, an MP3 player and a medical tricorder, would react to its presence.)

Update, 8 April: Tam likes it too.

Update, 9 April: Tam's readers seem to like it too; we've picked up 440 565 hits from View from the Porch at this writing. This is more than twice as much as I've ever gotten from that other person in Knox.

By now, most people are familiar with the term "spork", and some of us are still silly enough to wonder how it came to be "spork" and not, say, "foon."

Now there's the "chork", which is a hybrid chopstick/fork, sort of: imagine two chopsticks joined together at the base. For those of us who can't handle the traditional chopstick worth a flip, this could prove to be a godsend — especially if they come out with a version in titanium.

Now all we need is a runcible spoon. Or spork.

(Via Popgadget.)

Atomic Food Containers are supposed to discourage people from stealing your lunch, what with the radioactivity symbols and the Eat and Glow legends and all. I have serious doubts, though, that these would work at 42nd and Treadmill: some of those people will eat seemingly anything, with the possible exception of ocelot spleen.

(Via Popgadget.)

There's no way to reword this without snark:

Asked to comment, Daily Planet reporter C. Kent turned visibly pale and headed in the general direction of the men's room.

(Seen at Fark.)

Update, 1 pm: Okay, it isn't green, but it can be red, sort of: "It will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange," says Dr Stanley.

Not anymore. The One-Handed Balancing Serving Tray is just like it sounds: a tray that you can schlep around with one hand. It holds up to 11 lb, and the surface is rubberized so things won't go flying around way down there. And the handle folds flat for storage, because otherwise this handy item would be a pain in the neck to put away. As with anything both cool and useful, it's kinda pricey, but life is like that sometimes most of the time. (Via Popgadget.)

Yet it persists:

Then again, any stamp you buy and don't actually use represents pure profit for the Post Office, so it's not like it's a complete waste of time.

I own three watches. The Helbros, acquired in 1966, stopped working in 1980 but still looks pretty good. (It's been to the repair shop once; a new crystal was installed some time in the middle Seventies.) At the time, the combination of penury and hardware lust led me to acquire a Casio digital watch — pace Megadodo Publications, I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea — which is still in use today, though its band (a knockoff of the Speidel Twist-O-Flex) is seriously worn and the pins that hold it in place, well, don't.

As usual with me, Plan B took precedence over Plan A, and I purchased an Abacus "atomic" watch from Woot. It was incredibly bulky compared to my old Casio; more to the point, it had a Rolexoid bracelet that Fossil, Abacus' parent, had thoughtfully prepared for the wrist of one of the Kansas City Chiefs. I spent about an hour and a half resizing the band, mostly because I had only the vaguest comprehension of how to work the pins. I wasn't even sure that "pins" was the proper term.

A few minutes of Googlage led me to the storefront of The Watch Prince, which patiently explained that these things are properly called "spring bars." What's more, they actually offered a tool to compress the skinny little troublemakers, for a measly nine bucks. It looks vaguely dental, except for its matte black finish, which is probably useful if you have bad eyes since it contrasts with the band and the watch itself. I had to have one, even though I'd finished redoing the Abacus' band, simply because at some point in the next 40 or 50 years I may have to do this again.

While I was at the site, I picked up some spare spring bars (a stunningly-negligible dollar a pair), and just for the heck of it, dialed over to the bands and ordered a genuine Speidel Twist-O-Flex for the old Casio. The Prince, reasoning from my shopping cart that I didn't have a farging clue, threw in two sets of bars to fit the Speidel. The Casio is now back in play, the Abacus is sitting on my dresser downloading a time signal from WWVB, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should have the old Helbros fixed.

For every Monopoly, every Scrabble, there are hundreds of board games that for whatever reason Never Quite Made It.

Just now showing up on eBay is the original (there are no copies) of Toad J. Simpson's Get Away With Murder Game. From the description thereupon:

As part of the deal, the buyer will be assigned copyright to the concept and characters; it's the whole package. If you ever wanted to make your own game, perhaps this is your starting point, and to borrow a phrase, should the idea fly, you must bid high.

The commencement speaker at St Louis University this spring will be Zen master Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra.

Of course, if people don't want to go to the commencement, you can't stop them.

(Via Fark.)

Thirty-nine bottles of beer left on this Austrian jigsaw puzzle, assuming of course you can figure out some way to take down and pass around the fortieth. This showed up today on Ben de İstiyorum.com, a storefront in Istanbul patterned (though less so lately) after Woot, for about twenty-four New Lira (about eighteen bucks US) plus shipping. I recognize maybe a third of the bottles represented; feel free to take a guess at any of them. Piatnik, formally Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, has been making puzzles and games since 1824; they have puzzles with up to six thousand pieces, and, of all things, a deck of playing cards based on The Da Vinci Code.

One of the great tragedies of life is that Mystery Science Theater 3000 never got a chance to do Battlefield Earth.

Now they will, sort of. RiffTrax sells downloads (usually $2 to $3) of actual MST3k-style riff sessions keyed to somewhat-contemporary motion pictures, starring Michael J. Nelson (MST3k head writer and latter-day host) and usually either Bill Corbett (Crow T. "I'm different!" Robot) or Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo). Sometimes both of them. The idea: you cue up your (possibly rented) copy of the DVD, and when you hit Start, you turn to your MP3 player and fire up the RiffTrax. You can try some samples here. It's not quite the same as it ever was — no Robot Roll Call, no Commercial Sign, no "Push the button, Frank" — but if you ever wanted an MSTed version of The Matrix, The Fifth Element, or (yes!) Battlefield Earth, you're in luck.

Mitt Romney was unavailable for comment.

And if you insist on having your video and audio in the same package, behold: The Film Crew.

(Via David Darlington.)

I yield the floor to Tamara K., who says it better than I ever could:

I think she might be underestimating the number of mouth-breathing idiots, but otherwise, this is spot on.

Or maybe it's something else entirely. It's hard to tell just where these letters are supposed to go:

Would Philadelphians be known as Eveldoers? Never mind. From New Harmony Movement by George B. Lockwood:

Latitude gives you the vowels, longitude the consonants. It's not entirely clear how these are supposed to be hooked together, but one thing's for sure: there wouldn't be any more Springfields. Not even a Shelbyville. It's not much worse than, say, Mark Twain's Simplified Spelling — La on, Makduf, and damd be he hoo furst krys hold, enuf! — but you'll never hear me singing "It's up to you, Otke Notive" either.

I figure it's just a matter of time before someone puts up a Whitwell Place Name Generator: you plug in your coordinates and it spits back a utopian tongue-twister.

The Baby Name Wizard has been around a while, but now it's been Java-ed into something called NameVoyager, which will tell you just how popular that name was here in the States during any particular decade, including all of the 20th century and the very end of the 19th.

In the 1890s, for instance, "Charles" was the fifth most popular name given to boys. (My maternal grandfather, born in 1899, was one of them.) It dropped off markedly after World War I, recovered a bit, but is still sliding: in 2006 it was number 60.

My daughter is named Rebecca, a name which was nearing its peak when she was born in 1978, getting as high as 13th; it's since dropped off dramatically, down to 96th in 2006. My son is named Russell, a name which peaked in the 1910s at 51st and has since slid out of the top 400.

Perhaps the sharpest spike was Jennifer: 206th in the 1940s, first in the 1970s, and now out of the top 50. And one odd thing I stumbled upon: names starting with F have almost died out, with the exception of Faith and Frank — and Francisco.

(Via Laura Lemay, who says she's using it to come up with names for fictional characters.)

Well, sort of:

The high heel is 3¼ inches; in the lower position, the heel is 1½ inches. And the tucked-away portion is inconspicuous except to someone viewing from underneath, something you'd presumably discourage anyway. Here's how it's done.

The line is carried in a few Northeastern stores and at Zappos.com; you can also buy directly from the manufacturer. They're pricey — $300 or so — but think of it as getting two pair for the price (and in the space) of one.

Actually, these contraptions don't take film, but polished silver plates. Either way, they won't have 'em at Walgreens.

But oh, the camera:

I don't expect this museum piece to be put to work any time soon, but there are people working with daguerreotype even today, and the process remains as it was in the 1830s.

(Via photographer Lindsay Beyerstein.)

In three minutes or less.

(Via Scribal Terror.)

You can get one heck of a house in Oklahoma City for three hundred thousand dollars.

Or this record player.

(Title sort of explained here. Via Lynn S.)

Remember that $300,000 turntable?

Here's a pair of million-dollar speakers to go with it.

Of course, if you want 5.1 surround — but never mind, let's not go there.

Does Vista support the USBeer port?

(Swiped from Steph Waller.)

Dave Syverson, representing the 34th District in the Illinois Senate, has introduced a resolution proclaiming the first of April to be Cheap Trick Day in the state.

Seriously. Cheap Trick was formed in Rockford, which is in Syverson's district. And apparently there's some support for the idea:

Let's hope the House is equally impressed.

(Via Fark.)

I am pretty much an old hand at ripping vinyl to whatever digital format I happen to need at the moment, but I'm not so smug about it that I can't appreciate this:

Remind me not to tell you about the time I tried to compress a 45.

Unless (1) I win the Powerball and (2) the science of longevity advances spectacularly in the next few years, I won't live long enough to rip all my vinyl, which means that most of it still gets played in the canonical fashion. This is less bothersome than you might think.

Starbucks apparently doesn't care what your name is, so long as it fits on the cup.

And what do you get? Maybe enough energy to run Vista in this PC modified to look like an old coal furnace.

I note in passing that there is no actual heating system in my office: the computer hardware itself keeps the temperature at sorta-bearable levels in the winter. Maybe if we borrowed this mod, we'd get fewer questions from people who can't find the switch for the heater.

(Via Fark.)

Bevy is a clear plastic case for your (second generation) iPod Shuffle, incorporating a keychain ring, a tie for the earbuds — and a bottle opener.

The Liquor Snob explains:

Yea, verily.

(Seen at Popgadget.)

You already know how I do it: with a piece of pricey hardware to block most incoming calls. Here's a more-amusing alternative:

Apparently it's still possible to buy a Caller ID unit with a voice box, though I have no idea whether its voice is pleasant, or even female.

And this, in turn, suggests a new Google application: a Caller ID box which connects to Google and immediately returns the appropriate information. Ultimately it could be incorporated into a VoIP phone or even a Web-enabled cell phone.

Or how about this: the box connects to whocalled.us and sends up a query. If there's a match in their database, the call is automagically hung up before you ever hear the ring.

I picked up a copy of The Times here in Shreveport, and took a look at the editorials: one actual editorial (on the burial of the N-word), one local column, Leonard Pitts and Jonah Goldberg. Not too unusual an array.

But on the second page of the section (which is dubbed "Conversations"), there is a complete list of all the columns carried by the paper, on what days of the week they appear, and, if syndicated, a "liberal" or "conservative" tag as appropriate. Ellen Goodman (Wednesday) is "liberal"; Michelle Malkin (Saturday) is "conservative." I wouldn't argue with any of these, particularly, though David Broder (Friday) is marked "liberal/moderate," which almost demands a "Since when?" Still, this is a peachy idea, and kudos to The Times for implementing something I haven't seen anywhere else.

Memphis' Tiger Time Lawn Care is pretty much like most of its competitors: they send someone out to cut your grass.

Except that they can charge you more for sending a young woman in a bikini to do the yard work.

I'm not sure what I think about this. The main reason I'd hire someone to mow my lawn is so I wouldn't have to think about it myself: a scantily-clad female out front for half an hour would definitely violate the sacred principle of "out of sight, out of mind."

Having so said, I am compelled to admit that on a previous trip to Illinois, I employed the services of a number of teenaged girls in swimsuits. Okay, they were doing a car wash to raise funds for their athletic teams; still, I could have done the job myself for a lot less than $20.

And it's not like I would ever have tried to pick them up or anything.

(Via Fark.)

Not only does this guy take a lot more of them than I do, he takes them on a motorcycle.

Given the sheer number of guys (and girls) on bikes I've seen lately, I suspect that there are probably a lot more logs like his floating around.

(Seen at Daily Pundit.)

After my marriage unraveled, I quit wearing jewelry of any sort, unless you think my watchband is shiny enough to qualify. On the other hand, I can see a reason for this bauble:

For now, this is apparently just a design concept, but I think there will be some major demand for this technology, either as is or reshaped into a bracelet or brooch — or a tie tac, assuming you can get someone who works on a keyboard to wear a tie.

(Via Popgadget.)

I certainly thought it was. A Danish drivers' association offered to insure its members against speeding and parking fines:

I suspect that this did not go over well in Copenhagen, because the club has temporarily ceased operations, perhaps because the government is looking for a way to tax it out of existence.

Still, the club made its case:

I haven't had a ticket in twenty-seven years; what's more, I don't own any radar detectors or similar gizmos. But as the revenue from fines becomes more important to governmental bodies — Virginia, starting this month, is collecting civil penalties in addition to fines in an obvious effort to fatten the exchequer — I can see myself paying for a program like this.

(Via Hit & Run.)

Cut down the size of the house. Apparently it's possible to live in 84 square feet.

The house cost $10,000 to build, largely from reused materials. That's less than $120 a square foot, which is certainly competitive with, um, more conventional housing.

More important, she likes it there.

Before there was an Escalade, a Navigator, or even a Range Rover, there was the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, created in somewhat less Grand form by Kaiser-Jeep in 1963 and perpetuated for twenty-eight years with relatively few mechanical changes, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact that Jeep changed hands twice during that period.

The Grand Wagoneer was dropped by Chrysler in 1991. A couple of years later, a Texas feedlot operator named Leon Miller, who had owned a series of them, called the company on the phone and complained. They put him through to Brooks Stevens, the original designer of the Wagoneer, who said something to this effect:

Miller thought this wasn't a half-bad idea, and he rebuilt an old Wagoneer for himself. Then another, for a neighbor. In a year's time, he'd restored a dozen of them.

By contemporary standards, the Grand Wagoneer is, well, old: even in 1991 it still had solid axles at both ends, a pushrod V8 with a two-barrel carb, and a three-speed automatic. But it had its virtues: world-class rock-hopping ability, reasonable size — barely fifteen feet long, and weight just upwards of two tons — and the ability to tow 5000 lb. Besides, it's a woody, and who doesn't love a woody?

Today Miller has rebuilt over 1200 of these trucks to better-than-new condition. I picked one at random from his current inventory: it's an '88 with a shade over 20,000 miles in Dover Grey with a Burgundy interior. The list of refurbishments is considerable, and the price, $31,000, reflects that high level of work: this is not some used car, after all. (Active military get $500 off.) And if you'd like some more recent amenities, they can add CD players, satellite radio, sunroofs, and rear-seat entertainment systems.

I'm not really a Jeep person, but this was always my favorite of the line, and the fact that you can buy one today for about the price of some lesser SUV impresses me greatly.

Regular readers will know that while the World Tours have a distinct air of spontaneity to them, made more so by my ongoing unwillingness to book rooms more than about 48 hours in advance, some of the behind-the-scenes details (financial arrangements, packing techniques, that sort of thing) are scienced out to the nth, or at least the eth, degree.

I have to admit, though, I never planned anything like this:

I've never had this dream, but I presumably lack imagination. (And I definitely lack possibilities.)

Still, if he can pull this off — well, if nothing else, the bloggage ought to be extraordinary.

Two years ago there was a fair amount of buzz over a USB-based turntable from Ion, which plugs right into the PC and lets you rip that vinyl that's been cluttering up your room. Apparently it's sold well enough to justify a spin-off product: the TAPE2USB cassette deck, with actual switching for chromium-dioxide (Type II) and metal (Type IV) tape types.

Some form of the machine has apparently been floating around the rest of the world for some time now, but this is the first I'd heard of it. It won't be a must-buy for me, though, until they add in Dolby B noise reduction, which so far I haven't seen in Audacity and which Audacity developers say would be "tricky to get ... right without straight-up copying the actual process," something they'd like to avoid for the obvious reason. However, there is apparently a Winamp plugin with a built-in Dolby B workalike, so hope is not yet entirely dashed.

News Item: Oklahoma bridges are in the spotlight again, but the state's Transportation Department has a plan to fix or replace nearly 800 of them in the next eight years if revenue comes in as projected.

An ambitious schedule, perhaps, but not one that will impress the Canadians, who managed to replace a bridge in seventeen hours:

Of course, this doesn't include the time for construction of the individual modules, but it's still pretty impressive, and these pictures from Diana are just this side of inspirational.

And the punchline: the completion in seventeen hours was two hours late.

I don't know if it's cloudy or bright, because so-called "light pollution" from millions of urban light sources make it difficult to see much of anything in the sky.

Streetlights make up around 38 percent of those sources, so any serious attempt to reduce light pollution must include streetlights. You don't want them too bright, for obvious reasons; you don't want them too dim, lest you provide opportunities for the sort of people who use darkness to cover their misdeeds. The Civil Twilight Collective proposes an elegantly-simple solution:

And come to think of it, the aforementioned evildoers don't really need darkness:

And this evenly-lit utopia won't cost all that much, either:

The hard part, of course, will be selling it to cities and counties.

(Via AutoblogGreen.)

All this needs is a voice box to yell "Get your ass out of bed!" (Evidently a Turkish product; seen first here. The new Turkish lira [YTL] is worth about 75 cents US.) Click here to increase size of butt.

Addendum: Oh, all right. Be that way. Click here to decrease size of butt.