Monthly Archives: November 2009

Take them to heaven?

Posted on Friday November 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

A sign at the post office for “The Angels of New York.” Well intentioned, but rather creepy.

Feel Good Friday

Posted on Friday November 6, 2009 | 1 comment

A couple videos to warm the cockles of your cold and tired heart. Maybe even the rest of it, too.

First, a story of nurturing, separation, and the enduring power of love. And of shopping for wildlife at a department store. Money can buy you love: Lion Love.

(Full ending with original soundtrack here.)

For something a little less involved/narrative-based, put your eyes on Keepon, the hugably cute dancing robot that made a splash on the YouTube back in 2007 and was subsequently co-opted by researchers who use it to study autism and other important stuff. But its research value aside, and whether or not you’ve seen it before, it can’t fail to light up your day just a little.

For a new twist I suggest you have a friend G-Chat you the link so that you can have the video run mini-sized in the corner while you trudge through your inbox. NB: The song is great, but Keepon’s squishy moves work their magic even with the volume off.

And of course, I can always rely on the E Trade Baby. Holy smokes, these get me every freakin’ time.

1 Comment

Posted in Information Stupor Highway

Tagged christian the lion, etrade baby, keepon, spoon, tv commercials, videos, youtube

The Vertical Bed Helps You Catch Some Shuteye in the City That Never Sleeps

Posted on Thursday November 5, 2009 | 1 comment

Someone should have thought of this sooner. The vertical bed. Collapsible into a George Jetson-like briefcase, the complete upright-sleep support system attaches to subway grates to support your body weight. The package also includes noise-canceling headphones, opaque sunglasses, and an umbrella. You know, in case you want to nap while standing in the rain.

One thing the designers forgot to hype: the soothing hot stench of subway grate air. Nothing eases me into sleep like noxious fumes wafting up from the steamy bowels of NYC’s mass transit system.

Apparently it works for the guy in the photo, too. He tested it by taking a 40-minute snooze at 33rd and Broadway. The site claims he “dreamed of a subversive van.” Any insight on that one, Freud?

Personally, I want one to wear to shows, so I can lean back and fold my arms judgmentally even when I can’t score real estate along the wall.

[via Gizmodo]

1 Comment

Posted in Gadgeteering

Tagged naps, noise canceling headphones, nyc mass transit, vertical bed

More Fun with Apostrophes

Posted on Thursday November 5, 2009 | 3 comments

In case we hadn’t beaten the apostrophe discussion to death, here’s an illustrated guide to proper usage from the guys over at TheOatmeal.com, a site full of quizzes and comics with (often misleadingly) clever titles.

It pretty much covers all apostrophal eventualities. One thing I’d like to add to the it(’)s question: think of the possessive “its” like “his” or “hers.” Those possessive pronouns don’t have apostrophes either. Neato!

Have grammar or punctuation quandaries of your own? You’re not alone. If you’re unsure, then others probably are, too. (Extensive market research of both this blog’s readers indicate that whoever you are, you’re most likely wicked smart.) Feel free to email the Unhappy Mediator with questions and maybe we can all learn something.

Meantime, click the apostrophe chart on the right, or visit the original at apostrophe.me

Happy punctuating.

ps. I second that –>

3 Comments

Posted in Write and Wrong

Tagged apostrophes, possessive pronouns, punctuation

Space Elevator Is No-Laughing Matter

Posted on Wednesday November 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

Space elevator + pop culture irreverence = scitechilarity

[xkcd.com]

Do You Take Your Gadgets for Granted?

Posted on Wednesday November 4, 2009 | 1 comment

In 1961 two programmers taught the IBM 7094 how to sing.

Kennedy was president, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was a hit, the Germans were building a wall, and in a laboratory at IBM a room-sized 7094 Data Processing System, built for large-scale scientific computing, was haltingly half-crazy over the love of you.

In this photo from the IBM archives, the operator in the foreground is using the IBM 7151 Console Control Unit to monitor the system's performance, while the one in the background is checking on the 1301 Disk Storage Unit.

Later today, while you’re taking new music suggestions from Pandora or your personal iTunes Genius, give a think to how downright cool it is to be able to do so. We get so used to the technology that suffuses every facet of our daily lives, that it’s easy to lose perspective on the rapid evolution that’s taken place over the last four decades or so. Remember, not so long ago Sony’s Discman was cutting edge.

I was watching my friend look up something on his iPhone the other day. And I’m thinking, holy shit, it’s this flat little thing in the palm of your hand, and you can use it to talk to anyone anywhere in the world and you can just poke the screen to look up information on and photos of anything you want whenever you feel like it. (If you have signal, naturally.) It’s about 10,000 times radder than the communicators on Star Trek, and those were fictional. If the original Kirk were here right now, it’d blow his freaking mind.

Forty years from now people are going to look back at us and our cell phones and netbooks and think it’s all terribly quaint.

1 Comment

Posted in Gadgeteering

Tagged communicator, daisy bell, discman, ibm 7094, iphone, star trek

Google Game: Sugar

Posted on Tuesday November 3, 2009 | 1 comment

Riding high on Halloween candy — that I purchased for half-price at the drug store yesterday — and finding that my yen for sugar is virtually insatiable, I endeavored to sate it virtually.

I was a surprised to find a dearth of literally-sugar-related material, though these adorable little sugar gliders helped satisfy my searching’s sweet tooth:

Seriously. How cute are we?

Then hit a twinge of sour, however, as I was reminded of how many of my countrymen love country music. And Sugar Ray.

Most everything else in Google’s suggestions looked somewhat familiar. Except sugardoodle, aka SugarDoodle.com. So I took a gander. The site’s header says, “Growing Together [est. 2005].” I scrolled down the page, not understanding what I was looking at, and found an old school visitors counter: 24,757,355. Nearly 25 million in under five years. Not bad. But what is it all about? I read a bit more, a bit here a bit there, and I started to find answers… from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

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