Netflix now available for the iPhone and iPod touch

Very cool!

With this Netflix app you can stream your live queue via WiFi and 3G. Video content includes both movies and TV shows and as Netflix gets more popular they are adding newer content too. You have full control over the streaming video too and can fast forward and rewind as you like. You can even start watching on your TV at home (through a device like the Nintendo Wii or Roku) and then pick up right where you left off on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Call phones from Gmail

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/

I'm not sure I really understand the usefulness of this.
I guess it's cool that it's available though.



http://news.yahoo.com/s//ap/20100826/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_techbit_google_e_mail_calling

Bump Android app is the new business card

http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/bump-goes-cross-platform-with-new-android-app-upgrades-iphone-version-too/

Google Goggles

This is one of the coolest new smart-phone apps.

Apple files for "iTunes Live" trademark

with their recent purchase of LaLa, I think we can assume they're planning to create some way of accessing all the songs in your itunes library from anywhere.
This might be super cool.

children's book from the future

Every month WIRED magazine puts something on the back page called "Artifacts From The Future", it's supposed to be an imagining of what a future product might look like.

windows 7 taskbar - users guide

http://lifehacker.com/5532578/the-power-users-guide-to-the-windows-7-taskbar

Net Neutrality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_the_United_States

Network Neutrality is a very important issue to anyone who uses the internet, and anyone who runs a business utilizing the web.

Some broadband providers have proposed to start charging content providers in return for higher levels of service, creating what is known as a tiered Internet. Packets originating from providers who pay the additional fees would in some fashion be given better than "neutral" handling, while those content providers who do not pay the higher fees would get a lesser level of service. Given this ability to accelerate the handling of selected packets, the service providers would perhaps give Quality of Service guarantees to given senders or recipients.

The legal debate about net neutrality regulations echoes previous arguments about the public interest requirements of the telecommunications industry, and whether companies involved in broadcasting are best viewed as community trustees, with obligations to society and consumers, or marketplace participants with obligations only to their shareholders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_the_United_States

Kraft To Cadbury Workers: Leave Pension Plan Or Take Pay Freeze

http://consumerist.com/2010/04/kraft-to-cadbury-give-up-pension-or-agree-to-pay-freeze.html


Kraft has taken over Cadbury.

Kraft has warned 3,600 Cadbury employees that they'll face a three-year pay freeze if they don't agree to "voluntarily" opt out of the company's pension plan.

Separately, Kraft announced that CEO Irene Rosenfeld was getting a 40% pay hike this year, due in part to her "exceptional" management of the Cadbury deal. Rosenfeld's 2009 take will be about $26 million.

Bastards!

jiwire helps you find free wifi hotspots in your area

just enter a zip code, and a list with addresses appears.

http://www.jiwire.com/

2011 Ford Mustang V-6 305 horsepower and 31 mpg.

awesome!
It's the first time a production car has achieved over 30mpg *and* over 300 horsepower.
Too little too late, but still a step in the right direction (even though this should have been achieved 20 years ago.)

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/03/mustang_v6_31_mpg/

3 problems with Facebook

1. it confuses broadcasting with communication. They can't both be done at the same time, and they can't both be done well.

2. it merges your social venn diagram to one big circle with you in the middle.
previously you would separate different facets of your life and the people associated with them by time and space. Facebook collapses groups of people you know from different circumstances into one group.

3. friendships that are "strong ties" don't require facebook, because you're already in constant communication. facebook is for friendships that are "weak ties" (acquaintances and fake friends).

How do you find out *how* to be who you *need* to be?

I don't know either.

Caucasian Mummies Found In China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/chinamum/taklamakan.html

Garden of Eden found?!?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

The Others

A lot of people NEED opposition.
REQUIRE an us against them feeling in order to get anything done.
This is a fault that needs to be overcome.

you can change your homepage to something more interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomPage
make it so your homepage is always a random wikipedia page.
this way you can learn something new everytime you click the home button.

or try
http://fav4.org/
you can choose your favorite 4 websites and put image links to them on this page. it's simple, and neat. give it a look.

Everyday life isn't epic!

Everyday life will never feel epic.
Everyday life is filled with normal everyday things.
Besides, if everyday life really felt epic, you would have raised the bar and made "epic" the new normal, meaning you'd have a new and higher "epic threshold" anyway.

High-fructose corn syrup contains mercury!?

By Robert Preidt, HealthDay

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80% more HFCS than average.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. continued...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-27-corn-syrup_N.htm

how to shine your boots

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/07/29/how-to-get-the-best-shoe-shine/

best movies of 2009

my 2009 movie opinions. There weren't very many good movies that came out in 2009, but here is a list of the few movies worth watching.


Up - best animated movie
Taken - best action movie
The Hangover - best comedy
Coraline - best visual effects
The Blind Side - best "feel-good" movie
(500) Days Of Summer - best date movie
District 9 - best science fiction movie



(I have heard great things about Moon, and Inglourious Basterds; but I haven't yet watched the movies.)



Most retarded looking movies of 2009:
Transformers 2
Twilight 2

How do drug companies come up with their crazy brand names? This is how...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-10-07-drug-names_N.htm

NAFTA's impact on U.S. employment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA%27s_Impact_on_US_Employment

NAFTA's opponents attribute much of the displacement caused in the US labor market to the United States’ growing trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. According to the EPI, the widening of the deficit has caused the dislocation of domestic production to other countries with cheaper labor and supported the loss of 879,280 US jobs. Critics see the argument of the proponents of NAFTA as being one-sided because they only take into consideration export-oriented job impact instead of looking at the trade balance in aggregate. They argue that increases in imports ultimately displaced the production of goods that would have been made domestically by workers within the United States.

The export-oriented argument is also critiqued because of the discrepancy between domestically-produced exports and exports produced in foreign countries. For example, many US exports are simply being shipped to Mexican maquiladores where they are assembled, and then shipped back to the U.S. as final products. These are not products destined for consumption by Mexicans, yet they made up 61% of exports in 2002. However, only domestically-produced exports are the ones that support U.S. labor. Therefore, the measure of net impact of trade should be calculated using only domestically-produced exports as an indicator of job creation.

78% of the net job losses under NAFTA, 686,700 jobs, were relatively-high paying manufacturing jobs. Certain states with heavy emphasis on manufacturing industries like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California were significantly affected by these job losses.