No More Gas Caps
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
Ford has the technology to do away with removeable fuel caps. They’ll be phasing it in, starting with the higher-end vehicles.
Archive for August, 2006
Now THAT’S An Organic Salad
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
Square Watermelons
Wednesday, August 9th, 2006
This may be old news, but it’s new to me. Farmers are growing square watermelons by encasing them in square containers, which they grow to fit. Much easier to slice, store, and stack than conventional watermelons. In addition to the linked article, this article contains more information about the Japanese watermelons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…
(via Nothing To Do With Arbroath)
The Origin Of Basketball’s Shot Clock
Wednesday, August 9th, 2006
A bit of history on why and how the NBA created the 24-second shot clock.
An Expensive Grammatical Error
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006
The addition of a single comma will cost this company an estimated $2 million (Canadian).
Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/…
(via digg)
Baking In Your Car
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006
This woman discovered that she can bake cookies on her car dashboard when it’s hot outside.
Dell Laptops Are A Fire Hazard
Sunday, August 6th, 2006
Dell has been having problems with spontaneously combusting laptops. The linked article is about an incident in Japan, then it happened again in Illinois. Apparently Dell had previously issued a recall on some of its laptops because of fire concerns. Oops…
The Story Of The Apple Graphing Calculator
Sunday, August 6th, 2006
This is the story of an ex-contractor at Apple who sneaked into the building every day and continued to work on a cancelled project for months. The finished product was eventually included as part of the Mac OS. It’s amazing what you can get away with when they can’t fire you (because you’re not an employee).
Why Don’t Computers Have A ‘B’ Drive?
Saturday, August 5th, 2006
Wow. Not only did someone actually ask the question, but the “experts” had to look up the answer. Back in my Apple II days, if you didn’t have two floppy drives, you had to use a special program (Muffin?) to make a copy of a disk. Lots of disk swapping required.
Just wait. Next they’ll be asking, “What’s a floppy drive?”
AMD To Buy ATI
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006
The CPU maker AMD will be purchasing the graphics card/chip maker ATI, pending ATI shareholder approval. This acquisition has led to all kinds of speculation, including combining a CPU and GPU on the same chip. In addition, there are questions about how this will affect AMD’s relationship with other graphics companies (e.g., Nvidia), as well as ATI’s relationship with Intel. More details are available in the official press release (65KB PDF).
Solar Farming Pays Off
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006
This German man has discovered a way to actually make money from farming. He covered his fields with solar panels and sells the energy to the utility company. Reminds me of the old joke where a farmer won the lottery. When asked what he’d do with the money, he replied that he’d keep on farming till he lost it all.
Collecting On Fake Checks
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006
This man received some junk mail that included a non-negotiable sample check for $95,093.35 (along the lines of “you could make this much money if you use our get-rich-quick system”). Just for kicks he deposited the check, and it cleared. Fully expecting it to bounce at a later date, he didn’t withdraw the money. But after several weeks with no bounce and repeated reassurances by the bank, he decided to do some research. Turns out the check was indeed negotiable, even though it said “non-negotiable for cash.” So he got to keep the money. Note to self: Do not use real bank account information on fake checks…
This reminds me of my days in college, where a credit card insurance company sent me real checks. I was supposed to fill out my credit card info on the back but never did. I got several pizzas from that deal.
