Robots should be useful...

I found this very in depth video on a new robot.

It rides a unicycle.

That's it.

I can't figure out why anyone would want want of these. I think it would be far cheaper and healthier to buy your own unicycle.

On my "cool electronic lawn mowing dog" scale, this gets a low 1.5, because it does almost nothing to further the dream of the electronic lawn mowing dog.

Cool Anti-"Pork" Website...

I was watching the Presidential Debate yesterday, and Senator McCain mentioned a website that lets you know what people in the Legislative Branch are adding the most line item spending items (a.k.a Pork Barrel Spending).

The site lets you sum up the amount spent in each bill by individual, state, party, or the entire legislative branch. The numbers are astronomical.

I recommend you look over what the people who represent you have been doing with your money.

Here's the link: Citizens Against Government Waste

It's good to have competition...

At long last, T-Mobile has brought out a good competitor to the iPhone.

It's called the G1. It's based on the Android OS by Google, and looks to have a good set of features that makes you actually want to use the darned thing.

It's designed to let you decide what you want to put on your phone, not what Apple wants you to put on your phone.

Oh yeah, and it's hundreds of dollars less than the iPhone.



If you want a lot more information, you can watch the press conference. It's boring, but it still has the most info on the G1 out there.

Wowee!

Well, you know I can't resist an entry about a cool robot.

This one is kind of like a Roomba, only useful.

It can wander around your house, has a camera that you can adjust the vantage point and allows you to command and get telemetry from a web browser.

It's called the Rovio, and it's really going to be quite affordable ($299 U.S.).

I'm one step closer to the Electronic Lawn Mowing dog...except this one doesn't mow the lawn.

For those who want a Mac, but not a "Mac"....

I saw this post on a product that allows you to attach a USB Dongle to your relatively new Intel x86 machine and install the retail version of Mac OSX.

I've always said for years that if Mac would sell OSX it would start to take a bigger chunk of the personal computer market.  But does Mac listen to me, nope!

Now their operating system will start to take more market share with or without there blessing:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/17/os-x-installing-efi-x-now-shipping-for-155/

The Japanese are smarter...?

The Japanese apparently aren't keen on the iPhone.  Apple has sold about 1/10th of what they've sold in the United States.

This makes me wonder if they're smarter than we are, have already cooler stuff, or just don't get the sublime nature of the iPhone.  I'm thinking it's one of the first two personally.

Here's an interesting article on how well it's been selling over there.

The Mathemagician

There's a web site that posts lectures called TED.com.  It's goal is stimulate ideas:

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design."

One of the lectures is by a guy named Arthur Benjamin.  He can do some pretty amazing math in his head. If ever you need someone to figure out what the tip should be, he's the guy for you.

I think this qualifies a really nerdy, but I'll post it anyway:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html

For more about TED you can read up here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/pages/view/id/5