Saturday Stew: A Bunch of Tasty Tidbits

[cahwyguy]

It’s Saturday, and that means there’s a tasty pot of news chum on the stove. In honor of today’s faire, I’ll serve it to you in a bread bowl for your enjoyment:

• My Buddy, Thomas. Note that it is still not too late to see my buddy, Thomas, out at Orange Empire Rwy Museum (this is his last weekend there). While you’re there, you can ask Sir Topham Hatt about the baffling economics of the Island of Sodor, which really shouldn’t work at all. Perhaps they run off all the funds acquired when Thomas goes on book signing tours?
• Bricking Your Car. Here’s an interesting one: Renault is shipping a new electric car with proprietary battery technology. So proprietary, in fact, that you have to make a monthly licensing payment for as long as you own the car. If you don’t pay, Renault can remotely brick the car. One question not answered: What does this mean for the used car marketplace?
• Moving Maps. We tend to think of our maps as static. Streets, after all, don’t move. Mountains don’t move. Landmarks don’t move. They have GPS coordinates, and stay there. Or do they? In actually, we’re all on moving plates and our GPS coordinates are constantly changing. Here’s an interesting article on how Google Maps deals with tectonic plate movements.
• A City of Waste. We tend to think of Las Vegas as a city of waste. Waste power. Wasted food on buffets. Loads of trash from guests. But guess what? The big resorts in Vegas are making a strong effort to be sustainable, and are diverting a sizable amount of trash from the landfill.
• We’re In The Money. We’ve all gotten stuff off of Craigslist. But what would you do if the item of furniture you bought had $98,000 in cash in it? This happened to a Rabbi in New Jersey, and what he did was straight out of … Torah. He was honest. He contacted the person who sold him the desk, confirmed they built the desk, and returned the funds. Alas, cynical America wouldn’t stand for it, if you read the comments.
• iPod Anniversary. This week marked the 12th anniversary of the introduction of the iPod, and … nothing. I guess no news is good news (I loves me my iPod Classic, yessssssss I do). The iPod debuted in 2001 for $399. Back then, it held “only” 1,000 songs–plenty for any self-respecting music hoarder to store their libraries on. The modern “classic” iPod now holds “your top 40,000″ songs, as Apple puts it. The price? $249. That’s a $50 drop for a 4,000% increase in capacity, and that’s not even adjusted for inflation. I, for one, like a single use dedicated device. Multifunction devices have their place, but single function devices (Nooks, iPods, Kindles) do have their uses. They can excel at one thing, not be mediocre in everything.
• Never Underestimate the Stupidity. Many people tout the fact that government should listen to what the people say and do what they want. What that forgets is: the great majority of the populace is stupid and doesn’t bother to think. We’ve seen this before in surveys of how many people believe that the Biblical account is 100% true, and here’s another example: A majority of people still believe a conspiracy was behind JFK’s assassination. Of course, the hard part about disproving a conspiracy theory is that the conspiracy is creating the fake evidence.
• Good Relationship Advice. One of the bloggers I enjoy reading is The Ferrett. His posts are usually inciteful. He had a post earlier this week about why the small things in relationships are important — and why what is important is not being perfect for your partner, but showing demonstrable progress on taking their concerns into account.

Next up: Getting ready for Nottingham Festival. This evening is Children of Eden at Our Lady of Lourdes, and tomorrow is a CD release party from Big Daddy. Busy busy weekend.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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