Now this is a car a girl could fall in love with: The Tesla Roadster—100% electric.
I don’t expect you’ll be able to get one in this country any time soon, but… you never know. It’s something infintely nicer to strive for than a tacky Rolex.
Category Archives: Toys
Toys
The Blessed Sound of Silence (Thanks, Bose!)
As the name of this blog suggests*, low-frequency machine noise drives me bug-fucking mad. Well, now I’m in (silent) heaven, having just bought a pair of Bose QuietComfort 2 noise-cancelling headphones.
If low frequency background noise stresses you out, I highly recommend these gadgets. They’re designed to eliminate engine noise in aircraft cabins, but they also cancel things like: idling busses, trucks, and generators; a fair bit of machine fan noise (not all); and of course…fridge compressors. You can still hear people talking and the phone ringing and all that other stuff you don’t want blocked out (unless you’ve got them plugged into your iPod, that is.) For city-dwellers, they’re a must-have. Possibly the best—and healthiest—toy I’ve ever bought myself.
*And you thought it was a reference to Radiohead, didn’t you? Well, even though it isn’t, I am definitely a fan. See you at the Hummingbird Centre Thursday night!
My Kingdom (such as it is) for a HUD
What I actually need is a hands-free computer. Due to a recent shoulder injury, I’ve been using the voice interface to Mac OS X to relieve some of the strain of typing and mousing. Being able to “page down” with a voice comand is a real pain-saver. Now if I could only get a wireless, head-mounted display with an FM transmitter, I might be able to perform a lot of non-typing tasks (such as reading email, on-line research, etc.) without being physically constrained by the location and form of the stationary, digit-driven machine.
A mathie by training, I’m not “electronically-inclined”–in other words, I’m not even a novice hardware hacker. Fortunately, I have several friends who can make circuit boards sit up and beg. One used to work for Steve Mann, the poster-boy for cyborgs. Another hacks hardware to make art. I wonder how many pitchers I’ll have to buy them both to convince them to help me with this project? “Barkeep!”