Blatantly Random » Tech

Happy Monday – Washing Machine Vs Brick

Malcolm Owen — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 07:54:13 +0000

1. I’m not a fan of equipment meant for chores that doesn’t live up to expectations. A washing machine should be able to take anything that you throw in it, especially heavy loads. Yet somehow this isn’t what was expected by the manufacturers…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=364dzVsBs2o

2. Happy Monday!

[Boing Boing]

Happy Monday – iPad Takedown

Malcolm Owen — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:57:45 +0000

1. If you’ve bought a new electrical device, you’ll want to take it apart as quickly as possible to see how it works. Sadly, most of us are unable to do so as we are klutzes and will damage the goddamned thing. Well, the people at TechRestore have demolished and rebuilt an iPad. In stop motion…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs79QEbWrLc

2. Happy Monday!

[TechRestore via TechMamba]

Conan O’Brien Has A Twitter, World Rejoices

Malcolm Owen — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:23:00 +0000

Conan O’Brien, the world’s greatest late-night talkshow host, has now got a Twitter. He’s @conanobrien, and yet has somehow managed (at this time of writing at least) 385,000 followers after posting just 3 tweets in as many days.

Yes, he is popular. But will he become more popular than @Oprah? I at least hope so…

Guitar Hero Vs Christmas Lights

Malcolm Owen — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:33:52 +0000

As you may be aware, some people go nuts over Christmas decorations. Some more so than others to stupidly competitive levels. . How do you top a light and musical extravaganza that your neighbour down the road has created?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXjbMIZzAgs

Answer: You make it interactive! There’s a wireless Guitar Hero controller that works just like normal Guitar Hero does, except instead of watching a screen for the blobs to strum, you have to watch the Christmas lights.I do have to admire the work that goes into this by its creator, as I doubt it would be as simple as plug and play. Many evenings must have been sacrificed for this to occur.

Yes, they have a high-score table. No, I’m not on it.

[YouTube]

Photoshop CS4 Has Sliders… Lots of Sliders…

Malcolm Owen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:44:39 +0000

You would expect from a high-priced product with a vast user base to get things right. Sadly, it appears Photoshop CS 4 has issues.

For reasons known only to Adobe, Photoshop has lots of different types of sliders. A good selection of those are documented here, along with a few other gripes over the software from someone that uses it for a living. Of course, there are others that complain about Adobe all the time…

[via Neven Mrgan's Tumbl and Adobe UI Gripes]

Sir Tim Berners-Lee Apologises For Double Forward Slashes

Malcolm Owen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:41:47 +0000

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (Also known as that guy that did the making of the internet tubes type stuff) has admitted that he didn’t really need to put two slashes near the start of a URL.

“Really, if you think about it, it doesn’t need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //”, he said, speaking at a symposium on the future of technology in Washington DC last week.

I’m not one to complain, but bearing in mind most browsers work fine if you omit the beginning http://, is it really that much of a problem for people? I liken it to an intelligence test, namely if you can’t remember to type that correctly, you don’t deserve to see the content.

[via The Times]

Mythbuser Has Large Phone Bill, Tweets and Gets Charges Dropped

Malcolm Owen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:32:15 +0000

It now turns out that Twitter has a use, aside from getting news out about major world events! Shocking!

Adam Savage, the guy from Mythbusters, had a phone bill from AT&T for $11,000. Apparently he was in Canada and got heavily charged for light data usage. Just like any other phone company on the planet, AT&T sent him the bill, expecting just a call on it’s customer service line from a person famous for blowing things up.
Sadly, AT&T failed to recognise that Adam had over 50,000 Twitter Followers watching whatever @donttrythis said.
To those that don’t know, that’s a lot.
Eventually the noise got to someone vaguely important at AT&T whom stepped in and sensibly (for a phone company at least) cut the charges down to a far more manageable size. Cue cheering from huddled masses of Twitter followers…

The use of Twitter: Mobilizing thousands to do what only one voice cannot. Let’s just hope that Adam doesn’t use his new-found powers for evil…

[via Computerworld.com via Switched]