The Rigged-Up Net

Got a new camera yesterday… Canon PowerShot SD300 Digital ELPH… retiring my S400, the new one is much smaller… much faster… and does a really good job with video.

Here’s a review:

Canon PowerShot SD300 Digital ELPH

Overweight and obese women who take oral contraceptives are 60 percent to 70 percent more likely to get pregnant while on the birth-control pill, respectively, than women of lower weight, according to new findings from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that will be published in the January issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Getting pregnant while on the pill: Yet another health hazard of being overweight

It was only a matter of time. For several years, electronic devices in cars have monitored acceleration and braking to save fuel and improve safety. Now, they’re saving some of that data to give automakers and police a better idea of how you drive.

30 million cars now record drivers’ behavior

At least 13 airports are sending motorists to “cell phone lots” to wait until the arriving travelers call for a ride, a new attempt to unplug road-clogging bottlenecks at passenger pickup spots.

Cell phone parking lots simplify pickups at airports

For a few years now, search engine darling Google has worn the tiara as the tech world’s “it” company.

Will Google stay as hot as its lava lamps?

If you haven’t read this, you MUST… its crazy what these two guys pulled off:

The Graphing Calculator Story

HDTVs aren’t cheap…yet. But 2004 may be remembered as the year when they got a whole lot more affordable. During the 2003 holiday buying season, HDTVs were the hot buy, and 2004 looks to be another big year for the growth of the HDTV installed base.

State of the Industry: HDTV

It’s the never-ending argument of “to mix tape brands, or not to mix tape brands.” There have been horror stories of people mixing tape brands in their camcorders, only to have the tape be mangled, eaten, no signal on the tape, or “head clog” messages coming up if you’re lucky enough to encounter one during a once-in-a-lifetime taping.

miniDV Lubricants

It will be the true story of seven strangers, picked to live in a house in Austin and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.

Get real: Austin to be home to 16th season of ‘The Real World’

Multimillionaire Graham Weston has such a golden touch that he could be the next Donald Trump of San Antonio.

Price isn’t the object to San Antonio’s modest multimillionaire

An in-depth analysis of bacteria in US turkeys has revealed that high proportions of bacteria found in the birds are “superbugs”, resistant to many of the antibiotics used on farms and to treat people.

Undercooked turkeys can harbour superbugs

Beginning Jan. 2, consumers can buy a 10-ounce container of Wolfgang Puck gourmet latte at the store and heat it by pressing a button. No electricity. No batteries. No appliances.

Single-serving coffee can heats itself

Ditch your Treo for a dirt-cheap Nokia.

The Super Phone You Can Get for Free

Early registration for the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference suggests that 2005 likely will be the biggest year Austin has seen in the conference’s 19-year history.

SXSW to attract record attendance

Time Warner has unwrapped a holiday gift for its cable Internet subscribers: faster downloads. The company plans to roll out increased speeds of 5Mbits and 8Mbits per second, a 2Mbit boost for its standard and premium RoadRunner cable offerings. Customers in New York will see the improved download speeds starting next Tuesday, while the rest of the country will reap the benefits come January. Time Warner says it will not increase prices for its 3.7 million broadband users.

Time Warner Boosts Cable Speeds

“Publicity is becoming like politics,” Kaplan says. “The spinners and handlers are getting more attention as the backstage mechanics, and people are realizing that fame isn’t something that happens accidentally.”

Power behind the Oscars

Dozens of manhole covers were stolen in Milwaukee this summer.

For thieves, metal transmutes to cash

This is a great deal… Unlimited inbound faxing to email with private number for only $4/month… much cheaper than eFax. This won’t solve your sending problems, but its easy to find a fax machine here or there to send the occasional fax. And fax machines are inexpensive at $30 or so these says.

Packetel Fax Service

The extended simulated sex scene between two non-anotomically correct dolls which was cut from the movie Team America.

Team America: Deleted Sex Scene

The two biggest names in long-distance — AT&T and MCI — are on the auction block. The question is: Does anyone want these two struggling carriers?

Seismic shifts in telecom put 2 giants on the block

Short, to-the-point messages for use on the freeway as needed

Road rage cards

Why? The answer, I think, is that most smart kids don’t really want to be popular.

Why Nerds Are Unpopular

Nearly half of mobile phone users want a guide on ‘text etiquette’, a study by research company YouGov has found.

SMS shorthand is annoying: Official

There is a WHOLE blog dedicated to making fun of how people look… thats just awesome! There are people so bored with life this is all they are left with…. wow!

http://fuggingitup.blogspot.com/

Schlotzsky’s Inc., the Austin-based sandwhich maker, has been sold for $28.5 million to Bobby Cox Companies Inc. of Fort Worth.

Schlotzsky’s purchased for $28.5M

Design website Coudal.Com is offering a solution to obnoxious mobile phones users by way of a series of cards that you can fill out and hand out to people that just don’t realize (or care) that they are annoying everybody else around them.

Dealing With Obnoxious Phone Users

Red Hat needs to lower its prices, or risk losing customers to free versions of the open-source operating system, the Dell executive who oversees the partnership with the Linux seller said Tuesday.

Dell: Red Hat needs to lower prices

The 5 a.m. commuter is no longer an oddity. The workday is starting at an increasingly early hour as more employees adopt non-traditional work schedules, a fast-growing trend that’s transforming the 9-to-5 workday.

Working 9-to-5 no longer

Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.

‘We will be able to live to 1,000’

TiVo which makes digital video recording devices (DVRs) sold in retail stores and offered to DirecTV subscribers, has become the target of a lot of investor attention again after two very noneventful months.

TiVo Can’t Shake Cable Colossus

Tonight, I found out that my WinXP workstation’s password had been changed… I’m guessing its one of several trojans/viruses that are out there that does it… no big deal, just reset it with the NT Password Reset Boot Disk:

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD

Television networks are lending new meaning to time-shifting: TV shows don’t necessarily start or end right on the hour or half-hour anymore, screwing up some viewers’ video recordings.

TV Networks Shift Times, Run Longer Shows

Martin Sargent’s show UNSCREWED is no longer, but these clips are pretty funny…

Mysteries of Science… EXPLAINED!

It is one of the largest computing projects on the planet, arguably employing more computers than any other single, fully managed system (we’re not counting distributed computing projects here), some 200 computer science PhDs, and 600 other computer scientists.

The magic that makes Google tick

A new federal law allows you to request a free credit report each year. Click the url below to get your free credit report from Equifax, TransUnion, and experian. Western US valid now, others valid later.

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/

Vote for Rackspace in Fast Company’s 2005 fast 50!

Go down to the bottom — you rate us from 1 to 10 and then type a NICE comment!

http://www.fastcompany.com/fast50_05/profile/index.html?weston450

Send it to your friends!

This is aweseome!

A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack launched by users of Lycos Europe’s MakeLoveNotSpam.com screensaver has succeeded in crippling several spammer sites

Spam Sites Crippled by Lycos Screensaver DDoS Performance

The third-generation network will offer average data speeds between 400-700 kilobits per second (Kbps), and bursts to several megabits per second on capable devices.

Cingular set to launch third-generation wireless network

Foster is one of 3.4 million Americans who endure a daily “extreme commute” of 90 minutes or more each way to work. They’re among the fastest-growing segment of commuters, according to a Census study, Journey to Work, released in March. Their commute times are more than triple the national average of 25.5 minutes each way.

Think your commute is tough?

This past Turkey-Day I was Mr. Fixit… everything around my parents house that needed repair was my responsibility these past few days. Besides the typical geek-son duties of rewiring the home network and fixing whatever windows bugs were on the family PCs, I also worked on the appliances… A new built-in microwave oven went in, and my dad and I tackled the refrigerator which had been a bit too warm for the past few months.

I’m happy to say that everything is repaired and working. I found this great website for replacement parts and ordered a few things for the fridge that needed replacing from them:

http://www.repairclinic.com/

I highly recommend it – lots of pictures so you can match parts up… no hassle web ordering. Few minutes spent matching up the pics with the parts, and you’re done. Probably would have cost over $400 if a repair man came by – oh what fun. 🙂