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There are devices that capture time based data and DTC code numbers and they only costs hundreds of dollars. http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8426/ for instance and http://www.autotap.com/product_family.asp?FamilyId =260&Trail=36&TrailType=Top . The point I was making is that I don't want to leave it up to my auto manufacturer to tell me what data I am interested in. My computer spits out the data required to calculate mpg on the fly yet by dashboard has no readout for that. My computer can tell me the condition of my engine sensors beyond just errors and my dashboard cannot. Even worse, my dashboard only tells me if the oil pressure is below a critical threshold but I would like to know if the oil pressure is low before that light comes on.

So don't try to tell me that most customers would not care about such a feature. I just want it to be included and I mentioned it because this is an article about Tricked-Out cars. Wouldn't it be cool if your Mercedes Dealer gave you a USB drive with a ODB-II port on it that could download all the history from the engine management and then bring it over to your PC for analysis if you wanted to? Then you could set a parameter to reset certain codes when it was re-inserted in the port, plug it back in your car and now your stupid engine check light is not on simply because you've gone more then 3000 miles on your 15,000 mile synthetic oil.

The power plug on my desktop computer is plugged into to a Kill-A-Watt Watt meter which shows that I am using 94 Watts at the moment. My large 19 inch monitor uses a different power cord and is using additional power not included in that figure. I have an older socket 939 version of the AMD-64 3800+ which, when running a 64-bit version of Linux, throttles the CPU back to 1 GHz during light usage to save power. Under heavy usage it goes up to its full 2.4 GHz speed and uses significantly more power then. I don't have Windows XP on this computer, but my guess would be that it would probably do the same thing. It has not sure how the AMD-64's energy efficiency compares to Intel or other AMD processors. I am not a gamer and am using an ordinary video card that probably isn't very power hungry and doesn't even have a fan. The computer's power supply is the 83% efficient Antec Phantom 350 power supply, which is an energy efficient fanless 350 Watt model that Antec used to make. I also have 2 very large hard drives and 1 GB of RAM.

I haven't yet had a chance to read the article, but decided to post my power usage for comparison. A laptop would probably use even less power.

That's because these are the clocks they use: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/7437/

Several companies already make RFID blocking wallets. Presumably something similar could easily be designed for ID badges. I don't know for sure, but the wallets are probably lined in a way to make it act like a Faraday cage. Here are examples of RFID blocking wallets:

• RFID Blocking Wallet
• Stainless Steel Wallets

When you say “need incandescent lighting”, I presume you're speaking of the quality and responsiveness of the light source, not of the need for an excited wire filament inside a vacuum-sealed glass orb. (clearly more efficient as a heat source than a light source... evidenced by the common Lava Lamp®)

I mean really, what's the need about? Is it about a strong-and-steady flow of photons? Is it about a light source that can be analog-controlled to dim and brighten in smooth steps?

I may not be speaking for everyone, but for those of us that are prone to the affliction, enduring the 60-66Hz “hummm” and the barely-perceptible flicker of fluorescent is a condition I will trade-in for just about anything.

I've seen a lot of lighting fads come and go. Fluorescent seems to stay just because it's so ergonomically attractive against vis-a-vis Heat Lamps. CF is about the same, just in a smaller package. Cold-cathode lamps are nifty, but they're about as useful as Xmas Lights, and cost ten times more. (with current Consumer Offerings) My bet is on up-and-coming technologies like bright LED and HID (High Intensity Discharge; the son of the Arc Lamp) lighting.

Just this past year, I've noticed an abundance of LED lighting technologies— not in the news, but in my hand. To me, that means a lot more than “coming soon”.

Butane lighters with a small LED flashlight are now common give-away items, as are just simple promotional pocket-lights. Battery-operated LED Xmas Lighting is now just about everywhere, and in many colors. (most popular, of course, is pure-white) When a technology becomes commonplace, that is when you know its about to come into its own.

Look at cellphones and GPS; both were considered Luxury or High End at first, then the price dropped enough that everyone found a reason to buy one. When everyone on the block has the same technology, the industry is pressured to make it better. As soon as cellphones became common, it was a race to make The Best Cellphone. Though there are clear leaders, that race is still on.

You watch; this will come to the Lighting Industry as well. As the knock-off CF and LED lighting floods the market, the leaders have to come-up with innovations to make their offering (seem) better than the others. (Note the implied reservation) Though I don't doubt their ability to innovate, I do doubt their veracity in purporting innovation.

There's already a remarkable offering of Consumer LED Lighting. Compact Fluorescents already have their well-earned niche, although I personally have distaste for them. As for high-end needs, such as photography and “spectacle” uses, (WARNING: token Wiki articles) HID is slowly emerging into its own. Your street may soon be lit with HID, rather than sodium vapor. (for example)

If General Electric can make a better light bulb, I say let them. If Australia never makes it legal to use one in your home when it would be just as viable as CF, it's their loss. I think a greater question is, how long is the “better light bulb” supposed to last? (LED “bulbs” are edging towards offering Lifetime Guarantees—and by that, meaning the lifetime of the consumer! W

LEDs are over ten times more efficient and the directionality of the light can be solved in a number of ways.

What are you smoking?

Incandescent from my closet: 100 watts, 1690 Lumens or 16.9 lumens/watt.

CFL: 27 watts, 1750 lumens or 64.8 lumens/watt.

Let's find a few LED lights...

LED spotlight: 8 watts, 120 lumens, 15 lumens/watt.

Bulb toward end of page: 10 watts, 200 lumens, 20 lumens/watt.

How about this $70 bulb? Surely that one must be bright! Nope: 10 watts, 340 lumens, 34 lumens/watt. Better, though -- half as efficient as the CFL, but still too dim for good room lighting.

LEDs are pretty cool for certain uses, but they SUCK for general purpose lighting.

In geekland you only get to be an asshole when you are right.

I'd like to be the first to welcome you to Slashdot, where anyone can be an asshole. Be sure to buy a t-shirt at the souvenir shop as you exit.

You know they have wireless power now?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wec.shtml

Ahhhh! Nothing quite like basking in glorious microwave radiation!

From thinkgeek:

Please note: Adding love.h to your partner object requires a few additional objects be streamed in before some functions are made available:

#include <love.h>

Partner significantOther;
Dinner dinner;
Flowers flowers;

significantOther << dinner << flowers;


Otherwise the call to significantOther.putOut() will throw an UninitializedMember() exception.

"Moral Kombat" - comic 5 Jan 2007.

"Obviously he [Jack Thompson] didn't mention anything to the police department about his "Modest proposal" in which he asks that a game be developed in which players urinate on peoples brains and murder kids who work at game stores. He never mentions that he offered ten thousand dollars to charity and then said it was just "satire." He doesn't tell the police chief that Jerry and I just donated the ten thousand for him. I wonder why he left that part out?" - Penny Arcade

Tshirts > Gaming > I Hate Jack Thompson...
Virtually every living creature hates Jack Thompson, professional scold and slavering ambulance chaser. Squirrels, policemen, sea captains, fruit bats... - black t-shirt

5318008
http://www.thinkgeek.com/pennyarcade/shirts/8c75/

I wonder why everyone assumes the choices are CFLs or incandescents? They have these new things called LEDs.

As it says on their official hoodie, "Penny Arcade: You wouldn't get it." In other words, the elitism is partly the point. People like PAX because it's a "convention for us", i.e. for the serious gamers who share an world-view similar to Holkins' and Krahulik.

I've got one (OLED screen) on my watch. The battery life even for displaying just the time is only about 8 hours, which is slightly inconvenient.

Or you can get a wireless extension cord... ; )

I want a neural power squid.

LEDs are extremely efficient, but in most cases aren't as bright as an ordinary light bulb. The box of ordinary 100 Watt light bulbs that I am looking at says they put out 1690 lumens while using 100 Watts. By comparison, one example of a 30 LED spotlight says that it puts out 150 lumens while only using 4.4 Watts. Perhaps someone could just use more of them, but even then the light they put out is usually a shade of white that seems harsher and less attractive looking. They are very efficient, although I don't know how they compare to fluorescent lights. Many cities are switching to LED light bulbs for their street lights, not so much because of electrical efficiency, but because they don't like having to change light bulbs regularly in such inconvenient hard to reach locations. LED light bulbs last for many years. Here are several examples of LED lightbulbs:

• LED Light Bulbs
• More LED Light Bulbs

When backpacking, I use a Pak-Lite Flashlight. I could use that flashlight all night (at least on the low setting) without worrying about the batteries going dead. When hiking late in the afternoon I always keep a small Pak-Lite in my pocket, just in case I don't make it back before dark. Back in the early 1990s, I was backpacking with a friend over night here in a remote part of the mountains of Northern Arizona. At about 9:00 p.m. the young man and a somewhat older woman came stumbling through the dark came up to our camp sight. They did not have a flashlight and were out of water and were lost. They asked which way the campground was and he said that his new wife and some other relatives were camping down in the campground. The woman was his new mother-in-law and this was the first hike she had ever been on in her life. They had made a wrong turn on the poorly maintained hard to follow trail and got lost. We refilled their water bottle, loaned them an extra flashlight and sent them down the trail in the correct direction. That was back before the days of LED flashlights. The flashlight that I loaned them must have gone dead before they made it back, because the next day I found the flashlight laying on my truck with a thank you note. I noticed that the batteries were dead. So when starting a long hike late in the afternoon I now always keep a tiny 9-volt LED flashlight in my pocket and take some water too so that I don't end up lost in the dark and thirsty like them.

The LED flashlight would be great for use during hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or the usual ordinary power failures that are caused by summer thunder storms every summer.

Really, if you just dropped $600 for a phone another $179 is just change...
Bluetooth keyboard.
Get one here... http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/

How is this different than the Mvix Wireless HD Media Center (except for the clearly obvious differences, of course and the price) http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/8e50/.

I had an IBM pentium 2? that I upgraded from win 98 to xppro, the sound card was completely non-supported.
I bought one of these
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/avcards/6e4f/

which do 5.1 (optical) and regular headphone output both
and that was a coupla 3-5 years ago...

A water pump that uses 85W sounds like way too much. The Zalman Reserator fanless water cooling system gets by with a 5W water pump. I have been using a slightly older version of the Zalman Reserator 1 on my computer for probably about 2 years now. I do not have a fan on my CPU or the video card so the computer is very quiet. With less heat being released inside the case I can also get by with running the case fan slower by adjusting the fan speed with the knob on a rheostat.

My Kill-A-Watt meter shows that my computer is only using 90 Watts at the moment (not counting the monitor). It uses significantly more under a heavy load. The cool 'n Quiet feature of my AMD-64 3800+ is enabled so the clock speed drops from 2.4 GHz to 1 GHz when under a light load. I don't have my monitor, water pump, DSL modem and other devices plugged into the Kill-A-Watt meter so the 90 Watt figure only includes my CPU and whatever else is inside the tower case. He uses 85 Watts just to cool his computers, he is cooling several computers, not just one. With my 5 Watt water pump the 2 water hoses shouldn't be more than a few feet long. The distance to his pool might require some extra power but would it require 85 Watts?

Sounds like someone got one of these shirts for Christmas and took it to heart.

In other news... stocks of a company selling I Hate Jack Thompson T-Shirts rise dramatically!

"Macho" doesn't enter in to it. It's just expression.

I don't really see what this story has to do with news for nerds

Every culture and subculture has some form of 'machismo'. In the world at large, machismo mostly consists of its literal interpretation, ie. doing those things that you stereotypically associate with being male: ie. being physically fit, healthy and attractive, being able to bed large numbers of women, being able to tolerate large amounts of drink and so on. Nerds, on the other hand, are very poor at these things. But they still need some form of token machismo so they can show off to their peers. This manifests itself in a couple of different ways. The obvious one is showing off your technical ability, eg. by displaying arcane knowledge of poorly documented parts of your OS. And another is to show off your ability to tolerate caffeine. Just observe any group of nerds together and watch the endless stream of little geeky jokes displaying their insecurity about caffeine: "The day hasn't started until my fifth coffee", "I'm a machine to turn caffeine into code", "why would anyone drink decaf?", even clothing to show off ones's capability for caffeine intake. Nerds worry that if they don't make these little comments, their ability to tolerate caffeine will be doubted and they will be perceived as somehow inferior.

And hence it's no surprise that Starbucks is an important part of geek culture.

Oh boy, another Lucas re-remake?
Indy Whipped First!

Is this not more useful? wireless extension cord The contact requirement of the pad almost seems as much of a tie down as a wire. Plus, with the wireless you can probably reheat your coffee while on the laptop by just raising you mug in the air...

Depends on what kind you have. This one is my favorite, the USB iGrill: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/igrill.sh tml

I think there is a fair bit of difference between those two things.

It looks to me more like a desktop designed to be easy to move around than a traditional laptop.

The computer you linked to looks more like an ancient precurser to the laptop than a gamers system that is easy to move around.

I guess you can make the case that a luggable computer you could use the way you would a desktop when its unpacked isnt that hard to think of and therefore not that innovative. But if thats true then why wasnt anyone else making computers like this before them?

... In fact, it was so realistic that someone created a set of input devices very similar to those in the movie.

You can order one from ThinkGeek http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/. I don't know anyone who has every tried one of these virtual keyboard toys, but hey, they look kewl!

I bought one of those 2GB video watches. They are a bit bulky, but quite cool/nerdworthy if you don't mind recharging the battery after about 8 hours of it just boringly displaying the time.

On it I have my limited MP3 collection and the Black Knight scene from the Holy Grail.

You wouldn't believe how many chicks find this sexy!

These things are great as backup if you have an additional device (like a camera) that uses SD cards. Here's another one. Are there other makers of these thumb drive-sized USB adapter/readers?

Even cooler would be a micro-SD card inside an SD adapter inside a thumb drive reader - matryoshka-ish!

Yep, that's why I think I'm going to be getting one of these when I renew my passport.

Most people don't have dual monitors. Most don't have FM tuners or TV tuners, and UWB would be capable of providing reasonable alternatives (internet radio, streaming video). UWB would be capable of streaming audio directly to the speakers just like a bluetooth headset, but with more bandwidth and thus higher audio quality. So you're left with nothing but power cords and a video cable.

Some peripherals that would be more likely for typical users and would benefit from this technology are memory keys, external hard drives, mp3 players, pda's, and cell phones. I myself got an extra USB hub so I could have quick access to my memory key, mp3 player, pda, and cell phone. Think more in terms of wireless syncing of devices that aren't always part of your normal set up and are on the move. Think of a memory key, mp3 player, pda, or cell phone calling home and syncing up just by placing it within 10 feet of your computer.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/slashdot/tshirts/62c9/

USB Calculator/Numeric Keypad
Would this solve your problem?
GR

If refreshing Slashdot will burn you out, this will kill you.

Not long

I'm personally interested in Neuros OSD, which is an open source hardware solution to DVR and whatnot. The specs seem to require a separate memory card or USB hard drive though (no indication of any built-in capacity) -- and I haven't ever actually seen/purchased/played with one.

But do you still have your red swingline?

Well, duh. First of all, there is obviously no single yes or no answer. MS innovates some, so yeah, obviously you can't literally say they never innovate, but good God, look at the examples Scoble gives--freaking "friendly" error messages (which suck ass) and ClearType are the best he can come up with as counter-examples? Everybody borrows from everyone else and builds on the work of others, but anybody who has been paying attention to the industry for the last couple decades knows that MS has not been doing much innovating, no matter how you define it.

I could spend all morning picking apart his arguments but I don't have the time. A couple highlights:

As to security problems in Windows, yes, Microsoft deserves blame there. But it has made huge strides.

He then goes on to say how fucking wonderful MS is that they were able to fix problems that other vendors had solved decades ago. (OMG! Don't automatically run scripts from web pages and emails! We're fucking GENIUSES!!!!11) That's innovation--cleaning up your own mess?

As to security problems in Windows, yes, Microsoft deserves blame there. But it has made huge strides... Very few [interns and college graduates] had more than a single class on security in college or universities. Our industry just hasn't cared about security either.

So, because computer security isn't taught in school, that equals innovating?* And which fucking "industry" does he think "doesn't care" about security? Obviously he's never been within a thousand miles of an IT department. Or IBM. Or Cisco. Or Sun.

And, although I love Apple (I have three Macs and three PCs in my house right now) I can't display full HDTV images through mine onto my HDTV screen (I have a slightly older Sony screen than Dave does). But with Xbox 360 and Media Center I can.

So, MS is innovating because you have an old TV? Uh-huh. Wow--backwards compatability, component outputs. Yeah, REAL fucking innovative. Unlike that non-innovator Apple, who's leaving analog outputs in the past where they belong and moving forward with pure digital goodness.** Besides, who brought A/V to the desktop in the first place?

I love the smell of flamebait in the morning. God, reading Scoble's lame-ass arguments makes me want to gouge out my eyes with a titanium spork.

* hint: maybe... just MAYBE... "innovation" = thinking up shit that's NOT taught in schools!!! Eh? Eh? My fucking God, this guy is as dumb as a bag of hammers.
** watch me change my tune in 2 months when Apple releases the iTV with component outputs. :-)

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

Its creators are planning to make hospitals more hygienic

Seriously, the creators always have big plans of making riches, that's what keeps most of them going, untold fortunes and all. Theres nothing really new here. Now, if they can project the surface via a hologram and then track my motions and interrupt interaction (ala Minority Report and similar movie scenes), that would be cool.

But I want my 1997 cellphone back. The earpiece was actually at my ear, and the mouthpiece was actually at my mouth, more or less. It had buttons that a full grown man could actually press one at a time. It made calls. It worked if you dropped it.

Even better! Combine the following: Induction-powered flashlight and Fleshlight.

But I also believe that pretty much all of the worthwhile Open Source software is written/maintained by very serious organizations/people who do not consider their efforts a "for the fun of it" kinda thing.

The most famous of all open source projects:

"Just for fun": http://www.thinkgeek.com/books/nonfiction/38b2/

I'l never forget that little beast. I remember saving up for months on my paper route until I was able to go into Service Merchandise, plunk down some $700 in cash, and walk out with a brand new Commodore 64, 1701 monitor, and 1541 hard drive. Hell, I still remember the days of the ol' VicModem running at a screaming 300 baud. When my friend got 1,200 baud, the speed difference was incredible.

I will definitely be getting this book. What wonderful nostalgia! "poke 53280,0" anyone?

One of the T-Shirts at ThinkGeek is of the exact setup that I mentioned above with the phrase "I Adore My 64". My shirt finally came in on Monday after being back-orderd for about a week.

I Adore My 64 (My apologies if someone already posted this, but I didn't see it.)