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Time for a Beer?
i am fartacus writes: "Good news for thirsty beer lovers in a strange town, this will help you find the nearest pub... hmmm beer .... and help you stay on time.
" The gist of this is that it's a watch with a GPS transmitter
that can show you the distance and direction to the 4 nearest
pubs. Ingenious!
Ofcourse we'd need a watch with a GPS to track where the 4 nearest bathrooms are
The day I need a device to find me beer...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
...operating a GPS device in order to bar hop while completely stone drunk, and swaying all over the pavement shouldn't prove a challenge at all.
Man I have to hold my wrist with the other hand just to look at the time.
And another thing; Who wants to bear witness to such truly horrible pick-up lines as:
"Hey baby! Wanna see my GPS device?! Yowzer!"
:)
In my opinion the watch needs two key features before it can be succesful.
1. The ability to track my house so I can find my way back home.
2. An ugly girl detector, so the previous feature doesn't allow me to make it home with the wrong girl.
Figure it out Mr. Scietists and sign me up!
MikeAtIF*ckStuffedAnimalsDotCom
CmdrTaco, you are a complete ass... This "SLASHDOT" is in the doldrums.
Taco, you are a far cry from a Linus Torvalds or an Alan Cox, who can work WITH people and their community to make things BETTER; you make this place suck worse. You suck. You wield your stick of power, you and you fag editors.
John-fucking-Romero selling a car on Ebay? Indiana Jones 4? I saw this Beer gadget days ago fucker.
I would never presume to make Slashdot a 'freshmeat.net' or a 'sourceforge.net', that is to announce every picayune release of every little open-source project, but there have been some gross oversights here - particularly in light of the fact the very site and community relies on various core technologies and the distributions that in turn support those applications. My gripes are no longer relevant, as several releases of important things have gone unnoticed and honorable maintainers of the unsaid projects don't get recognized by the site that proclaims to be "news for nerds." What a crock.
I have also attempted to post using precedent. Doesn't help. What was front page worthy a week, month or year ago isn't again because I'm not an editor - even if the context and circumstance is the same. Bill Gates could die, and I'll bet anything I would never get the post, even if I knew a day in advance. Death, dark, painfull, death to you who hold the scepter of power.
You betrayed your community, you are a lucky bitch like Bill Gates, right place, right time. I hope to the powers that be you quit being the "leader" of this dirty unreadable mess you call slashcode and hand the scepter of power to someone who can RESPECT his community.
And a tip for you; you elitist jerk: Tell people why, besides blind stupidity or bias, you reject stories! You can't - that would be like seeing the M$ source code, it would be a laughing stock to actually reveal your twisted half-assed reasoning.
No wonder the Taco Snotting FAQs and all sorts of shit comes out on here, and all the crap flooding and trolling. YOU FAILED as a leader, you betrayed your community and you suck. I love slashdot for the others that come here, and the news ends up being better than shit (not hard to do in a world full of mega-omnipediaplex corporations that spew forth garbage 'news'), but the editors here are biased, unfair and categorically suck; I hope you all re-evaluate how lucky you are to have jobs, you suck at interviews, you suck at content and community management. You are not the "portal for nerds," the Yahoo for nerds if you will. You are a petty band of garbage vendors who have duped a larger company into giving you jobs so they can spray ads in our faces.
Give this project to a real person who has sex with people and doesn't fuck blow up dolls of anime characters and plays video games and "hack" Perl for a living. God damn loser. And pick up a book on Perl idioms. And your fucking arcade thing is so fucking gay, why would you want to stand and play a fucking game? Fucking retard.
DIE.
find the nearest pub.... and help you stay on time
Aren't those two mutually exclusive? Unless, you're trying to get to the pub for happy hour or something.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Finding beer pubs.
And idea who's time has finally come.
Ingenious, and tasty.
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
Wow, I didn't know they could make GPS *transmitters* that small!
I can't go into a bar without losing a few hours. Sometimes I go into some kind of wierd time/space warp where I suddenly wake up in strange places.
WHACK OFF?? HAHAHAH GET a LIFE GUYS AND GO LIVE a NORMAL LIFE off the COMPUTER... I'M HERE TO SAVE YOU ALL FROM the DOOM OF the COMPUTER ..COME ON GUYS THERE is SOMETHING OUT THERE CALLED THE world!
Are you a fan of the GOLDEN SHOWER?
It's a GPS receiver, not a transmitter. GPS works passively by listening to the timing differences of time-encoded signals from up to 12 satellites at once (there are 24, but generally the most you'll be able to "hear" at once are 12). Here's the dummies guide to it.
It is funny though how GPS is a basic technology, but every application of it is treated as some new discovery: i.e. I'm going to make a piece of software that has a database of all movie theatres, and when you have a GPS on your PDA it'll point you to the nearest theatre: Whoopee, I've developed a new theatre detector! Blah. As a sidenote: MapPoint 2002 is a very nice product. The breadth of information in it is astounding.
This is great! We can integrate into Woz's new handheld - and you'll be able to work at the local bar, no matter where you happen to be travelling!
I can feel my productivity rising...
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
"I don't think you realise who I am."
..
..."
...
..."
..." the PFY chips.
..."
..."
The PFY pauses for a minute. "Hmm...Carter, accounts. Room 402, extension 6473, date of birth June 22, 1963. Married, one child - not yours. A cider drinker. Drive a red Volvo with a faulty rear light and collect beer coasters. Your password is...ahhhhmmm."
"Something to do with fish," I hint.
"Driftnet," the PFY cries.
"Excellent," I respond, turning to our latest visitor. "Can I have a sports question please?"
"But...I..."
"No, sports," I reply firmly.
While our user wanders off, I fill out the practical section of the PFY's final exam sheet.
"Let's see. Yes, you achieved the correct amount of disorientation and demoralisation. You also get a couple of bonus points by planting the seeds of doubt with the 'not yours' comment. Now, onto the theoretical section. The hard disk on your personal machine fails out of warranty period. What would you do?"
"Swap it with the boss's so he gets it replaced immediately, then, when the new disk arrives, format the boss's old one and reinstall it in his machine."
"Yeeesss. But remember that you're being marked for proactivity too..."
"Oh of course!" the PFY blurts guiltily. "Then swap it into one of the consultants' machines so that you always have a standby disk for the future."
"Excellent. Now, you're helping users out in your spare time, when..."
The PFY laughs out loud.
"Correct. Next question: the boss has bought a piece of kit that is so old that even the engineers understand how it works. How would you get rid of it?"
"Drop it down several flights of stairs?"
"Too suspicious."
"Flick the mains switch to 115 volts for a little while?"
"He'll replace the power supply."
"Umm... I know, direct a heat gun into its cooling vents."
"Correct. Complete this statement: all power corrupts, absolute power..."
"..is even more fun!"
"Correct. Your boss and a client are plummeting towards the footpath after cornering you for two hours with their thoughts on the future of computing. Who would hit the ground first?"
"Who cares?"
"Correct. Judging solely by his attitude, how does the boss believe our network is managed?"
"By FM management."
"Be more specific."
"F***ing magic."
"Correct. How long would it take an engineer to change a flat?"
"It depends on how many replacement flats he brought with him."
"Correct. Still on that topic, an engineer happens to mention the words 'that's interesting'. What has happened?"
"Uh, he's either broken your computer, lost his screwdriver inside it somewhere, put it back together with lots of parts left over or encountered some error that he's never seen before."
"So?"
"Oh, he just says it to pass the time because he's not allowed to say 'bollocks' in the presence of a customer."
"Precisely. One of your users brings his home computer for you to fix. You..."
"Solder the circuit breaker shut, crank the voltage adjustments to full power, swap out any good memory chips for crap and install a virus on their hard disk."
"And?"
"Whoopsy - charge them mates' rates of 20 quid for your time."
"Yep. Complete this: the meek shall inherit..."
"...what they're bloody well given. And be thankful for it."
"Correct. You have scored a total of 10 out of 10 in the theoretical section, passing on none. As your final task you must generate, then deal with, 50 user complaints in two minutes. Your time starts now!"
An hour later we're observing the smoking remains of the beancounters' comms cupboard.
"Freak wiring mishap?" the PFY asks the fire investigating officer.
"Looks that way," he replies, much to the annoyance of the head beancounter, who is not as stupid as he looks. "It seems that someone had replaced the five amp plug fuse on a portable lamp with a piece of nail resulting in a small fire when the cord insulation became pierced when it got trapped in the door. Just an accident waiting to happen."
"Yes, and how particularly tragic that accounts were storing all the historic purchasing records for the IT department in this very cupboard, even though we warned them of the fire risk," I add.
"Very tragic," the PFY concurs.
Later at a pub in the heart of Soho I congratulate the PFY on his promotion to the position of 'master bastard' by buying him a lager for a change.
"So that's it then?" the PFY comments.
"IT?" I cry. "This is just the beginning. Starting tomorrow it's time for graduate studies." Even at this level, the poor guy still has so much to learn. Like how easy it is to slip a laxative into a lager for a start.
--
It's mid-afternoon, and we're in the middle of our annual 'improve the perception of IT' fortnight. Things are going just great.
The boss has a bee in his bonnet about my liberal interpretation of the promotional slogan 'delivering what the client needs'. Apparently, my helpdesk instruction sheets on how to deliver 'a damn good kicking' weren't within the intended scope of the motto...
He was in an even worse mood after the hand-proximity sensor on the line printer failed to operate while he was attempting to stop said instruction sheets from printing. The fast moving paper gave him a large and deep paper cut that he won't be forgetting in a hurry. And the PFY and I certainly don't know how that heavily salted water got into the first aid antiseptic bottle.
But his irritation began after spotting a publicity photo of one of the members of the company's football team (sponsored by the IT division) walking around with his football jersey untucked. Beautifully crafted, and costing enough to make a beancounter weep, the jerseys have a lovely little IT crest (a couple of crossed keyboards on a burning PC background, emblazoned on the left breast). The words 'IT - giving you more' are in large letters on the back. When untucked however, the words 'of a shafting' become visible. The boss was not impressed.
The PFY and I make no attempts to escape his wrath knowing full well that he has to pass the head of IT's room to get to us. He's not so keen on doing that since some complete bastard uploaded a new ring sound to the head's cellphone - a sound not dissimilar to that made by a lentil casserole after its trip through the digestive tract.
Accordingly, the IT department managers' meeting he attended this morning was a swift affair, and certainly not one that really should have been 'aired' as a live video conference and PR opportunity. Even the cafeteria staff saw it and wouldn't serve him the onion bhajis at lunchtime.
Not that I feel sorry for the boss. The whole 'improve the perception of IT' initiative was all his fault in the first place for mentioning that it 'must be about that time of the year' to the head of IT.
No-one likes these PR weeks because the bosses like to answer all those stupid user questions such as: 'Can I send 1,000 copies of my CV to the printer? Can I talk to one of your network guys for an hour or two?' and 'Do you know who set my car on fire?' with 'yes', 'yes', and 'no' instead of the far more appropriate 'not if you want to see another birthday, not if you want to see another birthday', and, 'us, we thought it was your birthday.'
But the thing that really puts the boss under the gun is that he's invoked a 'response time' clause in our contracts that was meant for call-out duties which says we have to respond within a reasonable amount of time to a user's problems.
In PR week, 'reasonable' means 10 minutes. Now perhaps the boss can have a good game of MDK in 10 minutes, but a networking professional cannot!
Sure enough, I'm just firing up MDK when the phone goes.
"Hello?"
"Yes?" I ask, expecting the worst.
"I've got a problem with my network."
Here we go...
"Hmmm?" Why waste words on these morons? They're much happier with a bit of grunting and a few soothing clucking noises.
"It's a little difficult to explain over the phone - could someone come up?"
Sigh.
I flip the PFY for it and am stunned when I lose. Then I realise that the little bastard has switched my double headed 50 pence for a double tail model.
It really does me proud to see him turning out so well.
Of course, I still won't be telling him that I removed the safety grille from the whirring blades of the cooling fan at the back of his PC, but there you go.
I get to the user's office and it's the same old thing. They moved the PC and the network stopped.
"But it never used to do that."
"No, but now that we don't use thin wire network cabling it does."
"That doesn't sound like a good move."
I manage to extricate myself an hour later (after the story about how technology was much more reliable in the 1950s) and get back to the office.
The PFY chuckles maliciously.
"He rang back - the lead's fallen out of the computer and he's scared to plug it in."
"A separate call," I cry, "that makes it your turn!"
"Toss you for it?" he asks, not understanding where the line should be drawn.
"I'll go for tails for a change."
"Bastard!" Sensibly, the PFY doesn't admit to anything.
"Oh, by the way, make sure to mention how reliable IT is nowadays, especially when compared to the 1950s..."
The PFY grumbles a bit before slouching over to the door.
"Have you seen my access card?"
"Yeah," I reply, "I needed it to get into the comms room this morning. I think it fell down the back of your PC. On the cooling fan side..."
--
It's the final week of the PR fortnight and things have calmed down. People don't call us for the 'guaranteed response' so much. Perhaps it's something to do with the type of response they're guaranteed.
The geeks in the systems department are miles ahead of networks in the popularity stakes after blatantly bribing the users by shoving a terabyte of disk at them and electronically yelling "help yourself." Nothing short of upgrading everyone to 100 Meg Ethernet is going to bring us up to their level. The systems department must be brought down.
The terabyte of disk space is the first to go - about 20 in-depth 'treatments' with the rapid-freeze spray then the heat-gun along the drive electronics is sufficient to introduce the fabled 'random factor' into file safety.
The boss, meantime, is trying to curry favour with the masses by announcing a massive memory upgrade to the applications server to give it some real performance, disregarding completely the bottleneck analysis software pointing to desktop network speed. There's no helping some people.
Sure enough, a few hours later we have an engineer outside our office trying to edge into the computer room.
"What the hell's he doing here?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" The PFY is momentarily confused.
"Shouldn't he be stuck in a lift somewhere?"
"Oh of course! It completely slipped my mind. You'll be wanting the 5th floor." He indicates a lift only ever used by operational staff and very stupid people.
Ten minutes later, the engineer is back.
"There's no bloody server up there," he snaps, a little agitated at the nasty delay caused by the lift problems.
"Server?" the PFY responds, "I thought you'd come to fix the girder up on the 5th floor."
The engineer looks at him unkindly, then enquires about the processor needing the new memory.
The PFY swipes his card through the computer room reader and receives the much feared 'denied' beep. I try my card and a similar thing happens.
"Security must be having a problem again. We'd better wait for a bit until the system comes on-line. Coffee?"
"Sounds like a bloody dodgy system," the engineer says following the PFY out.
As soon as they've gone I break out the scalpel and the roll of tamper-evident packing tape.
Five minutes after that I try my real card on the reader and we all enter the computer room.
"So, two gig into this baby," the engineer says reaching for the apps server off switch.
"Hell no," I cry, panic-stricken. "We don't want that upgraded, we want that one upgraded." I point to a system so old it makes a 286 look state-of-the-art.
"You're joking."
"No. Why?"
"Two gig for that would take up half this room, if it could address it, which it can't."
"So why did your guys sell it to us?" The PFY elbows in on the act.
"We bloody didn't. I'm here to install memory in this." The engineer is getting agitated now - the little veins are sticking out on his forehead.
"But that doesn't need memory."
"Look, there's obviously been some mix-up here," the engineer says. "I'll need to talk to your systems guy."
"He's off sick." I don't think I need to tell him about the poor guy's skin inflammation, which is completely unrelated to that consignment of tanning machine lamps which was mistakenly delivered to our department a week ago, just after his terabyte of disk battle plans were overheard. The PFY just happened to be monitoring his phone line for clarity. Purely in the name of good service of course.
Suffice to say a few of his brighter staff have taken to wearing sunblock and heavy jumpers, even when the central heating accidentally came on for four hours the other day.
"OK," the engineer crumbles in the face of resistance, "I'll get my boss to contact you."
Ten minutes later he's gone, leaving with a couple of MFM hard disk controller cards sealed with tamper-evident tape in his memory upgrade box.
"I think it might be time that Kamakuza Memory Systems 1997 gave the boss a call with an offer he can't refuse, don't you?" I say to the PFY, wielding a couple of spanking new memory cards. "While I'm about it - couldn't the two central routers do with a processor upgrade?"
By the end of the week network's goodwill stock is high, with the surplus memory upgrade dosh going into 100 Meg Ethernet cards for the key players in the PR stakes. Meanwhile, in the pub, the CEO of Kamakuza Memory Systems 1997 meets with the CEO of Kamakuza Router Upgrades 1997.
"Whose round is it anyway?" the PFY asks. "It's yours isn't it?"
"Yes, I believe it is," I sigh as I go to the bar. It's not all fun and games, this CEO business. Bankruptcy looms at every bar corner, if you play your cards right that is...
--
"There's that smell again!" I cry to the PFY, happily recognising that all-too-familiar scent in the air
"What, onion bhajis?" he asks, his senses dulled by years of soft music and educational films.
"No! *THE* smell".
"Fear?"
"No!"
"Burning Equipment?"
"NO! Can't you feel it, in your bones?"
"Rheumatism" he replies sarcastically.
"No," I respond, "But there could be a fracture in the wind if you don't tune in your senses
"Well I don't feel anyt... oh yes!" he cries, suddenly enlightened.
"TRADE SHOW!" we cry simultaneously.
"Now we're going to need a convincing excuse to go as the boss is a bit against trade shows for some reason".
"Could it be because of the last time you went to one?" the PFY asks.
"Which time was that?" I ask. "I don't remember anything out of the ordinary?"
"You mean the time you spent a couple of weeks prior to the event at the tanning clinic, then turned up at the trade show calling yourself Sheik El Al Hand Kebab and claiming to want to network up every home in your Emirate State, no expense spared?"
"I can't recall such an inci..."
"When you drank two suppliers into receivership, disappeared for three days along with the boss's car, secretary, Visa card and nude holiday snaps - only one of which ever turned up again - you - claiming you'd been in a skiing accident on the M25?"
"Well now you come to mention it, the skiing accident rings a bell. Yes, I remember now, it was on work time and so technically they were responsible for my rehabilitation..."
"At the Betty Ford Clinic?"
"Only the best for the company's contractors, I'll say that for them. Anyway, there was no proof I was linked to the car, Visa, secretary or holiday snaps"
"The ones in your second to top drawer, in the envelope marked MFM Disk Formatting Instructions?"
Hmm. I appear to be slightly outflanked by the PFY's skills at determining the truth no matter how low he has to stoop. Taught him everything he knows, you know
"Well, anyway, that's all water under the bridge," I cry, attempting to change the subject.
"Along with the boss's car if rumours are to be believed," the PFY interrupts. "Still, at least you obviously didn't pull a complete Ted Kennedy, as you're still getting those postcards from Spain
Things aren't working out quite the way I planned. The PFY seems to be holding the upper hand in the conversation - something I'm not altogether used to, or comfortable with.
"ENOUGH!" I cry. "I admit, mistakes were made, not least of which was getting lagered the week after and possibly divulging more of that which transpired to you than you needed to know. "
"I'll say!" the PFY cries. "You could have left the bit about you, the boss's secretary and the train in the Underground Museum right out of the conversation, as far as I'm concerned".
Sadly, I'm all out of verbal conversation modifiers. The use of unnecessary force is mentally approved and I give him a taste of the negative ion generator, dangerously modified to put out a few more amps than is safe in an office situation. And sure enough, the PFY does seem to be a lot calmer afterwards.
"BACK ON TOPIC!" I cry. "We have a trade show to go to, and I don't want any more
interruptions!"
The PFY nods obediently.
"Now, we need some foolproof plan to enable us to go".
"I could ring my uncle".
"Yes, yes, but cashing in favours with the CEO isn't the plan. A far better plan is to give the boss absolutely NO power of veto for technical reasons".
"After last time nothing short of an earthquake is going to shift the boss's views
"OF COURSE! AN EARTHQUAKE! GENIUS!"
"You're going to cause an earthquake??!?!"
"No, no, of course not! Well, not if I don't have to anyway. No, the reason of reasons!
The excuse of excuses!"
"What would that be then?" The PFY asks, unenlightened.
"DISASTER RECOVERY! It's been YEARS since anyone tested our DR kit, and a large
percentage of it would probably catch fire if we powered it up anyway! BRILLIANT!"
The PFY calls uncle and starts the ball rolling.
"Ah!" the boss clucks as he enters the office some minutes later. "You know, I was thinking it was about time we tested our disaster recovery systems!"
"Do we have any disaster recovery systems?" I add, paving the way, "as there's an exhibition on that very topic in two weeks that the PFY and I are keen to go to".
"UNLIKELY!" the boss replies harshly. "We already have two DR rooms upstairs, ready to be fired up. I think we would do that now".
No sooner said than done. About two hours later, as the fire brigade is leaving, I'm taken aside by the CEO to answer the boss's outrageous claims of sabotage.
"Ridiculous!" I cry. "The fire was caused by dust accumulating in the equipment over a period of three years. We were lucky the whole place didn't go up. It's information like this that you find out at DR Trade Shows like the one coming up in tw..."
Two weeks later the PFY and I enter the trade show for a 3 day tour of duty. It's a harsh job, but someone's got to do it. We're greeted immediately by a charming young woman working for a popular supplier.
"Good Morning and Welcome to our Show, Mr, um
"Sheik Ali Mohammed, " I reply "And my son, Ahmed Mohammed. We're here to get some computing for our palace. Only the best will do, naturally
- The BOFH Troll
So THIS is what Woz has been working on?!
For example, in France, you can't just advertise for Health-hazardous stuff, so you see, this is not only a matter of talibanism.
But if they added the possibility to just find whatever with this, I'd be interested, especially for
So, let's just do it the old fashioned way : ask people, you may even make friends
Trolling using another account since 2005.
as craig kilborn said: "who needs GPS when all you have to do is follow Prince Henry"
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
A decent story, i'm impressed!
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
A decent use for the TSP - finding the fastest way to get drunk.
Of course, the heuristic would be changing over time.
mick
I bet a a buddy of mine a pint that the link would take me to the product on thinkgeek. Good thing we didn't shake on it!
maskirovka
Something really useful would be a device that would help you find your way back home from the bar and/or make a taxi appear with a push of a button. Finding a bar has never been the problem, atleast for me :)
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
the four closest nudie-bars. The thing would sell like hot cakes!
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
For instance: If you're pubbing, and you've just heard that the Earth will be destroyed by aliens in 12 minutes to make way for a new space highway...
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Looks like someone beat Woz to the punch here... and he just started a new company and all...
Finding beer in unfamiliar locale is usually fairly easy. Something to help one find weed, THAT would be useful.
What about getting back home???
~.Evanrude
One feature that would make this way more useful as well would be the number of a local cab company made available.
That way, you could get there for sure (if you don't have a car) and in a flash you have the number to call for a ride home, if you have one too many beers...
Granted though, this looks more or less like a test project, never to be released to the public.
And how much of a drunk would you have to be to know where the closest 4 bars are, anyway??? =)
Mark
I think this is about as useful as the Matrix Binary Watch reported on Slashdot here.
Seriously, if you have a couple hundred dollars to waste on device like this, perhaps you should think about donating to a charity or something at least worthwhile.
--Metrollica
Now we just need to modify it to show the closest Linux User Group. Of course, that might be somewhat redundant with the advertised function ;-).
When activated, the screen shakes, and becomes double, in exact opposite to what your eyes may see after a fair few pints, thereby cancelling out the effect, and giving the sozzled user a valuable aid to get back home afterwards.
How big of an alcoholic do you need to be before you can buy a gps watch designed soley for the purpose of getting wasted?
--Metrollica
pub crawls.... just imagine.
"follow me guys, this thingy says the next pud is THAT way!!!" *walks headlong into a wall*
: D
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
Please warn me of the following stages:
- I'm the best looking guy here
- Damn! When did all the hot chicks get here?
- Brother! I love you man! You've always been there!
- Let me buy you a beer!
- Let me buy EVERYONE a beer! I'm rich!
- Oh man.. look at me.. I'm a wicked dancer!
- Hey! I'm a good drummer! Seriously!
- Oh yah?! Well f*ck you too man!
- But officer, I only had a couple beers!
- You want one?
- But honey, I know I didn't come home last night, but it wasn't my fault. Honest! I forgot where we lived.
I have no signature
If you have a handheld (Pocket PC, Palm, and certain internet enabled cell phones) and live in a major city, this has been available for months from a free app called Vindigo. Its even better in that it tells you directions to the nearest bars, restaurants, stores, and movies and it doesn't even need GPS as long as you know what block you're on. It also has reviews for everything -- which is extemely useful.
I don't want to sound like a marketing guy, but IMHO Vindigo is indispensible if you live near a place like NYC and often have trouble finding places.
Downsides: It is currently only offered in 18 cities and has ads but I bet that watch doesn't work all over the place either. The upsides are tremendous, though. Having a bar finder in a watch is all well and good, but if you already have a Palm you might as well get all the other useful info as well. You'll never have to wander around the Village looking for the Original Ray's Famous Pizza again.
No brain, no pain!
...is a GPS transmitter that can locate the nearest four drunken cuties in the bar.
Why do I want to be stumbling around in a bar full of drunk MEN?
Can't you smell your way to the pub, like everybody else ?!
... is going in with a screwdriver and loosening up all the handrails.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
This is from The Psychedelic Guide to the Preparation of the
Eucharist, in a few of its many guises, as edited by Robert
E. Brown and associates of the Neo_American Church League for
Spiritual Development & the Ultimate Authority of the Clear
Light (1968), 2nd edition (1971)
DMT Synthesis
STEP I
Using an area of good ventilation or a fume hood, place a
1000 ml two hole roundbottom flask in an ice bath using the
setup in Figure II (you want a wobble stirrer in the top hole
of the flask, and a separatory dropping funnel into the side
entry). Add 400 ml cold anhydrous ether to the flask, in which
60 g indole is then dissolved, using the stirrer. To 100 ml
anhydrous ether in a separatory funnel add 50 g oxalyl
chloride. Slowly drip this solution into the vigorously
stirred indole solution over a period of 10 to 15 minutes.
Continue stirring 10 minutes longer. Allow the precipitate to
settle a few minutes and decant the liquid. Add anhydrous
ether and mix well. When satisfied as to the purity of the
precipitate, leave the golden precipitate in the flask for the
next step, which must follow immediately. Yield is
approximately 100 g.
STEP II
Dimethylamine reacts readily with indole oxalyl chloride.
Use about 400 ml ice cold anhydrous ether in the same 2 neck
1000 ml RB flask used in Step I, with the precipitate in it
from Step I. Cool the ice bath further by using salt and ice.
Estimate the weight of the precipitate and use 100 g indole
oxalyl chloride. For this weight of IOC use two entire 50 g
containers of diethylamine since it will not keep if the
container seal is broken. Cool the amine in container much
below 0 C and dissolve 1 part amine in 3 parts anhydrous cold
ether. Amine may be stored in this solution. For use, warm
stock solution to room temperature and use the appropriate
aliquot. Set up the entire apparatus the same as when adding
the oxalyl chloride. Add the amine solution slowly to the IOC
with vigorous stirring. Stir for 1/2 hour after the addition
is complete. Vacuum filter the precipitate, using ether as a
wash. It is better to slurry the ether water with the
precipitate before filtering [method used]. Recrystallise from
hot ethanol or from a 50-50 methanol-benzene mixture.
STEP III
Prepare apparatus as in Figure II (1-hole 1000 ml RB
flask set in heating mantle on magnetic stirrer with stir bar
in flask, and condenser inserted into top of flask). Prepare
the indole glyoxyl amide by melting and casting into sticks if
ether is to be used as a solvent. Aluminium foil makes a good
mould for casting pieces that will fit through the condenser.
Also a Soxhlet extractor may be used to add the crystals by
slow solution into the ether. Tetrahydrofluran, if available,
dissolves IGA and the compound is added slowly in the solution
form [method used].
To a stirred mixture of 15 g LiAlH4 in 100 ml anhydrous
ether (or THF [used]) slowly add the sticks (or solution
[used]) of IGA until 20 g have been added. Keep the rate of
reaction at a reasonable rate or boil-over may occur [do
say!]. Stir and reflux for 90 minutes after the addition is
complete. Cool in an ice bath and begin to cautiously [do
say!] hydrolyse with chips of ice or a cold solution of
methanol, added through the condenser. When there is no
further reaction, add a few ml extra water and allow to settle
finally and decant the clear liquid into an evaporating
vessel. Filter the residue and wash several times with
ether-methanol or THF-methanol [used]. Evaporate the combined
extracts and if necessary, seed the heavy syrup with crystals
of DMT. With no seed crystals the product may take days or
even weeks to crystallise [weeks]. This crude product is
adequate for smoking [do say!]. In order to purify DMT, begin
after the LiAlH4 has been hydrolysed with methanol. Add 500 ml
satd. Na2SO4 solution, mix and filter. Wash with ether or THF
and neutralise the filtrate with 0.1 N HCl. Extract with ether
in a separatory funnel and neutralise the lower layer with 0.1
N NaOh, extracting this solution in turn with chloroform. The
chloroform layer is dried over anhydrous Na2SO4, concentrated,
and from it DMT crystallises on addition of petroleum ether.
The mother liquor can be chromatographed on an alumina column
using benzene-methanol in a 99.8 to 0.2 ratio. [This last
purification is quite difficult.]
Color flashing, thunder crashing, dynamite machines.
and it will make you walk a bit more, or beep, when alcohol level is over or below a certain limit...
It's just a BloJJ
I never said i was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Riiiiiiiight....
Get your own free personal location tracker
Advertising I want to get on a regular basis. They should also put the technology into a watch that can also detect stress levels and then direct you to the nearest watering hole. I wonder if anyone who uses Northstar ever called in to find out where the nearest pub is.
For those having very few friends.
If you manage to hack the gps/database system you might be able to redirect people to your birthday party instead of the nearest pub.
Or if your up to practical jokes...
Redirect them to nearest AAA center....
-----
An easier way is to paint arrows on the ground...
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
...is that it will never stop working, no matter how much Guinness you drink. Forgetting to keep a charge is no longer one of the unfortunate side effects (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/22322 10&mode=thread), just as soon as we figure out how to shrink the damn thing.
For more information on the watch and other Bristol uni wearable stuff look at http://wearables.cs.bris.ac.uk
GPS devices are pretty cool, but the last thing I want to be carrying arround is a GPS transmitter broadcasting my location! Maybe we can hack this thing so it's just a GPS receiver?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
2. An ugly girl detector, so the previous feature doesn't allow me to make it home with the wrong girl.
Your posting on slashdot your not gonna make it with any girls.
Mess Stuff Up
The worst terrorist attack in recorded history occurred back in September, followed by a Holy War against Islam, and now Israel and the Palestinians as well as India and Pakistan are teetering on the brink of their own war, Argentina is in the midst of a financial crisis, American is considering launching attacks against Somalia and Iraq, and you people have the gall to be discussing a watch with a GPS transmitter that can show you the distance and direction to the 4 nearest pubs???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!
The bodies of the thousands of innocent civilians who died (and will die) in these unprecedented events could give a good god damn about beer-smart timepieces, your childish Lego models, your nerf toy guns and whining about the lack of a "fun" workplace, your Everquest/Diablo/D&D fixation, the latest Cowboy Bebop rerun, or any of the other ways you are "getting on with your life" (here's a hint: watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies and eating a bowl of Shreddies is *not* "getting on with your life"). The souls of the victims are watching in horror as you people squander your finite, precious time on this earth playing video games!
You people disgust me!
Truely worth a mod of +5 funny!
Why does this sound like something from Wheels of Zeus? I'm waiting for "Beers of Zeus" myself! The BoZ is back!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
The usefulness of this device depends entirely on the kind of pub it takes you to.
It would be a tragedy if such a device were only able to offer the locations of trendy bars which only sell loathesome fizzy piss.
Obviously, it should use the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) database of pub locations, so that you can always be assured of a good beer at the end of your journey.
"Information wants to be paid"
In Dutch 'gist' translates as 'yeast' (which of course is used in beer brewing). Should bring a smile to a Dutch speaking person's face.
This isn't advertisizing, it's more like an intelligent phonebook. Who are you kidding?
Publishing ads concerning this device (which only functionality is to lead you to any pub) will be an implicit invitation to get drunk.
Another good news for all of you that visit / work in Vienna. I found quite a good "Publocator" that features the 32 finest Irish and English Pubs in Vienna. You can find it under Schlucken.org. There are also rating of the pubs, approximate prices and last but not least a detailed descritpion how to get there (including map) have fun jl
".Sig Stealer" was here
Is can it be made to interface with the guidance system on your Beer Scooter?
Well, looks like we finally found some use for GPS! I wonder when we get that service available in Finland.
Isn't this over-specalized? Wouldn't it be much simpler just posting waypoints for current GPS instruments? Then I could just download it to my Garmin/Magellan/Whatever GPS receiver? What next? Another Gizmo for strip clubs?
J.
1. Steal GPS device from drunkard.
2. Steal house keys from said drunkard.
3. Point GPS device towards "home"
4. Steal cool geek stuff from drunkards house.
5. Repeat
"Aww, bugger" - Unlucky Alf
Must remember to talk to those GPS guys, their obviously doing useful work.
France is a bad example ... There is tons of advertising for alcohol in France, there are just regulations and guidelines to follow, such as including some fine print saying that excessive consumption is hazardous ... blah blah blah ...
... wish i had one of those watches now!!! Oh wait this is France ... i can buy liquor anywhere ... and drink it anywhere!!! ... what a repressed society i tell ya!
very much the same as advertising for tobacco products on the US...
The fine print dosn't work too much though... its 11:36am in Paris and seeing those ads in the metro made me damn thirsty
Slashdot readers will only be interested when they can search for FREE beer :-)
You can do that and a lot more with a bog standard GSM mobile phone.
Why would I buy GPS on a watch?
Deleted
Finally a watch which not only tell me when, but also where IT'S TIGER TIME !
...but i always got this message after leaving a pub:
*** goonies left the pub. (quit: connection reset by beer)
.sigh
Interestingly enough, here in buffalo, new york, this thing would blow up on chippewa. Bar here.... here.... here.... and here....
Literally an entire street if bars. Doubt that this is uncommon, but it rang a funny bell in me.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
I have an eTrex by Garmin. It has MapSource installed, giving it points of interest data. Finding the nearest bank machine or pub or gas station is pretty cool, and has proved truly useful at times.
If anyone is interested, you can browse the maps online; e.g. Like Here
I'm just waiting for the kabab van update.
If you're looking for 99 Bottles (99 actual different beers and about 40 on tap) in Santa Cruz, CA it's at N36 58.402, W122 1.590, you'll see something like 990 @ (lat, long) when they put up my brick for finishing 10 cards of 99 each. To think I could have spent all that money on a killer PC.... sigh... I need a beer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You can see a picture here:
Pub Watch
If only it could point you to the ones with a Male/Female ratio of less than 2. I'm sick of sausage fests!
REAL beergeeks dont need a watch, they use the force!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Its a space station!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Nice idea, but personally I'm going to hold out on buying one of these until they've developed a nudie-bar add-on.
How about a starbucks locator, so I can find the nearest place to go for a caffeine fix? Of course, if you are in a major US city, it is only necessary to walk a block in any direction to find one.
I presume you're impersonating the robot on "Lost In Space". The family's name is Robinson.
No they need to change the law in Arizona so they won't close all the gps locatable beer locations at 1 AM since the GPS reading might become misleading.
Wow, that's amazing technology.. to be able to have a GPS transmitter on your wrist. Other than the radiation concerns, I'd wonder about how effective it would be to have a precision time transmitting device in a bar on the surface of the earth...
In Wisconsin, every other building is a pub; :)
My Garmin Emap already has this feature. It's a GPS receiver that has the ability to have downloaded to it city data, which includes roads, restaurants, and bars. It fits in my shirt pocket and has a nice LCD display...
Didn't Heineken have something like this years ago? It was for palm pilots with a GPS. Only worked in Europe but this was back with the original Palm III. Told you where the nearest bars were. Always handy when you get kicked out of the one you're in.
I'm not all that impressed. Although your precise location is not known, Palm.net uses your rough location, zip code I believe, to provide all sorts of similar services. One particular application, BrandFinder, provides locations of Banks, all sorts of stores, Food, Hotels, Gas Stations, Auto Repair shops and more. Other programs provide directions to the nearest In-N-Out Burger or Starbucks. One program, GasFinder, provides both location and prices of local gas stations. These services have been available for a few years now, but it is still cool to locate that particular fast food restaurant while driving down the highway or to send email while mountain climbing...
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
back when i was in high school, and civilian gps was still becoming mainstream, i had a rather daft science teacher try to explain it to the class.
"you know, with gps," he started, "it's really scary because they can always know where you are." he went on to explain how gps receivers rely on a transmitter to figure out your location, and as a result, the government can quite easily track anybody who has a gps.
"you realize there's no transmitter in there, right?" i asked, jaded by other in-class lectures such as (the one about how we can go as fast as we want in space, the only thing stopping us is that we don't know how to stop the rocket at high speeds comes to mind)
"come again?" he asked
"a gps device uses no transmitters," i said, and then went into a quick, beginners version of 'how gps works'.
my science teacher scoffed.
and people ask why i am so hard on public education.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
Now if I could just get it into stationary orbit so it would be usefull...
...and getting up there to change that watch battery is going to be a real bitch.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I've got a buddy who's working on a similar concept for cellphones: a GPS receiver/transmitter that will allow the user to, for example, locate the nearest hotel and(eventually) provide driving directions to get there. Unfortunately, the electronic database of hotels isn't anywhere close to being up to date. If there isn't an up to date hotel database, is there an up to date pub database? Personally, I hope so... but I have my doubts...
I'd rather be flying
Oh, wait....
-Legion
SELECT coffee_shops FROM locations WHERE coffee_shop_owner!="Starbucks" AND radius(1,km);
People have been working on the infrastructure for this kind of stuff for ages. I'd hate to see it all patented by the first halfway competent company that manages to get a vaguely workable implementation.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
This would sell really well in Australia.
A famous song with a tragic motif: "The Pub with no Beer".,
first performed by Slim Dusty.
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"