PC Power and Cooling offer a stand-alone temperature sensor with a piezo alarm called the 110 Alert. Not exactly what you're looking for, but at $15, probably about as cheap a solution as you'll find.
It's easier (although a little more expensive) than that. There are various IR interfaces for a computer that would be trival to program to randomly change channels.
Better still, you could decide what "profile" you'd like to Microsoft to associate with you, donwload the channel guide from the net, select specific shows, and have the computer change to that channel, even if you're not there or the TV is off.
Possible conversation between MS surfs: "Do you suppose we should be concerned that this household watches every episode of 'Emeril' and everything possible on venomous snakes?"
It wasn't that long ago that the Aussies decided to severely regulate/ban most firearms. Many in the firearms owners' rights community in the USA have proposed that once the government is finished stripping us of our Second Amendment freedoms, they'll come after the First Amendment. It certainly seems that way down under.
Two interesting side notes:
If one looks at the figures on firearms imported into Australia for a number of years (10?) prior to the crackdown, one would find the number of firearms surrendered and registered as required to be only about 20% of that figure...
Violent crime (assaults, rapes, domestic violence, robberies, burglaries) has INcreased dramatically since the new firearms regulations went into effect. (The crackdown directly resulted from an Aussie, going "Postal", and a desire to "reduce crime".)
This is just another example of well-intentioned government running amuck. It's no different than the state of California buying power and locking in exorbitant prices that they are now stuck with. When will we ever learn?
You don't say where you work, but you did say it's not a, "I hate my job", situation. With that in mind, I'll assume that your employer may be open to suggestions; you may just need to provide some backup data to support your case.
While the federal OSHA standard has been repealed, many states have adopted regulations of their own, so you might check to see if your state's equivalent to OSHA has a web site.
Do a web search on "ergonomics" to find data to support your case. You may even find some recommendations that you can easily implement yourself. Or one place to start for a brief overview would be www.inventoryops.com/ergonomics.htm.
If you have someone responsible as a "Safety Officer" that might be a good place to start. Just don't suffer in silence.
I think spam is one of those things that everyone loves to complain about but that no one is willing to do anything about. Hence the lack of a market for a product to remove spam. Just look at junk snail-mail - you can tell the Post Office not to deliver it (by telling them you think it's pornographic - they can't refuse), but rarely does anyone bother.
For anyone who wants to bother to educate themselves, it's relatively easy to keep most spammers at bay. So the market shrinks to people who don't have a clue, which is going to make keeping the spam scalpel out of the muscle pretty difficult.
You're asking for something that is at best impractical to manufacture, will have a comparitively very small market, and challenges available technology. Even if you could find a device, what about the batteries? (Ask anyone who's taken a camera on a ski trip more than once...)
Next you'll be wanting a frictionless ball bearing.... Sorry, it's not going to happen any time soon, if at all. Time to start compromising on the requirements.
Is there a standard amount of time that an expired domain is blocked, or is that up to the individual registrar? If the blocked time is variable/random, it would seem like the registrars are inviting unintentional DOS attacks as an ever increasing number of people continuously attempt to check on expiring domains.
In a similar vein, has anyone used snapnames to try and capture an expiring domain (maybe that's what the p0rn sites are doing)?
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PC Power and Cooling offer a stand-alone temperature sensor with a piezo alarm called the 110 Alert. Not exactly what you're looking for, but at $15, probably about as cheap a solution as you'll find.
It's easier (although a little more expensive) than that. There are various IR interfaces for a computer that would be trival to program to randomly change channels.
Better still, you could decide what "profile" you'd like to Microsoft to associate with you, donwload the channel guide from the net, select specific shows, and have the computer change to that channel, even if you're not there or the TV is off.
Possible conversation between MS surfs: "Do you suppose we should be concerned that this household watches every episode of 'Emeril' and everything possible on venomous snakes?"
"...boobie prizes get lumped on the poor sap who ended up opening them"
That will certain encourage the INTROVERTS to change their behaviour (NOT!). Not everyone has the same sense of humor about these things.
It wasn't that long ago that the Aussies decided to severely regulate/ban most firearms. Many in the firearms owners' rights community in the USA have proposed that once the government is finished stripping us of our Second Amendment freedoms, they'll come after the First Amendment. It certainly seems that way down under.
Two interesting side notes:
If one looks at the figures on firearms imported into Australia for a number of years (10?) prior to the crackdown, one would find the number of firearms surrendered and registered as required to be only about 20% of that figure...
Violent crime (assaults, rapes, domestic violence, robberies, burglaries) has INcreased dramatically since the new firearms regulations went into effect. (The crackdown directly resulted from an Aussie, going "Postal", and a desire to "reduce crime".)
This is just another example of well-intentioned government running amuck. It's no different than the state of California buying power and locking in exorbitant prices that they are now stuck with. When will we ever learn?
You don't say where you work, but you did say it's not a, "I hate my job", situation. With that in mind, I'll assume that your employer may be open to suggestions; you may just need to provide some backup data to support your case.
While the federal OSHA standard has been repealed, many states have adopted regulations of their own, so you might check to see if your state's equivalent to OSHA has a web site.
Do a web search on "ergonomics" to find data to support your case. You may even find some recommendations that you can easily implement yourself. Or one place to start for a brief overview would be www.inventoryops.com/ergonomics.htm.
If you have someone responsible as a "Safety Officer" that might be a good place to start. Just don't suffer in silence.
I think spam is one of those things that everyone loves to complain about but that no one is willing to do anything about. Hence the lack of a market for a product to remove spam. Just look at junk snail-mail - you can tell the Post Office not to deliver it (by telling them you think it's pornographic - they can't refuse), but rarely does anyone bother. For anyone who wants to bother to educate themselves, it's relatively easy to keep most spammers at bay. So the market shrinks to people who don't have a clue, which is going to make keeping the spam scalpel out of the muscle pretty difficult.
... as I often tell my wife.
You're asking for something that is at best impractical to manufacture, will have a comparitively very small market, and challenges available technology. Even if you could find a device, what about the batteries? (Ask anyone who's taken a camera on a ski trip more than once...)
Next you'll be wanting a frictionless ball bearing.... Sorry, it's not going to happen any time soon, if at all. Time to start compromising on the requirements.
Is there a standard amount of time that an expired domain is blocked, or is that up to the individual registrar? If the blocked time is variable/random, it would seem like the registrars are inviting unintentional DOS attacks as an ever increasing number of people continuously attempt to check on expiring domains. In a similar vein, has anyone used snapnames to try and capture an expiring domain (maybe that's what the p0rn sites are doing)?