In a recent Harris survey, 50% of all Americans admit they would like to use smartphones to take secret videos.

Like what?

• People in embarrassing outfits
• A sexy waitress at a restaurant
• A Shirtless hunk mowing the neighbor’s lawn
• Their Boss sneaking a second doughnut

Harris polled 2,361 adults that were representative of the country by age, gender, income level, marital status and region. (This is a large enough sample to be considered statistically significant.) Fifty-seven percent said they’d be interested in watching videos shared by a co-worker on the company intranet. The respondents top choice (30 percent) would be watching someone pulling a prank on a co-worker, followed (27%) by someone imitating the boss. Last but not least, they would like to watch a video of a high-level executive making his own coffee.

We particularly enjoyed the “funny foreign signs” page. For example, a sign in a Bucharest hotel lobby reads: “The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.” In a Paris hotel elevator, there’s a sign reading “Please leave your values at the front desk.” In a Rome laundry: “Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.” (All right, so we’re making fun of foreigner’s mash of English; they can make fun of our translations on their own time.)

The site also has some funny notes from medical charts, such as “Discharge status: Alive but without my permission.” And “While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.” Or: “She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until she got a divorce.” (Calling Dr. Freud.)

Bang out your novel on a manual typewriter and save it to an iPad, PC, or Mac.

The typewriter has a USB adapter which lets you connect an old Remington with any computer sporting a USB port. The project was developed at Hive76 in Philadelphia.  More info at USBtypewriter.com.

• Make triple-A batteries fit a double-A slot by stuffing paper in the gaps.
• Turn a fork into a spoon by piercing it through a Styrofoam cup.
• Make a bottle opener out of a piece of wood and a bolt.
• Tape a boom box to your car’s dashboard to replace a broken stereo.
• Use a belt and pulley to make a car with a left-hand steering wheel work on the right.
• Use large paper clips to keep cables from falling behind the desk.

The company inserted an “immortal souls clause” in their terms and conditions statement, and only 12 percent of buyers opted out.

The company says it has no plans to collect the souls.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are out camping when Holmes shakes Watson awake in the middle of the night.

“Watson,” Holmes says. “Look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

Watson looks up and says: “I see millions and millions of stars. Some of them may have planets, just like ours, with intelligent races, just like ours. It’s amazing, isn’t it, Holmes?”

“No, you fool,” replies Holmes. “What you can see is that someone has stolen our tent.”

You see them in movies and TV shows now. Instead of the scene where the spy is trying to download the secret information onto a disk, he pulls out a little flash drive. Disks are slow; why wait? There are at least a dozen makers of these tiny flash drives and there doesn’t seem to be any difference in what you get. That’s only the way it seems, because there are some big differences. We’ve found that the quality names do seem to work better, and the one we like best these days is the “Lexar Jump Drive Lightning.”

The main reason is they have what they call “Power to Go” already on board. This is software made by Ceedo (Ceedo.com) and it allows you to carry not just data but applications on the flash drive. You can install and run most of the standard Windows programs right on the Jump Drive Lightning. When you plug it into the USB port on a Windows computer you are ready to run your own programs with your own data. Pretty nice.

The “lightning” part of the product name refers to the speed of data transfer. The transfer rate is 20-22 megabytes a second when the computer is writing to the drive, 30 megabytes a second when it’s reading from the drive. That is very fast – much faster than a regular disk drive can operate, but that’s understandable because a disk drive is mechanical and a flash drive isn’t; it has no moving parts. This technology is coming to computers late this year or early next.

The Lexar Jump Drives costs $40 for the one gigabyte version (the one we use, and more than enough for most users), $65 for two gigabytes and $110 for four gigabytes. All the drives have built-in 256-bit encryption routines to keep your data private and for all practical purposes “uncrackable” by anything but a Cray super-computer. A “shredder” routine is also available to completely destroy any data you want permanently erased. Free engraving of your name or personal message; your could load it up with photos or songs for a nice gift. More info at Lexar.com

SeinfeldScripts.com has all the scripts for eight years of the Seinfeld comedy show.  Our favorite is “The Marine Biologist.”