Imgur.com has “575 Wallpapers,” and if you Google that phrase you’ll find it. Some are astonishing, such as a futuristic Paris with the Eiffel Tower surrounded by surreal buildings and flying cars. Or Hokusai’s famous painting “The Great Wave” done as a wireframe CAD drawing. Many are fantasies, others, like a photo of giant oaks, are real.
Filed under: Internuts | 1 Comment »
UnnecessaryKnowledge.com has some odd fun facts. Matt Groening, for example, the creator of “The Simpsons,” had a dad named Homer, a mom named Marge and sisters named Lisa and Maggie. No mention of a brother named Bart, however, so that kinda tells us who the “Bart” was. And this: Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th.
Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on UNNECESSARY KNOWLEDGE
“Ten states where taxpayers get the worst bang for the buck” Type that phrase into Google or your favorite search engine and you get a list of who gets what. California has the worst air pollution, for example. An interesting thing about that is if you move to California and bring your own car, the state charges a hefty extra license fee for the stated purpose of fighting pollution. (Since their pollution is still the worst in the country, what do they do with the money?)
Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on TEN STATES WHERE TAXPAYERS GET THE MOST BANG FOR THE BUCK
Twenty-five percent of the world’s population has high blood pressure (we love statistics). We suspect some of it is “white coat” syndrome, the kind you get in doctor’s offices. This was once an annoyance to Joy, but her home monitor shows her pressure is normally 110 over 70, with a heart rate of 48 or 50. (Very fit, Joy.)
She’s had a wired pressure monitor for years but recently tried out “Health Mate,” $130 from Withings.com. It doesn’t work any differently from the old one but has the convenience of wirelessly sending the readings to a smartphone, tablet or iPod via a free app.
The free Health Mate app tracks your progress and puts your data on a graph. It will also send the data to your doctor by email. (How come doctors don’t do email? Bob’s doctor doesn’t even give out his email address.)
Filed under: fitness, health | Comments Off on BLOOD PRESSURE WILL TELL
We heard from a reader who has a Kindle just like ours but its battery failed to take a charge. Amazon customer service told her to buy a new one, though her Kindle was only a year old. (They’re pushing it; don’t buy a new one.)
A guy at a tech repair store told her that the problem wasn’t the battery, it was the charging port. (This reminds us of how garage mechanics talk to women customers.) He said they’d seen lots of Kindles come in with the same problem. So to make this long story somewhat shorter, it cost her $50 to get her $100 Kindle working again. The repair guy told her the problem is caused by using the Kindle while it’s still charging. We do that all the time, frankly, and don’t think it has ever caused a problem.
Our dead Kindle started working again on its own. (You know: put it in a dark drawer for a while and it starts thinking it better shape up.)
Filed under: batteries, Kindle | 2 Comments »
A high school principal wrote to ask us what’s the best way to send text messages to a group. Before we could answer, he wrote back to say he’d tried “GroupMe,” and unfortunately woke up a bunch of teachers in the middle of the night. (Those teachers should have adjusted their settings to turn off the message alert. You don’t have to get a ding every time a message comes in.)
Just as it sounds, GroupMe works on the computer or phone to send text messages to groups. If you have a person’s cell phone number, they don’t need to have the app installed. If you only have their email address, they’ll get an invitation to install the app.
Another way to go is “WhatsApp,” now with 500 million users. It will send group messages, without incurring any data plan costs, but the group has to have the app. WhatsApp.com has instructions, but the only tricky part is that Android users need to tap the menu button on their phone to create a group. For iPhone users, it’s on the screen.
Filed under: email, social networks | Comments Off on CALL ME (BUT NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT)
A “FingerReader” under development at MIT is a scanner on a ring. With that, the computer will read to you as you pass your finger over a page or a book title. The computer speaks the words in a voice like a robot from an old sci-fi movie. You — know — it — sounds — like — this.
This “text to speech” feature has been standard on personal computers for many years, so that’s not what’s new. However, in order for the computer to read to you, it must first have the text onboard. You download a book or an article, or just have it read you your email. There are tons of books that can be brought into the machine, so this is not a big handicap. But the FingerReader is meant to read whatever you want, like a brochure offering you a free hotel stay if you listen to their exotic time-share vacation deal in an incredibly boring four-hour talk.
Would this be good for the blind? It has a feature for that. Since the moving finger tends to wander, the ring vibrates if it strays off the line. The FingerReader might also be used to translate languages. There’s a video of it at Techcrunch.com. It is a really klutzy clumsy looking device, but that’s the way everything starts out.
Filed under: gadgets, health | Comments Off on ONE RING TO READ THEM ALL
Listverse.com has photos of “amazing underground cities.” Well, anyway, they’re sort of interesting.
Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on AMAZING UNDERGROUND CITIES
“23 Oddly Satisfying GIFs You Could Probably Watch Forever:” We didn’t think we could watch them forever but were pretty impressed at the way a golf ball flattens when hit.
Filed under: Internuts, Uncategorized | Comments Off on 23 ODDLY SATISFYING GIFS
Byliner.com has stories and non-fiction from great writers, like Joe McGinness, author of “The Selling of the President.” We also looked at Paul Theroux’s “Down the Zambezi” (watch out for the hippos).There’s a free trial, then $6 a month.
Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on DOWN THE ZAMBEZI
