The Morse Code input meme is apparently getting some steam courtesy of O’Reilly.
Morse vs. SMS
Everyone has been mentioning the story of the Morse Code guys wasting the phone texters on the Leno show, but it gives me an idea that the Make blog tangentially gets at. I don’t want a Morse code messenger, but I would love having the ability to input text via Morse. Much easier for me than how it’s done now and I wouldn’t need to look at the screen or keyboard at all.
The Grunion Gazette discovers Wi-Fi
Local Long Beach newspaper the Grunion Gazette realizes that it’s 2005 and discovers public-access Wi-Fi spots. Hilariously, they illustrate the article with a picture of Yours Truly (on the left) and an all-too appropriate quote:
Enh. “Other people” in coffee shops are overrated anyway.
Apple Cat
Novation’s Apple Cat modem is still the greatest hacker modem ever built and was my #1 purchase after I got my Apple II+ back in the day. Return to those thrilling days of yesteryear.
Free wireless
Six useful places that have free wi-fi…
- Water Canyon Coffee Co. – Yucca Valley, CA
- International UFO Museum – Roswell, NM
- Marfa Book Company – Marfa, TX
- More Than Coffee – Blacksburg, VA
- Coffee Grounds – Terre Haute, IN
- Mudhouse – Springfield, MO
Sent them over to the wiPod folks.
Random Linkage I
Homemade macaroni and cheese is one of the greatest things ever and Gothamist links to New York Magazine’s review of the poshiest mac and cheeses in New York.
I like the idea of a Mac mini home media server, but nothing has inspired burning technology lust more than a Mac mini-based synth controller/sound module.
Phone phreaking in the early days – recorded for posterity. I still miss the different dial tones and rings from the old analog switches.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Casio VL-80 Kraftwerk Pocket Calculator.
Na + H20 = boom. This guy optimizes that equation to its ridiculous and inevitable conclusion.
And sadly it looks like TiVo will be out of business before I find an apartment.
Cell tower camouflage
Boing Boing links to some photo galleries of radio and wireless phone transmission towers, but the most interesting gallery is this collection of camouflaged cell phone towers that look like trees, bell towers, flagpoles, or anything that isn’t an antenna collection.
The best is the “fake cell pine diseased tree” which could easily be called the “Charlie Brown cell phone tower.” Need to find a cell tower? Search online.
A Bug In The System
“A Second View of the Mite Approaching the Gear Chain”
One of the many photographs from the “Bugs On Devices” category in Sandia Labs’ MEMS image gallery.
[via CoolGov]
Transportation Futuristics
Following from the similar “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” and “Out Of Time“, “Transportation Futuristics” is a treasure dump of retrofuture eye candy with a hundred years’ worth of monorails, SSTs, flying cars, floating cities, etc.
Where magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance modialy interact
I have no idea what it does, but I’m deathly afraid that my inverse reactive current supply cannot automatically synchronize cardinal grammeters. “It” in this case is Rockwell’s retro-encabulator which replaces old pre-fabulated amulite base-plate machines that had a malleable logarithmic casing. It’s also completely hyperbullshitic – the optimized version of the “all sizzle no steak” cliche.