I posted into Outerspace

I'm guessing I was one of these, I 'checked' off the "Post this into outerspace" checkbox.

http://www.cnewmark.com/archives/000369.html

Brick cellies becoming retro-cool

I've been saying for years that this would happen:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000410035703/

(From the Guardian)

Science Olympiad

I just came across a homemade rube goldberg device posted on /. It made me think of my old days on Science Olympiad. Man was that a great competition, so much fun prior to each competition day.

I checked out the 'Offical Science Olympiad' homepage and filled out an alumni survey. If you were part of the SO crew, drop me an email.

Proposing Tax On Downloads

From /.
- A Wisconsin Governor is Proposing a Tax On
Downloads. Now this got me thinking. In the future, when 3D
Printing is abundant, I would assume most sales would consist of
only digital information. When this happens, what will happen to
sales tax? Just something to ponder.

If you think this is all fantasy, check out what you can do for $25,000.

Important Wiki's not to be overloooked

Adult Encyclopedia
http://www.wikiafterdark.com

Learn how to do anything
http://www.wannawiki.com

Wiki Screencast

Thank's Martin for sending me this most excellent screencast about the evolution of a Wiki page.
Jon Udell: Heavy metal umlaut: the movie

Cell Phone Tele-Prompt

I was calling Kristine the other night and she had a special voicemail set up for another friend arriving by plane, it went along the lines as: "This is Kristine, if this is Marquessa, my address is ....."

That got me thinking, why don't we have the ability to set up tele-prompts on our voicemail? Think about the possibilities, you could give out public information and use caller ID to allow access to private information.

For instance:

• Give out your home/work address
• Store directions to your house (so you only have to say them once!)
• Give out your email address
• Give out your home/work phone number
• Create quick adhoc informational prompts

The list could go on, but those are a few key points that I think people would love to have on there cell phone.

My thoughts on the 'private information' is that you could create/maintain a list of your close contacts, either by manually typing in a phone number, voice command, uploading your phone book somehow?, or a web based interface. Personally, I wouldn't mind giving out my address even to strangers, because they could find that easily enough via a white pages or the internet.

Adding ringtones to a Treo

I was having a difficult time figuring out how to add a ringtone to my Treo 650. Turns out you can't directly copy a MIDI from your computer to the phone, you have to do it some back-asswards way. You have to beam it via IR or send it as an email attachment. Check out the info here.

Outsourcing

Recently I've been noticing that a lot of the call centers I call are Americans. For instance, I just got a Sprint PCS phone and have been calling them for some pretty basic questions (that they should have answers to in a forum on their website.) I'm actually annoyed that I'm not hearing an Indian voice on the other line. Having americans answer my calls just makes my service more expensive, I'm only asking basic questions. I think some call centers may not be outsourced because the company fears the public will be turned off by somebody with an indian accent, and that's probably true.

We need to better educate the public on the benefits of such social changes as outsourcing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with moving call center jobs over to india, and for that manner, there is nothing wrong with moving any 'skilled' jobs offshore that are cost effective.