Articles by Eduardo Rodriguez
There's only 10 types of people: those who get this shirt and those who don't.
ThinkGeek has this awesome shirt on sale for a mere $9.99.
I'm sure there's a geek on your shopping list that would love this shirt (I know I'm fighting automatic buy impulse.)
Gadget get!
There's no place like 127.0.0.1 [ThinkGeek]
TiVo has announced today that if you've received your Fall 2008 software update on your TiVo HD, you're all set to receive Netflix instant streaming in HD starting right now!
ALVISO, Calif. - December 8, 2008 -- After announcing a groundbreaking partnership in October with Netflix Inc., TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that subscribers to both Netflix and TiVo® Series3, TiVo HD, or TiVo HD XL can now access thousands of movies and TV episodes instantly streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs.
The service is being offered at no additional charge to customers who subscribe to both services. This morning subscribers can browse through an expanding library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes at www.netflix.com, add them to their Netflix instant Queue, and then watch them on TV with just a click of the TiVo remote. The library includes titles from every genre, with a modest selection of HD content available as well. Both standard and HD titles are expected to grow in the weeks and months ahead.
I *could* be giving you first hand impressions of how the service works, but sadly when I ran over to my TiVo HD as soon as I found out about this news this morning, I found that my TiVo HD is refusing to load the Netflix Instant Play screen, getting stuck in some weird infinite loading loop.
*sigh*
Time to call TiVo tech support.
Press release after the jump.
If you're a fan of both HD and classic, extras packed, carefully curated films, then rejoice!
The scuttlebutt on the Internets is that Criterion's new Blu-ray line is finally shipping, after months of preorders and waiting.
So go ahead, jump on over to Criterion and get yourself some Blu-ray classic movie goodness, complete with the usual Criterion level of uber polish.
Gadget get!
Criterion Blu-ray Collection [Criterion]
[via: Engadget HD]
So you've picked up that hot guy you've been eyeing all night, and there's a tent big enough to fit a whole troop of boy scouts underneath in your pants.
But how do you know if that tent pole's hard enough? Gadgets to the rescue! FastSize's EQM (that's Erection Quality Monitor fyi) allows you to pull a pocket size gadget out, press your throbbing member against its censor, and the EQM will give you a colour coded signal that corresponds to a chart that's way more fun than homeland security's threat level chart.
Seriously, "penetration possible with help of hand"? That's gold right there.
(Side note: this is the debut of the "penis" and "erection" tags here on Homotron. Yay!)
EQM - Erectile Quality Monitor [FastSize]
[via: BBG]
The Netflix folks have sent out a little e-mail to all their subscribers letting us know that Mac streaming is now officially out of beta!
Good news Mac users! Now you can watch movies (some new releases)
& TV episodes (including current season) instantly on your Mac. Watch as much as you want, as often as you want.
Watching instantly doesn't affect the number of DVDs you get by mail and is included in your membership for no additional fee.
So for those of you scared of opting in to icky betas, rejoice! You can now stream Netflix movies to your Mac in official release fashion!
However, if you're a purist, be aware that the Mac Netflix streaming does require you to install Microsoft Silverlight. It's really not bad, actually. The whole thing works really well.
It seems this officially heralds the complete conversion of Netflix's movie streaming to Microsoft's Silverlight platform.
To start watching your instant play titles, just go to your "Watch Instantly" tab on Netflix's site and follow the directions to install Silverlight.
Constitution Arms has made medGadget aware that the FDA has classified the Palm Pistol, an ergonomic handgun designed for the elderly and disabled to easily shoot someone (yay! senile folks with guns they can use!), as a medical device:
Several weeks ago you were kind enough to blog about the Palm Pistol. We thought you might be interested to learn that the FDA has completed its "Device/Not a Device" determination and concluded the handgun will be listed as a Class I Medical Device, exempt from 510(k) Pre-Market Notification in accordance with 21 CFR 890.5050 "Daily Activity Assist Device."
We have now submitted an application to the CMS contractor Noridian for a DME (Durable Medical Equipment) Coding Verification in order to be assigned an HCPCS code. Once assigned , physicians will be able to prescribe the Palm Pistol for qualified patients who may seek reimbursement through Medicare or private health insurance companies.
That's right. Prescription handguns. Covered by insurance.
Anyone else see the supreme, maddening irony here, or am I just alone in my isle of sanity?
Gah!
Medicare to Cover Prescription Handguns? [medGadget]
[via: Giz]
There's a certain kind of schadenfreude in watching Circuit City self-implode on its own brand of crappyness, so let's add another picture to the pile:
Ah, that's the stuff.
Employee Intelligence Fail [FAIL Blog]
Perhaps heralding the start of the Web 2.0 bubble bust now that the U.S. is officially in recession, Pownce has announced that they're shutting down their service in two weeks:
We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. We're bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.
We'll be closing down the main Pownce website two weeks from today, December 15th. Since we'd like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we've added an export function. Visit pownce.com/settings/export/ to generate your export file. You can then import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress.
I still remember the heyday when everyone was talking about Pwnce.
For me, this calls into question our reliability on services "in the cloud." If a service like this can shut down within two weeks, imagine if you had your data on it and didn't log in for two weeks at a time. Everything would be gone.
Sure, you say that you should be backing up all your data anyways, but in reality, most people don't. Think about all the data that you have stored in the cloud. Twitter, Evernote, Google services, Dropbox, and a myriad of other services. Is our data really safe?
Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart [Pownce Blog]
Now *this* is the right way to do online rentals: Criterion, those purveyors of collector's editions of "important classic and contemporary films," have come up with one of the best online rental structures around - watch free clips of movies, and if you're interested, rent them for $5.
The cool part? If you really like the movie, then you can apply the $5 rental fee towards the purchase of the DVD or Blu-ray of the movie.
Even more coolness? The rental is for one week, and you can watch the movie as many times as you want in that period.
The cherry on top? Every month, Criterion, along with The Auteurs, will be hosting an online film festival that will be a free (advertising supported.) This will allow anyone to watch a different series of films every month for free!
Mainstream movie studios? Take note. This is how to do rentals right.
Welcome to Criterion's Online Cinematheque [Criterion]
While I generally don't like the Simpsons (put down your pitchforks! It's just not my cup of tea most times OK?), the writers have finally gotten around to mocking Apple in a hilarious segment of their latest episode in which all "Mapple" customers are subservient to their god, Steve Mobs, brandishing their MyPod earbuds as weapons to enforce their agenda:
The Simpsons certainly has those rare moments of satirical genius. This one's great!
It's no secret that I love robots. I love building them, I love watching them, I love playing with them. Proving once again that the Japanese have it way better than us in the technology department, the Gakken Mechamo Centipede robot kit is just plain awesome and hits that little robot button inside my heart. Just look at all those legs move!
Simply awesome.
Someone please get me one of these kits as a Holiday Gift. *pouty lips* Pretty please?
It's available for a mere $90 over at the MAKER shed.
Product Page [MAKER Shed]
Lawmakers in Indonesia's Papua province are about to pass a bylaw requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be tagged with RFID chips to track their whereabouts and behaviour.
John Manangsang, one of the lawmakers backing the new measure, explained the tags:
It's a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities.
If a patient with HIV/AIDS was found to have infected a healthy person, there would be a penalty.
What. the. fuck.
Nevermind the lack of condoms.
Nevermind the HIV/AIDS education that your government has failed to provide.
Nevermind the rampant promiscuity in your population, exacerbated by local rituals where some Papuan tribes swap partners.
No, punishing those who are victims of disease is totally the best way to handle this. This is straight out of the Nazi playbook, only updated with 21st century technology.
I'm seething with rage at the ignorance of these lawmakers, and Indonesia is definitely off my travel plans.
Indonesia's Papua plans to tag AIDS sufferers [Reuters]
And girls who like girls who like fembots!
Gadget of the Week
3D iPhone glasses. Why?
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