From the weird file: In 1995, a South Carolina man named Sonny Graham got a heart transplant, using the heart of a man who had committed suicide. He struck up a relationship with the man’s widow in 1997, and married her in 2004. And now he, too, has committed suicide.
So there are two common elements: the heart, and the woman. Who to blame?
Apple went to court in Australia to prevent companies from using a lower-case “i” in product names, arguing that a “person of ordinary intelligence and memory” would assume any “i” product came from Apple. The case centered on DOPi, a brand of bags. Of course, DOPi backwords is iPOD, which makes it even more interesting.
It’s kind of like Lindsey Lohan suing over the use of the name “Lindsey” in a Super Bowl ad, saying that people would automatically think the ads refers to her. As if she’s a one-word brand, like Oprah or Madonna.
Apple lost the case. The court (actually, a trademark tribunal) noted a number of other “i” products, like iSkin and iSoft.
As a huge Apple fan, let me just say: Apple, get over yourself.
I would really really like an iPad. And I really really can’t justify getting one. It doesn’t plug any hole in my life. Doesn’t do anything that I’m not doing in some other sufficient way.
In the “Tool? or Toy?” category, it would be a toy for me.
But Mark Cuban is excited about it: “You can book it right now that it will be the product that kids of this generation grow up with and look back on with affection just like we did with the first video games. Video games changed how we grew up. The IPad will change how kids grow up.”
Wow, that’s setting some high expectations.
Macworld published an article called “10 Obsolete Technologies to Kill in 2010.” Number 1 on the list was Fax machines. It pointed out some silliness I hadn’t considered–that FAX documents begin life digitally, get converted to paper, get converted back into digital form for transmission, then get printed out on the receiving end on paper.
For instance: I create a digital Microsoft Word document. I print it out, so I can Fax it. The Fax machine scans the paper, converting it back to digital. It goes over the phone lines, and pops out from a Fax machine as a very low-quality paper document. Someone then types the information from the document back into a computer.
The easier solution: just email it. Keep it digital, and save some trees.
The rest of the list of obsolete technologies:
2. Cigarette lighters in cars. They usually don’t have lighters anymore, but serve as electrical outlets. “Almost nobody smokes in their cars. Almost everybody carries phones and gadgets that need power in their cars.” So replace this relic from the 1920s with a standard electrical outlet or a USB port.
3. WWW. We don’t need those letters at the beginning of web addresses.
4. Business cards. These are becoming obsolete…but not yet.
5. Movie rental stores. Pam and I, as Netflix people, haven’t stood in line at a movie store for 8 years. “Standing lin line? For an electronic file? come on!”
6. Home entertainment remotes. We’ve all got too many of them. The author suggests that apps in mobile phones would work much better.
7. Landline phones. These are obviously on the way out, at least for homes, as people use just their cell phone.
8. Music CDs. They are environmentally unfriendly, fragile, inconvenient, and have no significant advantages over downloaded music files. Everyone should move to an all-digital library.
9. Satellite radio. I didn’t agree with the author, who obviously doesn’t drive much. I wouldn’t want to give up my XM.
10. Redundant registration. You know, providing contact info, username, and password at site after site. People are working on this, but it may be a while.
I was working on some statistics for the countries where we have United Brethren churches. In looking at square mileage–physical size–I noted that the United States is the third largest country in the world, behind Russia and Canada. So we take the bronze, which is just not acceptable for an American. We’re accustomed to being first.
Now, the United States, with 9.83 million square miles, is far behind Russia’s 17.1 million square miles. But we’re only 158,000 square miles smaller than Canada. It seems like we could make that up fairly easily.
Keeping Afghanistan or Iraq would provide more than enough territory, but we don’t want to go that route. I’m pretty sure the Afghans and Iraqis would object.
Tunisia, Surinam, Uruguay, and Cambodia are just about the right size, with a few square miles to spare. But I can’t get excited about any of them.
If we had hung onto the Philippines (300,000 sq.mi), instead of granting independence in 1946, we would now be a firm number two. What was Truman thinking?
We could conquer Cuba (110,860 sq. mi), and that would cut the distance. Then throw in the Dominican Republic (48,700) and grant statehood to Puerto Rico (13,790), and we’d be there. Those acquisitions would also give us a lot of really good baseball players.
Of course, the best solution would be to annex Canada. That would give us a combined area of 19.7 million square miles and vault us straight to the Gold not only in square mileage, but in hockey as well. Of course, Russia would just turn around and take over any number of adjacent countries which were once part of the USSR, and we’d be back to the Silver, with China now taking the Bronze.
I just don’t like being Number 3
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Found this in a New Yorker article about James Cameron’s new movie, “Avatar.”
Said James Cameron: “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”
It’s reminiscent of this famous Teddy Roosevelt quote: “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
If Pam and I get raptured, what happens to Jordi and Molly? How can I enjoy eternity knowing that my cats–my KIDS–are trapped in our house with limited food and water?
But God has provided. To the rescue: Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA. This service, run entirely by atheists, is committed to caring for left-behind pets. The website says:
You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved. But when the Rapture comes, what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind.
We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you’ve received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.
We are currently active in 22 states. Our representatives have been screened to ensure that they are atheists, animal lovers, are moral / ethical with no criminal background, have the ability and desire to rescue your pet and the means to retrieve them and ensure their care for your pet’s natural life.
The cost: $110 for the first pet, $15 for each additional pet at the same residence. This is good for ten years. If the rapture doesn’t occur within ten years, they keep your money. And being atheists, they are quite confident of keeping it.
I was on a Christian site, called Women of the Harvest, looking for an article they published by one of our missionaries. In trying to access their articles, I was taken to a page telling me:
“Our website is secure for your privacy. To access the
Women of the Harvest resources, you will need to become a registered user.“
So let me get this straight. If their website was NOT secure, but open to anyone, I could freely read their content and nobody need know I was even there. But because their website IS secure, I must give up private information about myself in order to protect my privacy.
CNN doesn’t require that I register. Is that a liberal conspiracy to undermine my privacy?
Perhaps my church should require people to register before they can view such information as service times, ministries, etc. You know–to protect their privacy.
Found this photo of me in an unusual Halloween get-up. I remember being a pirate several years. But this year–probably 6th grade–I wore the lederhosen Dad brought back from Germany,plus a mask. I don’t know what my brother Stu is–he’s wearing a winter coat with a black mask. Huh? Rick is a pirate, probably wearing my hand-me-down costume. Such is the life of the baby.
Walmart has started selling caskets online. Fifteen caskets, and dozens of urns. Their prices undercut what you pay at funeral homes. And federal law requires that funeral homes accept third-party caskets.
Prices range from $999 for models like “Dad Remembered” and “Mom Remembered” steel caskets to the mid-level $1,699 “Executive Privilege.” All are less than $2,000, except for the Sienna Bronze Casket, which sells for $3,199.
Caskets ship within 48 hours. Don’t know about the return policy.
I imagine Jay Leno could have a lot of fun with this.
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