Huh, I thought I was all over that, but now that the release of the iPhone in Canada is here, my interest has increased again. Mostly because I can use Activesync with the Exchange server at home and get all of my email right on the thing. Gotta love that.
Definite downside is the cost, even with Roger’s recent caving to pressure for a lower rate. It could be a lot of money per month….
Well the quest for fitness continues. We were inspired by a few folks Nikki to start doing the P90X workout. There’s lots of stuff on the web about it, but the safest thing I can say about it is that it’s really tough. It’s 90 days long, 6 days a week of crazy hard workouts. Every morning takes at least an hour, sometimes 1.5 hours. The unexpectedly nice thing about the DVD-driven workouts is you can’t really take it that easy when you know the next exercise is coming along in 1 minute or so. If the same workouts were described in a book they probably wouldn’t be nearly as effective. We are definitely enjoying it, but have a looong way to go yet.
On the decidedly lighter side of the exercise spectrum, Wired has a couple of articles about the new exercise game coming out, Wii Fit. It’s basically a platform you stand on and perform various exercises in response to the game. It keeps track of your weight and personal bests, and you workout to earn new games to exercise to. I guess there’s a market for this somewhere but it definitely sounds, er, lightweight. Maybe there’s a sense of accomplishment from unlocking new areas with hard work, just like in a regular video game, but the actual physical conditioning doesn’t sound very intense. Now if they had some Wii motion sensing dumbells with selectable weights, you may have the beginnings of something then. The game could encourage you to push yourself much like a personal trainer could, but in the warm embrace of your living room.
I don’t see this replacing P90X anytime soon. Besides, that Tony Horton guy is just way too corny and funny. He is still cracking us up, but maybe that’s just sleep deprivation and fatigue.
I saw this little article and it rang some bells since my sister Whit actually has one of these defibrillators. Apparently there are a few brands of these things that transmit wirelessly to a bedside device that then sends the data to the doctor every day. Naturally some folks figured out a way to snoop that transmission, and even send commands back to the device. The logical end point is to cause the defibrillator to malfunction, which they claim is possible to do. The other side of this is the range on these things is very short, meaning you would sort of need a hacker to be camped out sitting on your chest with his laptop for this to actually work. If you have ever seen the average hacker, these guys aren’t generally your fit types. I’m thinking that the average heart patient would probably be squashed flat by the hacker’s ample buttocks. Just a hunch. Besides with the amount of time this would require, you would hear the labored breathing, machine gun typing and cheetos munching and wake up anyway.
So, Whit I think you are probably safe for now. If you are still worried, here are some of the best ways to set traps to foil malicious hackers trying to upload code to your heart.
Pringles cans left on the floor will probably stop them for a while since they need to bend over to reach them, and then eat them. Always leave the Pringles cans lying down, since that’s an extra few inches to the floor that most nerds just don’t have the flexibility to do. This always works because nerds love Pringles, and the empty cans have lots of nerdly uses too. Serve with cans of Red Bull. Another thing that will stop them cold is a flashing 12:00 on the VCR (which is surprisingly vanishing from the living room landscape, have you noticed?) they are physically compelled to stop and fix it. Maybe a partially disassembled toy robot, oh man, that’s like crack for nerds. This should give you enough time to actually wake up in the morning and gently shoo the nerds out the door with a broom. They will take the robot and the chips, but will have completely forgotten they were actually trying to hack into your heart.Â
Problem solved.
I saw a link on Neatorama the other day that I thought was especially appropriate for Nikki (who is always cold, no matter what the temperature is). It’s about a guy who can apparently withstand cold that would kill anyone else, and we aren’t talking about a little cold here, we are talking about chest deep in ice-water for over an hour with nothing on. He climbed Mount Everest dressed in a pair of shorts. That’s it. Crap. He is a living, breathing super-hero, really. This guy is hard core, I can’t imagine how he does it. The scientists are practially speechless:
“People are always looking for new firsts on Everest. It’s been climbed so many times now, people climb it without oxygen, they … they climb it with all different kinds of handicaps. But no one has come close to climbing Everest in those kinds of conditions,” Dr. Kamler said. “It’s … it’s almost inconceivable.”
It’s a good read, I recommend you check it out. Imagine the money I could save on winter clothing and heating the house if I could figure out how to do that….. You wouldn’t need clothes at all, actually. Well, maybe just for social reasons. He may be the Iceman, but I bet there’s no amount of willpower that can stop shrinkage.
It’s a little early to be thinking about Halloween, but then again these animatronic wonders are more than a little cool. I imagine you would probably use them all year round, especially given the price. There’s lots of engineering and imagination has gone into these friggin scary wonders. I saw the link on Boing Boing Gadgets and it’s incredible the variety of scary crap they have here. Have a gander at these bad boys on FrightCatalog.com.
From the simple vomit barrell gag (get it?) to the best death scene I’ve seen they have it all. Now, they aren’t cheap, but clearly these props go beyond the usual plastic skeleton hanging on the front door.
I can see Lockrey already clutching the credit card with the phone in her hand trying to decide….
For example of the awesomeness, here’s a Giant that wakes up when you come close and stands up to over 11 feet tall, screaming at you. Methinks you would be saving some money on candy if you installed this bad boy on the front porch….
 
Wow wow wow wow. I want the kind of music industry Seth Godin is talking about. One that doesn’t sue you, but rather leads you into better experiences and a closer sense of community with the artist and other fans. I have blathered on about this far too often, but I must say I never really thought about exactly how the music industry could move past their dying business today and on to something really new, and really sustainable.
His speech is funny and very pointed, and filled with stuff that resonates with me strongly. It’s probably the best advice I have heard for them in a while.
 “…if I asked you for the name and address of your 50,000 best customers, could you give it to me? Do you have any clue?”
I love this next part, because that’s what I do to people, but oh so rarely it makes me sad. I bolded the best part.
“The next idea is this idea of liking. There is a lot of music I like. There is not so much music I love. They didn’t call the show, “I Like Lucyâ€, they called it “I Love Lucyâ€. And the reason is you only talk about stuff you love, you only spread stuff you love. You find a band you really love, you’re forcing the CD on other people, “you gotta hear this!â€. We gotta stop making music people like. There is an infinite amount of music people like. No one will ever go out of the way to hear, to pay for, music they like. “
Here’s more on the anti-piracy, control the uncontrollable, dam the flood, etc.
“It’s not that you need to say “no, no, no, I can’t let you hear this†it’s “I want you to hear thisâ€. Because if you hear it you might join the tribe, and if you join the tribe then over time I’ll take care of you so well you’ll want to pay me. And then people will be passionate when they hear what you do for a living, they’re going to die to have you help them meet other people in the tribe.”
Of course this next quote ties into the first point: they have no real idea what I listen to, or not a very good idea. They should be buying me my iPod, letting me fill it for free and keep track of what I am listening to. Isn’t that more than radio ever gave them? They have no idea what songs I rate highly, what songs I listen to over and over, what artists I love. In effect they have no idea what “tribe” I belong to, so they have no easy way to suck the money from my pocket.Â
“And so we look at these phrases, “paying attentionâ€. That’s what you’ve wanted people to do all along. “Pay attention to this artistâ€. Paying is a weird word isn’t it? You want me to pay you something-my attention. And if you’re wrong, I get nothing back. I had to listen to the Backstreet Boys…AHH! I want those three minutes back. So, it’s a weird relationship.”Â
I highly recommend you read this and think about how we might eventually, maybe, be paying the music companies for something completely different than the actual music they sell today.