Im Movin

Yep, im packin my bags and movin outta here!

It was fun while it lasted, but i quickly (count the posts) realized that i need more power and control over my blog :)

So yes.... if you googled and somehow found this blog, head on over to the one I use permanently now.

http://www.schwippy.com/blog

tada!

The BrakeLok: Simplistic Theft Protection

Instead of all the other companies in the anti-theft world that try to create more and more elaborate devices to protect your car every day, Yanko Design has come up with a damn good alternative: just put on the brake!



The BrakeLok fits over your already existing hand brake and covers the button on the end. It will let you press the button still when in normal use. But, at any time, at the end of the BrakeLok is a key, which can be taken out. If the key is not in the BrakeLok, there is no way of pressing the brake release button, or even taking the BrakeLok off, essentially rendering the car immovable.

As with all theft protection devices, a good thief can get around it. And that rule applies to the BrakeLok as well, but still, adding more protection to your $1,500,000 Enzo is never going to hurt.


BrakeLok [Via Gizmodo]

Stupid 7-11

Well apparently, 7-11 has made some kind of deal with The Simpsons crew. 11 of the stores are going to be transformed into, you guessed it... the Kwik-E-Mart. All to promote The Simpsons Movie

I'll admit it, thats gonna be pretty funny. But Ill also tell you straight out that Im not that excited about the movie. Im just as much of a Simpsons fan-freak that can recite every episode from the first 6 seasons as the next, so I think I have the right to say that the quality of The Simpsons has gone way way down over the past 5 years. But anyways, back to 7-11.

Besides just changing the name to the Kwik-E-Mart, they are going to change a few select items to coincide with the cult hit. Such as the Squishy (What flavor did you get? Blue), Buzz Cola (Twice the sugar, twice the caffeine!), and Krusty-O's (Now with flesh-eating bacteria in every box!). Unfortunately, theres no confirmed word about offering Duff (Duff-man does not approve!).

Along with the changes, there will also be the usual store-wide sponsored ads (Think 'MMMM... donuts').

Seeing as how there are more than 4,700 stores nation-wide, and only 11 are getting the new clothes, unfortunately it seems that not many people will get to see the changes. The locations haven't even been released yet.

Ya know what would be great though? If Wal*Mart started the same thing. At least if they did it, you KNOW you would finally be able to go buy yourself an authentic Li'l Bastard Clock-Tampering Kit.

Real Kwik-E-Marts [Via Boing-Boing]

The American Hotdog: Socialistsic behavior

After years of research, trial and error, and many paper towels, I have finally come to understand the nature and personality of the American Hotdog.

Although it may seem simplistic to most, the American Hotdog is a very intricate and unique breed of hotdog. It acts as a mere standalone relying on other species, such as humans to help its pollination. Although modern science has yet to explain exactly how it attracts the eye, the American Hotdog does quite a good job at luring the unsuspecting person to it with a watering mouth.

In its simple form, the American Hotdog can be quite a treat, but some carnivores (mainly the humans) like to prepare the hotdog even further. This of course, does not please the hotdog.
When the now turned predator tries to engulf the friendly hotdog in flames, perhaps next to its distant cousin the beef patty, the hotdog uses its last measures of self defense. To ward off anything it can, our friend the American Hotdog uses a method unique to its own species and none other in the world as we know it. Upon the desecration of its kind, the hotdog tends to bulge out at either or both ends and depending on the severity of the attack, can split open, or with the harshest attacks, can even perform an extremely gruesome kamikaze-like ritual and explode. This ensures that the predators will no longer desire the once friendly and delicious treat.

As the ages has advanced in time, humans have tried many times to stop the defensive actions of the American Hotdog. One of the more favored attempts involve fornicating the hotdog with a wooden stick, and then dipping the entire thing in a golden batter.

Although this may sound completely inhumane, to the hotdog, it causes little discomfort....... until a predator desires to raise the temperature of the corn-batter encased hotdog, or "reheat" it. This, yet again, causes the American Hotdog to go into its natural defense mode.

And yet again, to be frank, the American Hotdog will live on in our hearts for years to come.

As long as we keep the microwave on for under 2 minutes, that is.


-Brian Gaut
Original Report Date: 08/31/2004

For the legophile in everybody

If youve got a thing for legos, then Its probably time you took it to the next level.

Its a 4-component sofa setup, But the interesting thing about it is the fact that you can reconfigure it in anyway you want without having to worry about everything not fitting together.

The complete set, dubbed Bekky, is made of rubber and foam (which actually sounds kinda comfy), and all pieces fit into each other, essentially making an endless amount of configuration possibilities for you to rest your rump on while you play Star Wars and drink your ice cold Bawls, you ninja, you. The 4-piece set will set you back $466. But im sure you would agree with me when I say its totally worth that just so you can match your lego wallpaper colors.


Bekky Lego Sofa Set [Via Gizmodo]

Jot that crap down!

Well, more appropriately speaking... Jot on that crap.

The website address alone is enough to make your curiosity get the best of you.

PoopooPaper.com has done the unthinkably gross and taken elephant crap and manufactured it into something useful. Great. All the paper and covers are made out of re-recycled materials.


Elephants crap a lot. Enough to make 10 books every time they do. That’s a lot of bullshit. Literally.

We can make about 25 large sheets of paper from a single piece (or turd) of elephant poo poo!!! That translates into about 10 standard sized journals including the front and back covers! Neat, huh!?!?!?

The site says that the paper doesn’t smell like anything but paper. Maybe, maybe not. But there’s always one thing that’s going to sit in the back of your mind. You’re writing on poo, dude.

PoopooPaper [Via Boingboing]

BeatBots: Mutant dancing peeps?

This has seriously got to be the coolest robot ive seen for a long time.

Looking at it, would you say Im full of it if I said it can totally out-dance you and most of the people you know? The robot, Keepon, has no arms or legs, but still manages to look damn good on the dance floor.

Using its two squishy semi-spheres, it bounces, twists, turns, and stretches its way around while listening to any music it can detect a beat from. Once it detects a beat, it matches its movements to the timing of the song perfectly. It actually looks so good you would think it was preprogrammed. And not to mention its so cute it makes you wanna puke, ha.

Go to the page and play the video, making sure you watch the 'Keepon dancing to Spoon' video. (Its one of 2 buttons at the bottom of the video player)

But theres still one question. If you put it in the microwave, would it do the same thing the peeps do?

BeatBots [Via Engadget]

Make an invisible bookshelf

This is definitely the most unique bookshelf ive ever seen.... or, err... haven't seen.



Ha! The bottom book it attached to the wall. Its a super simple idea, but its just one of those awesome things that are gonna make visitors just stand there for a few minutes staring at it with a look of confusion on their faces.


Invisible Bookshelf [Via Make Magazine]

Get rid of Coinstar's Commission

If youve ever walked into a supermarket within the past 10 years or so, youve probably seen a Coinstar change counter.

They are the devices that let you take a jar full of change, dump it all in there, get a receipt, then take that receipt up to a register and trade it in for some cold cash. So far so good, right? Well, now step in evil corporations.

According to Coinstar, they need to charge you a percentage of your cash just to be able to dump it into a machine. Last time I checked, it was free to do this in any casino in Las Vegas.

In my area, Coinstar charges you 8.5% of however much change you have. Thats not cool with me.

And apparently, it wasnt cool with other people either. It seems that Coinstar heard about the fact that they are evil, so they tried changing some things around. They now give the coin holder the option to either get cash with the percentage taken out the same way they have been, or they can choose to completely bypass that percentage commission and elect to instead receive a gift card. If you select a gift card, the machine will ask you where you want the gift card to be used at. You actually get some good choices here too. Places like iTunes online store, Amazon.com, Target, and many others.

The whole gift card idea made me have an entirely different opinion on the evil Coinstar company (Yes, I still think they are evil).

Recently I read about a way to totally confuse the Coinstar machine and pretty much combine the two methods of monetary trade. Basically what it lets you do, is get cash with no commission taken out!

YES! Best of both worlds right there.

Its a very simple way of doing it, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Heres the steps of getting your cash without paying the percentage for it.

1. Start the Coinstar machine.
2. Tell it you want to trade coins for a gift card.
3. Select a gift card. It doesnt matter what one, you wont be getting it anyways.
4. Give it your hard earned couch coins.
5. Discretely go around back and unplug the telephone wire :D
6. Wait a few minutes while it keeps trying to dial, then finally gives up.
7. Watch it give you a receipt to bring to the register and get cash.

What we effectively did here was disable all communication the machine has with its central servers. This makes it unable to put funds into a new gift card for you.

After it decides that the connection just wont work, it gives you the cash receipt. Since you never selected that you wanted cash, it never had a chance to ask you if you agreed to the condition that it charges you a percentage!

Without your consent, the machine cant take anything out of your money.

Now go cash in that receipt and buy some baseball cards..... or whatever it is you kids are spending your money on these days.

[Via Zedomax]

Restart? NEVER!

Dont you hate this little guy?


No matter what you tell it, it just wont leave you alone, will it? You can click 'Restart Later', but if your a regular windows user, you know damn well that that wont do much good. The dialog just comes back after 3 minutes.

What Ive been doing is dragging it to the bottom right of the screen all the way off the desktop, so that just a little bit of the top left of the dialog is showing.

That seems to work pretty good, but it still bugs me. In the back of my mind, I still know its right there waiting for me. GUH.

Well, thankfully, I just found a nice little command that will get rid of it. If you ever want to totally get rid of the dialog without having to worry about it popping back up and taunt you later, simply open your Run box, or get to a command line and just enter this command:

sc stop wuauserv

That should get rid of the current dialog, the system tray icon, and also make it so it wont come back up again.

Just one more tip.... dont forget to restart the system! Ha.

[Via Digital Inspiration]

The Prioritizer

So I came across this awesome online calculator that lets you 'get your priorities straight', as my ex girlfriend would often tell me to do.

Its marketed off as a financial calculator, but whats great is that you can use it for anything that you need to plot.

Lets take the example I used to check it out. When people ask me something like 'What's your favorite soda?', I just usually say I dont have a favorite. Lets say i actually want to see what soda i really do prefer over all the others. Thats where this calculator comes into play.

All I have to do it give it a list of all the items I want prioritized. In this case, Root beer, Doctor Peeper, Splite, Sierra Myst, Cherry Cook, and Pipse.

After i enter all my choices, up to 15, it then proceeds to ask me which I prefer over another. In other words, a complete boolean approach to the entire situation.



Depending on how many items are put in, The Prioritizer will keep asking questions until every item has been compared to every other item. In my case above, it had 2 of the above screens i had to fill out (on 2 pages).

Once you have completed the comparisons, you get a result page with a ranking of all your comparisons on it, showing you what is most important to you.




For my example above, It shows me that Root beer is the number one position on my favorites, while Doctor Peeper is the least favorite.

Like I said above, this was intentionally intended as a financial calculator, so you could of course use it to prioritize financial situations like home mortgage payments, car payments, and the what not..... but wheres the fun in not being able to decide what color to dye your cat?

The Prioritizer [ Via Lifehacker]

Dig to China!

If you dug a hole straight down through the earth, you would come out in china!

Well, thats what our parents have told us anyways. Looks like the internet gets to prove Ma' wrong again.

My gf and I were talking about this a while back and i told her I found a site that mashed up some Google maps stuff and showed you the exact spot that you would come out on the other side of the world on. So according to this, the only way your gonna be able to dig to China, is if you already live in Argentina.

Dighole [Via Make Magazine]

Silly Japanese

If you're lazy, like me, I seriously doubt you'll wanna be visiting Okayama anytime soon.
Well, that is unless you're looking for a good workout.

It looks like they got a roller coaster that is entirely human powered.


Yea, those are pretty much converted bicycles up there. Ha. As cool as it is, just seems like a lot of work to have fun. But it also makes me think about what it would be like to make something similar. How hard would it be to convert a bicycle to a track mounted device? Or ya know what would be even better? One of those 2-man railroad carts. Ya know... the kind with the see-saw lever in the middle!















Ok, I guess I would go on it after all. I mean, jeez, look at the views. The closest thing we have around here even remotely similar to that is at Magic Mountain.


Sky Cycle [Via Hacked Gadgets]

Learn to speed read

Ive always been interested in speed reading.... i just never knew exactly how. I knew there were a few tricks to use, like you just simply cant say the words in your head if you wanna go fast. It just wont work.

Ive never really tried to look up techniques for speed reading, but i did just happen to come across this guy's site. He seems to know his stuff and has some tips about it. Its worth a nice slow read anyways ;)

Double Your Reading Rate [Via Lifehacker]