And then there was the Princess phone

Not only did we have the Princess phone, but we had the early model which required an external ringer as well! You could set it for a soft br-r-r-r-r-ing, a loud BR-R-R-R-R-ING, or a ding-dong sound.

One night, the babysitter went crazy, thinking that the ding-dong sound was the doorbell, when it was actually the phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_telephone

Anyone checked to make sure this isn't a HOV dummy?

Oh, wow.... this even includes the Palm Treo (under $0 after rebate) and the Palm Centro is actually $0.01!!! Yes, the iPhone is nice, but the ability to run all the software I'm already used to would be great!

The fact that I still can't get the Centro from a carrier in Canada over 7 months after release (while the U.S. has both CDMA and GSM versions) suggests that the state of the U.S. cell phone market could be even worse.

I think you're right here. The catch is, of course, that part of the attraction of steampunk is the sheer craftsmanship it demands. Even if one were to contemplate mass manufacturing of a real steampunk device, it would still have that air of care towards mechanical detail.

But we get the benefits of our modern systems precisely *because* they are almost throwaway in their design. We can take a computer and use it for some almost inconsequential purpose because it's mundane and has no essential defining purpose before we start.

Building an actual "steampunk monitor" would be such an exercise in craftsmanship and inefficiency that we'd immediately consign it to a museum, in part to show it off, and in part to protect it from expensive damage.

About all I can suggest here is that rather than a colour monitor, he use a "brass monitor" -- amber, that is. Or sepia. And since those are hard to come by, the best thing to do in the short term is modify the desktop theme to make those colours dominate.

Considering the monitor is to be used in a movie -- I think this would work out nicely.

I tweaked the photo to do this -- check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutatron/2438517247/ (sepia) and http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutatron/2439341794/ (amber).

@7: Yes, there is an MP3 player in there.

It's for the "plausible deniability" function.

@3: consumers vs citizens

I agree that the word choice should be odd - but I'm guessing that they will come under far greater pressure to actually deal with these issues if they are stopping people from buying cars as opposed to just searching them a little extra at airports (*).

(*:Yes, I realize that would be a different list. This list won't cause you to be stopped at airports because this list is all about transactions, not travel.)

Violins? Guitars?

You might be happy to know that the poll attached to the article is leaning almost 2:1 in favour of these being a child friendly shape.

Great quote on the two-penny no-deposit lending library...

"Nevertheless booksellers generally find that it pays them better to have a certain number of books stolen (we used to lose about a dozen a month) than to frighten customers away by demanding a deposit."

This is, perhaps, an old lesson needing to be re-learned in the digital era?

Joel may have been invited on to discuss gadgets - but as Joel knows, the ability to design and sell a new gadget that uses a network depends entirely on the network being neutral to your gadget. If AT&T can evade liability for imposing copyright restrictions, then they can likely evade liability for supporting one business model over another - depending on which way the dollar swings for them, of course.

A non-neutral network is too risky for new gadget development. No new gadgets would mean the end of "networked gadget" discussions.

Joel is dead on topic - he's just thinking long-term, not about the next gadget around the corner.

I suspect that the lack of educational software for cellphones is at least as much because there is no way to run it even if someone writes it.

(It's not just educational software that suffers from this limitation, of course.)

@David B: although a cellphone is certainly not as powerful and as capable as a computer, I can likely think up some useful small apps that don't yet exist. A scientific calculator, perhaps? A student oriented time management app? An addition/multiplication flash card practise app? For the much younger set, there are any number of small games - matching, memory, alphabet/number flash cards. Even a simple alphabet slide show of objects/animals, including a sound track for hearing the words?

Am I the only one who has found that clicking on the link takes you to a Flickr error page ("This photo is private")??

After doing some comparisons, it has occured to me - "switched" may mean "have an output cord switched for an input cord", meaning there are no actual switches in this product. (Comparisons are tough when the product is not actually to be found on the company's website.)

I did find that Belkin makes a two-output headphone passive - at about $10. That suggests you won't get 5 switchable outlets for $20 - you'll just get a 5 port headphone hub.

It still has some value, but you could do this with about $15 worth of parts from Radio Shack (cause their connectors are expensive!) or about $5 worth of parts from your discount electronics parts supplier - and THEN you could mod it with switches, and still be under $20.

Joel - I think you're missing some major uses for this, that NEED the multiple, switchable inputs. I'm assuming that you can have multiple inputs "on" simultaneously.

Some people have long wanted a way to use of multiple audio sources with only one set of headphones. I can see someone plugging their audio player in one input, and plugging a radio - perhaps a scanner - into another. And then you could plug in your child monitor as well. If you don't actually use the dedicated input, and instead put all of the sources on the switchable inputs, then you can quickly cut off the other sources just using the switches on the Rockstar to allow you to focus on one source, without having to find and fiddle with multiple sources. Or - use it work to hear both your audio player and your work PC.

If Belkin had only built this to allow "one in to five outs", it would have only moderate value. But this way - a bunch of jacks plus switches, there's all kinds of potential for this gadget.

Think of it as a simple 5-channel on-off mixer for your pocket.

Sorry - it's speed that counts. That's why you want the SnoFling. It's a loader AND a launcher.

These have been around forever, which is my way of saying "since I was a kid". I actually thought they were no longer available.

With reasonable packing snow, you can get a round off between 'once per second' and 'once every two seconds'.

http://www.snofling.com/

By and large, because of the three readings a bill must go through, it is both not usual AND fairly difficult to force legislation through in a short time. It's not unheard of to glom a bunch of issues together into one must-pass bill, but it's usually a high-level political tactic, not a way to sneak something through. And because all legislation must be passed as-is (or sent back) by the Senate, it's really, really hard to be sneaky *inside* Parliament.

The exception can be made for special occurences - but this happens with all-party approval. This is NOT just everyone voting for it, but special all-party agreement to use a different set of rules that allow all the steps to happen in rapid succession. The bill is then whipped off to the Senate (bing!) and run across for Royal Assent from the Governor-General.

In the Canadian system, the sneakiness tends to happen out of sight -- in committee, or with regards to lobbying. Some sample Canadian sneakiness:

- Anne of Green Gables and bill C-36; this bill contained a copyright provision that would have extended the terms of dead authors rights past 50 years for unpublished works. It was generally considered to be in reference to Lucy Maud Montgomery's unpublished works. But it would have made copyright on unpublished works almost impossible to track and manage. There was some public disension on that, too. The relevant clauses were swapped out on third reading by actual voice reading in the House - *very* unusual - and the other parts of the Bill passed as normal.

- Sam Bulte and the Committee; Howard Knopf was presenting before the Heritage Committee, but his materials were disallowed because he only had them in English. It's one thing to expect your bilingual government to serve you in your choice of language, but I think it was rather extreme to expect a citizen in front of a committe to provide their materials in both languages. It had all the earmarks of the chairperson using procedural tactics to keep this material out of the record; later on, a bill could be described as "based on the evidence given to the committee" while glossing over the fact that the Committee might not have had the whole picture.

"Look neat" will have the be the key item here. I don't use a hammer with the head held on with a wedge either. But my Estwing one-piece forged steel framing hammer costs about 1/4 of what that one goes for -- and I'm guessing it will actually stand up to more abuse.

The holes in the face are a "traction face", usually indicative of a framing hammer - for large scale, rough work, using nails with large heads. With finishing nails and the like, you would of course want a smooth face hammer (which these guys, and most hammer makers, also sell).

For all those who want lossless formats, I sympathize. The growth of cheap storage means that you can get all the space you need at a price you can afford. And, yes, classical music is targetted at audiophiles, not iPods. But there's a caution there - it's targetted, not aimed exclusively.

I just did a quick survey, and as far as I can tell, only the computers in my house could handle lossless formats. That's not a place I do much listening. The car, the portable CD, the iPod, the DVD players -- all of these are reasonably priced devices that can handle MP3. In some cases, they can't even handle plain uncompressed files unless they are audio CDs.

I get the impression that although there is a notable market for lossless tracks, it's not enough to trigger the creation of a service in addition to high-rate MP3s. The high-rate MP3s must be there, because MP3 is the de facto standard. Offering any additional format is a risk, because it raises the chance the consumer can buy "the wrong one".

I think this sounds like a good service. If you want to wait for lossless, go ahead. But I think you're going to be the one suffering the most. I also think that the lossless market, although notable, is not in absolute terms big enough to block the success of a service like this -- it's going to succeed or fail independent of what the lossless fans do.

You can use a radio like this for almost all your listening if you think about it.

Get a "whole house FM transmitter", and hook it up to the computer. Then use this radio as your usual listening point. It's battery-powered, so you can drop in your most relaxing playlist, and take the radio out on the deck. No longer are you a geek - the neighbours will just think you've found the best radio station out there.

(For extra effect, create fake station IDs and drop them into the playlist at periodic intervals.)

The most suspicious part of this is the timing. Announcing new legislation in December is not the best time for something important - quite the contrary, in fact. It's the best time to get something buried.

If it were really announced in two weeks, that would place it three days before the Christmas break. And then you get the government saying "pass this or you don't go home for Christmas" - followed by royal assent at the end of December. Or it's announced just after everyone leaves on break, and you can't get anyone on the phone - until mid-January when something else is the new hot story.

Meanwhile, you are faced with telling your significant other that you can't get the kids gifts in order, plan the trip to her mother's for Christmas, or get the tree up - because you have to go phone twenty or so MPs and explain why they shouldn't do this?

Better yet - start calling now. Call your MPs local office. Be prepared to go down and meet them during the holiday season - even Dec 24th. Call their Ottawa office - try to get their legislative assistant, who will be more familiar with actual bills going forward. Find out - don't wait to be told - who the relevant people are for this portfolio (Industry, and Heritage) from every party. Phone them. Get the list of committee members for those two groups. Phone them.

Make clear to your representatives that abstention is NOT an option. If you want this blocked, the only vote that matters is a No vote. An abstention only clears the way for a minority government to claim that this is will of Parliament. If it's your local MP, don't let them hide behind party policy. Ask them outright whether they are your representative to government and party or the other way around.

Write two letters to newspapers. Do it NOW. Editors will see the flow, and someone can be assigned to cover the bill because readers are writing in. When someone is covering a bill, that takes time, and they will have to write something about it because that's where they spent their time. That generates mainstream coverage. If you don't see your letter in print in a few days, pick a different aspect of the issues and write again. Pick themes that resonate with average Canadians. Be concise and pithy.

If blocking this legislation really matters to you, then be prepared to give up some Christmas and holiday time. But be warned - timing of political announcements to get maximum political benefit is an ancient art.

I have used - for years - a pillow speaker, like this ...

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Product.aspx?product=3300209

...so that I get all the benefits of the thing above, but I can move it between pillows, and change to a new pillow every now and then. It's a nice idea - but its already a solved problem. And, yes, it is true - nobody but you can hear the radio coming through the pillow speaker.

Didn't realize until I went digging that this is Steve McIntyre's blog. If climate change denialists are voting for CA, then they're going to be in for a shock.

His work aims to ensure that conlusions claimed are based on evidence presented. And that methodologies operate as advertised. You'll have to dig, but he also works towards open access - of methodologies, tools, and data - so that others can repeat experiments and data analysis.

Good reading here if you want to better understand some of the issues...

http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf

I look at it this way - I don't want a climate change prediction based on junk science, because it already seems almost certain that we need to make big changes. So - I'd like those big changes to be the ones most likely to be useful. Furthermore - there is always the possibility that although humanity is doing a lot to run up the greenhouse effect, there may be other factors also working in that direction as well. If that is the case, we want those identified as well. Humans being at fault and needing to change their behaviour is no guarantee that there aren't other warming causes that we need to mitigate on top our own actions.

Just because someone agrees with accepted conclusions doesn't mean their science is sound.

Finally - being behind a browser proxy looks like it means that I can't vote. It appears to be "one vote per IP address every 24 hours". I first looked at the site today, but in every category I check, it says I already voted in the last 24 hours.

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."

--- rule #29 from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates