The Gadgets Page

I’ve written before about the Seven-Person Tricycle from Hammacher Schlemmer. Here’s a video of it in action:

Viddy Well filmed five tourists taking a ride on the bike. I was surprised to see that most of them weren’t using the pedals, so the bike was being powered mostly by the woman in charge of the bike.

These look like a fun novelty to own if you live in a big city and can charge tourists for bike rides. Next time I find myself trapped in traffic behind a horse and carriage downtown, I’m going to take a deep breath and repeat my new mantra, “At least it’s not a 7-person bike, at least it’s not a 7-person bike…”

Wil Wheaton has finally given us his full E3 report. E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) is a video game conference that showcases the new and exciting in the video world.

• Future Shock | The A.V. Club

His sole goal for the day was to experience Guitar Hero II. Distracted by Tony Hawk skating a half-pipe and zombies, he keeps his focus on the prize.

Of course, this is Microsoft we’re talking about, and no Microsoft demo experience would be complete or authentic without lockups and rebooting, which I got to enjoy—twice.

“Okay,” I said while the 360 rebooted for the second time, “I really need to get out of here and find Guitar Hero II.”

It’s an entertaining read that gives you the idea of the craziness of this convention.

Check out this list of Top 10 Geek Watches. Sadly, they are all men’s watches. I guess they don’t believe women can be geeks. Of course, geek watches for women are difficult to find…

• productdose.com » Blog Archive » Top 10 Geek Watches

The Tag Heuer Monaco 69, with its blatantly obvious sexual innuendo for a name, is my favorite choice. It’s the only watch with a good name that can command respect AND be useful. It’s a digital watch on one side and analog on the other (hence, the sixty-nine reference).

Here is the official information from Tag Heuer:

• TAG Heuer Concept Watches > Monaco Sixty-Nine, Monaco 69 > Luxury Watchmaking, Swiss Watches

This is a concept watch and isn’t available right now. There is nothing on their website stating if or when it might be available or how much it would cost when it is. There is speculation ranging in the $7000 range, however.

Kevin Cheng was at E3 and attended the demonstration for the new game, Spore, which is like the Sims for evolution. This video shows Robin Williams playing with Spore, creating a creature of his own design for the game.

• Robin Williams Plays Spore at kev/null

I am so excited about this game. You get to design your own life form and help it evolve from protozoa on up to galactic traveler.

For more information about Spore:

• SPORE: About SPORE

• CNN.com – ‘Spore’ lets gamers evolve at E3 – May 20, 2005

• Spore for PC – Spore PC Game – Spore Computer Game

This is mounted on top of my house. It looks homemade, but the previous owner has no idea what it is. It looks like it’s trying to be a sattelite dish of some sort, but I can’t tell.

Do any of you know how I could test this thing to see what it is and if it works? It looks like a totally cool hack, but since I don’t know what it is, it’s going to end up being put in the garbage next time we go up on the roof.

Wil Wheaton was a guest speaker at E3, but he was more interested in getting his grimy hands on Guitar Hero 2. He was successful and his review is here:

• WWdN: In Exile: Primus Gives Master Track to Guitar Hero 2

He enjoyed playing the eight song demo that they had available and talked to the developers:

“It was so nice to meet developers who aren’t completely in love with themselves and appreciate geeks like me who play their games, you know?”

E3 is a Video Game Convention in California. Every year, all the best games are showcased there. Wil could have set his sites on any of the games and he went straight to the Red Octane booth to play Guitar Hero 2.

You can be a ROCK STAR!

William McKeen brags about his luddite ways and threatens that the Internet is going to ruin serendipity.

• Perspective: The endangered joy of serendipity

I realized half-way through reading his article that this fellow doesn’t use the Internet. Sure, he has logged on to CNN.com and probably gets his stock quotes online, but other than that, he hasn’t spent much time online.

He has never known the seredipitous joy of reading a weblog and finding a link to something totally weird and useful. He hasn’t even listened to the boring overplaylists that the radio has been cranking out lately. He hasn’t searched for interesting music online or known the joy of finding a good band via Pandora or iTunes. I was about to smack this luddite down until I realized that Steven Berlin Johnson had done it for me.

• stevenberlinjohnson.com: Can We Please Kill This Meme Now

Every time I see someone waxing poetic about how much better reading a newspaper was, or going to a library was, or listening to the radio was, I KNOW for a fact that said person has not learned how to use the Internet properly. Get past the “I Suck At This” phase before you go reminiscing about how much better the past was.

We’ve just come back from a wonderful trip to San Diego. While we’re there, we always visit the IKEA store. I cannot describe the wonderfulness that is IKEA, and apparently, their web designers can’t either.

• IKEA | home | IKEA, furniture, kitchens, beds, chairs, sofas, decorations

We saw an excellent kitchen table that can easily seat six people when opened and folds into a small, two-person table. It is the perfect table for a small apartment where you might want to the flexibility of entertaining, but most of the time, you just need to eat breakfast.

Unfortunately, I can’t find this table on their website. They have many “folding” tables, but the descriptions are minimalist and the pictures make all the tables look the same.

Sadly, I’ll have to wait until IKEA opens a store in SLC (Spring 2007) or until we visit San Diego again and are willing to haul it back home across three states.

For people with limited space, this bed changes your bedroom into an office. It’s a full bed with a simplistic mattress, so if you have trouble sleeping, this might not be for you. If you can sleep anywhere, however, this desk is perfect for small living areas. Euro Flying Beds has a whole selection of hidden beds at their website.

• Euro FlyingBeds – Euro Desk Bed

I am always looking for ways to maximize the utilization of our space. I find it hard to justify an entire room when I’m mostly unconscious in it. The price is over three thousand dollars for this bed, so you’re paying for design more than materials. If you’re handy, however, they have conveniently included the specifications. You would probably receive it in a box and have to put it together yourself anyway, so you might as well use this as a blue-print to hack your own Euro Desk Bed.

Via: The Computer Bed @ Alice Hill’s Real Tech News – Independent Tech

When Mike and I participated in our church’s Clean Up day, we were shocked to find that the dry erase boards were damaged and unusable and had been for years.

We were able to get them clean, but they are so scratched that they will stain again when written on. Here is an option that we can use to fix them.

• DIYDryEraseBoard – ElephantStaircase

Our church put a low priority on the dry erase boards, but they have haunted me since the church clean up day. I’m glad to know that we could fix them up for only a few dollars in white paint and acrylic plastic.