Of all the sites on the internet, this is one.
As much as I enjoy giving gifts, I hate wrapping the damn things even more. I have all of the crafting ability and coordination of…um…something that has about zero of each, so if I can avoid it, I never do my own wrapping. At times that aren’t Christmas and even plenty of times that are, …
Continue reading “Shut Up And Take My Money, Automatic Wrapping Paper Cutting Machine”
Not sure what sort of liability risk might ship along with this social distancing zapper (you’re not hurting anybody with four and a half volts but you just know some freedom loving dickhead will try to sue you anyway), but I still feel like it would be a good use for $10. Some people don’t …
There are exactly 0 things about any of this right here that are either simple or practical, but I absofrigginlutely understand why someone would want to do it. Next, can we make one that works for the clicking of turn signals? You would be doing a great service to those of us who go weirdly …
I’m not an expert on Ottawa’s municipal politics, but I feel fairly comfortable questioning the judgement of the city’s deputy mayor, George Darouze. He strikes me as the sort of guy who either is legitimately stupid or thinks that everyone else is. First things first, it’s never a good sign when even before you get …
Continue reading “I Deeply Apologize For This Impossible Accident”
The ability to use a smartphone to tell you what a certain song is has been around for years. Siri can do it thanks to an integration with Shazam, and before that I used to use an app called SoundHound that did the job pretty well. But until now, you could only identify songs that …
Continue reading “Hey Google, What Song Is This? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
I’m not going to go through the whole lecture again, because if you don’t understand by now why this sort of technology is scary as hell and doesn’t bode well for the future, chances are you won’t until you find yourself a victim of it. This video is a couple years old, by the way. …
Continue reading “It Only Takes About Five Seconds For AI To Mimic Speech Now”
I read about the idea of Sound Beaming technology and I couldn’t decide what my predominant initial reaction was. I had two extreme reactions: one of thinking this was the most awesome thing ever and one of the shivers. Imagine a world where you move around in your own personal sound bubble. You listen to …
Ten years ago, I wrote this frustrating rundown of trying to refill my laundry card. That was 10 years ago! And the sad thing is very little has changed. We have made some improvements, but the system still has some pretty big flaws in it, and the flaws are brain-snappingly stupid. Back in November, for …
Looks like they’ve found another use for our pal Pepper the bank bot. She’s now tooling around a mall in France reminding people to wear masks. I sure hope nobody’s beaten her up. Some folks can get awful touchy about that. If you want to give her a knock or two for the bank stuff …
I’m not sure what to think of this. I think it has potential, but I am glad it’s an early prototype. It’s called Project Guideline, and its aim is to let blind people run independently without needing a dog, a cane or a human guide. There are good things about it, like how the app …
Continue reading “Project Guideline: Like Guidelines, It’s a Place to Start”