Traffic traffic (not related to my previous buffalo buffalo posting)

The Seattle traffic site always seems to be down at 6 PM these days. There are just too many people hitting the server.

Looks like I need a traffic traffic notification, to let me know when the traffic dies down on the traffic site.

Fully automatic parallel parking

I’d heard of this, but never seen it until now:
http://www.youtube.com/w/Toyota%20Prius?v=rT6UQ6iqsio&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enewlaunches%2Ecom%2Farchives%2Ftoyota%5Fprius%5Fautomatically%5Fdoes%5Fparallel%5Fparking%2Ephp

Automatic Lyrics Generator

Here’s an idea: use Closed Captioning information to automatically generate lyrics for songs. e.g. from MTV.

Gillette’s revolutionary new razor

First read this Onion satire from 2/04:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

Then read this:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/news/fortune500/gillette/

I’ll admit; I stole this story from NPR this morning.

McDonald’s Fries Got Even Fattier

That’s right; put down those mickey-D fries that you’re eating. McD just realized that their previous estimates of trans fats in the fries were on the low end (perhaps some of the fries dropped under the couch). The fries actually have a third more trans fats than they previously thought.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/08/health/main1299086.shtml

Rolling Stones censorship

Funny.

Back in 1967 the band appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on the same day as the first Super Bowl, which was then called the world championship game. They wanted to sing “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” but Sullivan insisted they change the lyrics to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060206/en_nm/media_superbowl_stones_dc

FON: Get free hotspot access if you share your hotspot

Interesting idea: http://en.fon.com/

In short, if you share your Wi-Fi router, you can log onto other members’ Wi-Fi routers for free. FON runs on your router, so you don’t have to run a server on your computer. I feel like I’ve heard this plan before, but I can’t recall where…

Comments/questions:

• What’s the security story? Home users don’t set ACLs, so shared folders will be available to all FON users. And does everyone have their PC firewalls set properly?
• How inconvenient is it? I assume that your home PCs/laptops on Wi-Fi will be treated like any other customer’s laptop. So you have to authenticate to FON to use your own Wi-Fi.
• It’d be nice if you could easily share your phone or laptop’s wireless broadband connection (e.g. 3G, HSDPA, EV-DO). That would increase coverage in areas where home Wi-Fi isn’t available (e.g. buses, subways that are cell enabled).
• Outside of densely populated areas, coverage will be pretty bad. 802.11n / MIMO will help, but only so much.

Apple Hit With Hearing Loss Lawsuit

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=178601020&cid=CRNBreakingNews

1^st rule of suing: go where the money is :). Is the iPod really louder than other players? Perhaps it is…

More in-depth analysis:

• Apple has no interest in making you deaf, because then you can’t use your player and you won’t upgrade to the next player :).
• Apple shipped this as an intellisense feature. Original problem: the music is too loud, and it’s annoying to have to turn it down using the volume switch. Solution: make the user deaf, which makes the music not as loud, and you don’t have to touch the volume switch!