Morning Routine for Android Forces You to Wake Up and Start Your Day by Scanning a Barcode [Video]

Morning Routine for Android Forces You to Wake Up and Start Your Day by Scanning a Barcode [Video]:

Android: We've shared tons of Android alarm clock apps here before, but Morning Routine takes a fresh new approach to forcing yourself awake. When the alarm goes off, you have to scan a barcode—like, the one on your carton of orange juice in the fridge—in order to turn it off. More »

IT Calls of Shame

IT Calls of Shame:
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's JR Raphael offers up six memorable tales of trouble and triumph from the tech support desk. 'Working in tech support is a bit like teaching preschool: You're an educator who provides reassurance in troubling times. You share knowledge and help others overcome their obstacles. And some days, it feels like all you hear is screaming, crying, and incoherent babble.' Pronoun problems, IT ghosts, the runaway mouse — when it comes to computers, the customer isn't always right."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How Long Is a Piece of String? BBC and Comedian Alan Davies Explore Quantum Mechanics

How Long Is a Piece of String? BBC and Comedian Alan Davies Explore Quantum Mechanics:
Making sense of 319.44 millimeters of infinity.
The fine folks at BBC’s Horizon series have previously explored such intriguing topics as the nature of reality, the age-old tension between science and religion, how music works, the volatile history of chemistry, and what time really is.
In How Long is a Piece of String?, they enlist standup-comic-turned-physics-enthusiast Alan Davies in answering the seemingly simple question of the film’s title, only to find in it a lens — a very blurry lens — on the very fabric of reality. Along the way, Davies asks some of the world’s top scientists to measure his piece of string, gets repeatedly discombobulated by mathematician Marcus du Sautoy (he of The Number Mysteries fame), and turns to quantum mechanics to try to work out where the individual atoms and particles that make up the string actually are. The result is as enlightening as it is entertaining.

Your string does not actually possess a length. Somehow, by measuring it, we create a length for the string.

The matter of everybody in the world, the whole of the human race, amounts to a sugar cube. The rest is just space.

Reality, in some sense, does not exist unless we’re actually observing it. And it’s our act of observation that makes things real.

For a deeper dive into these most fascinating frontiers of human thought, you won’t go wrong with Brian Cox’s The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen.
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Technology For the Masses: Churches Going Hi-Tech

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind [Creativity]

A Better Strategy for Hangman [Games]

A Better Strategy for Hangman [Games]:

There's no easy way to say it. You've probably been playing Hangman wrong your entire life. More »

Dalek Relaxation Tapes for Humans [Video]

Dalek Relaxation Tapes for Humans [Video]:


Yep geeks, during their absence from Dr. Who, the Daleks released a series of new-age relaxation tapes. You can hear an example of one of those tapes in the video above.
[Via Nerdapproved]
No related posts.

G-G the book.

G-G the book.:

G-G the book.

Stars to Change in Re-Release of Titanic

Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy

Total and Annular Solar Eclipse Paths: 2001-2020 [1942x1465]

Like Ice Cream? Then You'll Love These Delicious Beaver Anal Glands [Food]

Larry, the Quaker Oats Dude, Has Had Some Work Done [Plastic Surgery]

Monster Cables face off against Coat Hangers

IETF Attendees Reengineer Their Hotel's Wi-Fi Net

Blind Man Test Drives Google's Autonomous Car

Do It Yourself or Hire Someone? Use This Calculator to Find What an Hour of Your Time Is Really Worth [Personal Finance]

Do It Yourself or Hire Someone? Use This Calculator to Find What an Hour of Your Time Is Really Worth [Personal Finance]:

There are so many tasks we can outsource these days, from housecleaning to room painting and even grocery shopping. To find out if outsourcing is really worth it, you should consider not just your income, but also how much free time and spare money you have. This calculator gives you an estimate based on those considerations. More »

Company Behind Billions Of Phony "Auto Warranty" Robocalls Shut Down By FTC

Company Behind Billions Of Phony "Auto Warranty" Robocalls Shut Down By FTC:


Have you ever answered a call from an unfamiliar number only to hear a recording tell you there is important information about your automobile warranty? You're not alone, as the folks at the FTC have shut down an operation it says was responsible for billions of instances of deceptive dialing.

The FTC settlement announced this morning bans L.A.-area company SBN Peripherals, doing business as Asia Pacific Telecom Inc., from telemarketing and requires the company to hand over about $3 million in assets.

For those not familiar with the scam, here's how it works. The company's auto-dialing system calls you and a prerecorded message says there is urgent information you need to know about your vehicle's warranty (they also ran a similar set-up regarding credit card interest rates). You would be prompted to press "1" for more information , at which point the call would be transferred to telemarketers who "used fraudulent practices to sell inferior extended auto service contracts or worthless debt-reduction services."

The FTC reports that the company made more than 2.6 billion robocalls in a span of only 20 months. And even though only a tiny fraction of people who received these calls were suckered into talking to a sales agent, that was still around 12.8 million consumers.

These calls violated the law by contacting people without their written permission.

The actual order against the company imposes a $5.3 million judgment but since the defendant can't pay all that in cash, the FTC will take:

* more than $1 million obtained from a bank account in Hong Kong,

* a $375,000 lien on a home, a 50 percent interest in an office building in Saipan,

* the defendants' interest in seven parcels of undeveloped land,

* three cars and a recreational vehicle.

If you're a fan of audio files, the FTC has posted some samples of the deceptive robocalls: Sample 1 (extended auto warranty), Sample 2 (credit card interest rates).

The right hand spanks, the left hand cups

The right hand spanks, the left hand cups:

submitted by panicjames [link] [11 comments]