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Tue 9/30/14 8:48am # | tweet this

Black Cat

Finally found an elusive Black Cat figure at Walgreen's this morning. This wave has been in stores since before the Amazing Spider-man 2 movie, but it's the first time I've seen this figure on the pegs.

She's a nicely done figure.

Cheetah and Catwoman are older figures. (Throw in Catman, and Kraven and some other's and perhaps I can do a broadway shelf display of CATS.)

I want to hear your







Tue 9/23/14 2:36pm # | tweet this

Say Something

Jennifer was sick all weekend, and last night I finally caught her cold. It was the worst for me last night. I've been over the worst of it this morning I think and mostly I've just felt run down since lunch.

I guess I'm lucky, Jennifer had a cold for four and a half days, and I'm getting, at worst, a 36 hour hit of it.

I briefly sat at my desk this afternoon and played with Manga Studio, but realized I didn't have anything I wanted to say.

I think I'll go back upstairs and crash on the couch now. Tomorrow will likely be a better day.

I want to hear your



Mon 9/22/14 5:08pm # | tweet this

This week's new shows

There are three TV premiere's I'm looking forward to this week.

Gotham, the Jim Gordon, Batman prequel without Batman at 8pm on Fox.

Forever, an Immortal medical examiner starring Fantastic Four and Horatio Hornblower's Ioan Gruffudd.

And, the second season premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which I'm guessing is going to be kick ass fun this season.

It's a lot of guys in dark suits to be sure.

I want to hear your



Mon 9/22/14 2:28pm # | tweet this

#missingmustache

You think you're ready for the premiere of Gotham tonight, but you're not ready until you print the mustache above.

You may have seen the previews for Gotham and noticed that Jim Gordon, does not have his mustache in this new exciting comic TV series.

I imagine, being a television show and not a movie, there just wasn't enough budget to also include Gordon's 'stache. Whatever the reason for it's lack of inclusion, you need not suffer a lack of enjoyment with tonight's premiere episode. Simply print the the above, attach to a straw and hold up in front of the TV whenever Jim Gordon is on screen.

Problem solved!

I want to hear your



Sun 9/21/14 9:52am # | tweet this

Extant

We finished the Haley Berry Sci-Fi show Extant last week. It wasn't very good. It started interestingly enough, but for the first half of the episodes they seemed to keep adding more an more plot threads until during the back half of the series, they just said "f" it and did a bunch of chase and escape stuff instead.

Nothing really lead anywhere, and nothing really got satisfyingly resolved, or by the end even seemed to have had much point.

This iO9 article does a better job than I, of pointing out the show's problems.

I want to hear your



Thu 9/18/14 3:37pm # | tweet this

Introducing Citrus Girl

Ok, I know this is just a cheesy commercial advertising hero, but I'm a little obsessed with Captain Citrus at the moment. But I think the Florida Juice Association or whoever contracted this character missed an opportunity to promote orange juice to girls too, so I present to you my contribution to the Captain Citrus family: Citrus Girl!. (Captain Citrus's sister seen sitting next to him at breakfast in the Marvel ad comic!)

I want to hear your



Wed 9/17/14 7:43pm # | tweet this

Captain Citrus

The Florida Department of Citrus spent money having Marvel comics develop a Superhero and Comic Book for them. The result is Captain Citrus.

Mysterious Solar Pods crash in this guy's families Orange Grove and bond with him, giving him, flight, solar blasts, strength, and the ability to generate hard light constructs. Basically he's a low powered Orange Lantern.

As "Hostess Twinkie" style comic book team-ups go, this Captain Citrus/Avengers isn't half bad.

I want to hear your



Mon 9/15/14 4:03pm # | tweet this

Fall

I was not prepared for how hard fall hit today. That cool gray quiet and chill in the air. I thought I was ready for it's arrival, but summer ended much too abruptly.

I want to hear your



Mon 9/15/14 3:06pm # | tweet this

Let's Go Surfing



Intuos Creative Stylus 2
source: Wacom

It would be great if Apple built in styli support at the OS level instead of all these one-off hack products.





Firefly Fan Film - "THE VERSE"
source: YouTube

This is just too good.


Many users are outraged at the idea that Twitter might use an algorithm to filter their feeds Tech News and Analysis
source: Gigaom

Yes, yest they are. But the real solution is an open sourced, decentralized twitter, more like RSS.

The Moto Hint is the future of the Bluetooth headset
source: The Verge

This has a lot of potential. To get "Her" like interaction, this tech developing better is a must.



Apple Pay was this week's most revolutionary product | The Verge
source: The Verge

No, no it was not. It solves no problem that anyone has.


I want to hear your



Mon 9/08/14 10:44am # | tweet this

Two things in opposition

First some background on the Law of software envelopment, which is:

Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

Which has been popularly updated to replace read email with "chat".

People like to talk to other people. People like to get information from other people. People like to hear stories from other people. Etc. etc.

People also like to make money. In the West we do that by being at the top of, or a middleman in a transaction. You buy some French Fries at McDonalds and the cashier gets a cut, the fry cook gets a cut, the corporate heads get a cut, the potato farmer gets a cut, the ketchup maker gets a cut, the napkin maker gets a cut, the delivery truck driver gets a cut, the drive thru window speaker phone maker gets a cut, etc. etc.

One simple transaction, buying some french fries, and lots of people get a fraction of that.

Looking at the above transaction though the lens of the Chat Law above, there's another principle in play, and that is eventually if a person makes money off a real world transaction, they'll eventually try to skip the real world part and just make money by being in the middle of the money transaction itself.

You see the Auto makers do it with their financing divisions, you see Apple doing it by trying to get in on payments, you see Twitter doing it this morning by launching real time commerce.

Make enough money selling a product and you'll transition to selling a service, make enough money on a service and you'll transition to making money off the transaction alone.

Easy enough right?

Here's where the two things above are in opposition. Human's love to talk, but there are a finite number of people they can have relationships with, this is popularly known as: Dunbar's number. Dunbar was a researcher that studied and popularized the idea that humans are built to deal with approximately 150 people.

So ideally, you'll probably deal best with 150 people on your facebook, home and work, and other combined social interactions.

The transaction business above is different though. If you take a big cut of someone's transaction, they'll eventually try to cut you out. You might pay 80 cents for french fries, but do you want to pay 10 cents for the ketchup and 5 cents for the napkin? If charged separately you might skip the ketchup or the napkin. But if the fries cost $1, and the ketchup and napkin come free, you won't think twice about it.

The ketchup and napkin people get paid, which is good for them.

An even better business to be in, is the debit card company that makes a few cents off your card swipe when you bought the fries.

While there are hard costs involved in moving ketchup and napkins around the country, there's not much extra cost involved in processing 10 or 1,000 debit card transactions. So if you make your money by taking a penny or two from the middle of a financial transaction, you want as many transactions as possible to take your pennies from (This should probably be known as Superman III or the Office Space law).

Your factory may only be able to produce so many ketchup packets or napkins a day, but the number of debit transactions a company can process is almost limitless. There may come a point of diminishing returns in selling napkins, but if you make money by being a middleman in a monetary transaction, then you want two things: you want to take a small cut (or even better an invisible cut), so that no one bothers to try to cut you out, and you want to be in the middle of lots and lots of transactions so that your small cut really adds up.

So back to Chat and Dunbar's number. You can deal with 150 people. That's biologically hardwired. People with a financial interest want to be part of way more than 150 transactions though, since they only get a fraction of a cent on each one. Therefore, Facebook, Twitter and others who are big enough to try to make money off of being in the middle of your financial transactions, want you to have way more friends and interactions than 150 people. The more interactions that you have that they can take a cut of, the more they make.

Two things in opposition. You can only do so many transactions but they can make more money, the more transactions you are a part of.

I want to hear your



Sun 9/07/14 10:20am # | tweet this

Dark Angel

Dark angel figure picked up on ebay next to a Marvel Legends Black Widow.

I want to hear your



Fri 9/05/14 3:51pm # | tweet this

Bat Bros

I got a Jason Todd Red Hood figure today. His arm blades are a bit overkill, and he's a little tall (a smidge taller than Nightwing) but a very nicely detailed figure. I have way too many Robin figures, even more than this last grouping.

I want to hear your



Thu 9/04/14 8:59pm # | tweet this

Pebble vs Samsung Gear

Since I've been home more I've been wearing the Samsung Gear more. The notifications aren't as good on it, but I use the camera a lot. I'm kindof disapointed that none of the Android Wear watches have cameras. As interested as I am in the Android Wear platform, outside of the office, the Gear's camera has been my most used feature.

Even at home I keep the Pebble in view to the side of my desktop computer. It's the best way to keep up with all the notifications from my phone. The Pebble has a more useful set of apps too. I can adjust my thermostat, turn on and off my lights and send a Glympse right from the Pebble.

The Gear has the ability to answer a call (even if my phone is in another room) and the Gear has canned replies to text messages ("ok", "cool", "omw", etc.)

Color screens are hard to read outdoors or in the car though. Pebble's epaper screen is easy to read everywhere.

The color screen of the Gear is also a problem in the movie theater. Each notification lights up your row.

Pebble is my favorite when I'm expecting a lot of incoming messages or I'm in the car or outdoors. Gear is still my favorite if I'm shopping or out in new places or with people, because the camera is just so useful to capture the moment or take a visual note.

I want to hear your



Thu 9/04/14 11:30am # | tweet this

Let's Go Surfing





Report: Burger King in Talks to Buy Tim Hortons, Canada's Biggest Coffee Chain
source: Mashable

There's something weird about the idea of a transnational corporation that can switch it's nationality at will.






Park It In, Man
source: New Escapologist

Imagine how beautiful our cities would be with no cars in them. The clean air. The safe streets. The polite sounds of conversation and twittering birds instead of the roar of traffic.

Imagine the convenience and cost efficiency of teeny little downtown houses instead of big ones further out of town. No commutes. No massive mortgages or heating bills. Proximity to all the cool bars, cinemas, universities, libraries and shops.
You see this sort of thing a lot, especially with sub-thirty somethings. If your life is focused on "cool bars, cinemas, universities, libraries and shops" then this kindof downtown living is very appealing.

I read the above and boils more down to: "I want to live in a mall and meet a lot of people all the time!" Most people eventually get past that.

Copy stand for book scanning - just make one hole
source: Instructables

Hand Tripod and a Cookie Sheet.

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Mon 9/01/14 6:35pm # | tweet this

Go 4 Fries

Sometimes you pick something up in the center aisle of the grocery store and you just know it's going to be a bad idea.

I present to you: "Go 4 Fries". French Fries in a non-refrigerated, non-frozen, shelf-stable bag.

Somehow there are only 3 ingredients listed on this package: potatoes, sunflower oil and salt. No preservatives, no chemicals of any kind, just those 3 ingredients. Yet somehow these do not expire until mid-December.

If I was to be polite, I'd say these were sortof like Munchos but in fry form. If I was to speculate, I'd say these were McDonalds fries post-processed by being placed under a car seat for a couple weeks during August and then bagged and shipped to stores.

Personally, I think they missed an opportunity to call these something more descriptive like: Petrifries or even Petrifried Potato Products.

Do not get or eat, but of course anyone would realize that, it's center aisle placement just got the better of my curiosity.

I want to hear your






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