Greetings from the Jack Astors in which I am day drinking on this unexpectedly beautiful Tuesday afternoon. Seriously, what a great day this is. It’s sunny and pleasant at the end of November just days after a dumping of snow. Hooray for climate change… Or something. I forgot how much I liked the chicken fingers […]
Category Archives: gadgets
Cut It Out With The Cord Cutting
Maybe this is one of those old man things, but I really don’t understand cord cutting. If you’re trying to save money and all you ever use your TV for is the odd movie or something here and there then perhaps it makes sense to ditch cable and just pay $10 a month for Netflix […]
Everybody Needs Good Speakeroos
I like the little song in the Volkswagen commercials. It’s bouncy, it’s catchy, it’s fun to sing along to…especially when you actually know the words. I wasn’t sure if I was going deaf, there was too much background noise, I always caught it from a distance or some combination of the three, but for a […]
When Did It Become Such A Chore Not To Call 911 With Your Arse?
OPP detachment gets almost 2,000 accidental 911 calls, urges people to stop butt-dialling Officers had to respond to 1,965 accidental calls due to carelessness with phones, police say Clearly this is a thing that happens because just look at those numbers, but I can’t figure out how. I got my first cell phone in the […]
People Still Use An Iron Lung?
Of course this had to go up at the top, even though I’m being serious here. But come on! I read a fascinating article about iron lungs, and the few people left who still use them. I had heard a bit about them, but I had no idea about all these intricacies. First off, I […]
A Couple More Songs That AI Had A Hand In
Carin reminded me of this other AI created song from a few years ago. It’s no “You Can’t Take My Door”, but that’s a pretty high bar. The main difference between the two is that the AI didn’t write the lyrics in this case, but it did determine how the music should sound based on […]
I’m Glad Facial Recognition Is The Future Of Security, Because It Sure Doesn’t Look Like The Present
Boing Boing notes this tweet. So, I was wondering why the battery on my laptop was running down every time I left it at home.Turns out the kids have been using my election leaflets to get through the facial recognition lock…I’m not sure whether to be proud by the wit or concerned by the sneakiness? […]
You Can’t Take My Door
Botnik Studios fed a neural network a whole bunch of country music and then asked it to write a song based on what it learned. The result is “You Can’t Take My Door”, a song better and more lyrically challenging than anything I’ve heard on country radio in years. This is part of a larger […]
You Can Make Your Google Home Play Tunein Premium Audio
We had a friend visiting us this weekend. At one point while we were talking about this, that and the other thing, he asked if I had noticed that my Tunein app wouldn’t cast to my Google Minis since the latest update. “My Tunein app can cast to my Google Minis,” was my rather unhelpful […]
But I Made Copies!
I love the Register’s On Call feature. Basically it’s like those emails full of dumb computer user jokes that have gone around for years and years, only real. Every week, technicians write in and share stories of the ineptitude they’ve experienced in the wild. They’re usually pretty good, but every now and then you happen […]
