by Steve Wettlaufer -

A Nice Bob Cole Tribute

Here’s the tribute that the Leafs did for Bob Cole tonight. I can’t believe that this is the last Leafs home game he’ll ever call and that in just a couple short months his entire career will be over. So many great memories.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

A Kind Of Sort Of GPS System From 1971

This was actually a pretty ingenious idea in some ways, but unfortunately if even the smallest thing about any of your surroundings ever changed or the tape got eaten, you’d be kind of screwed.

In a fascinating segment from an 1971 episode of the BBC science show Tomorrow’s World, host Michael Rodd gave a demonstration of a pre-recorded cassette tape navigation control device to help drivers find their way. The control device was connected both to the cassette player and to the car’s odometer, using real time information through wheel rotations and communicated with a series of bleeps to determine distance.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

Alexa, Open The Pod Bay Doors

I swear somebody did this gag years ago just with Siri instead of Alexa because Alexa wasn’t a thing yet and that one of us posted it then, but hell if I can find it. So here’s what it might be like if the HAL-9000 computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey had been Echo powered.

If HAL-9000 was Amazon Alexa

Alexa, open the pod bay doors.

Posted by The Dailies on Wednesday, January 31, 2018

And here’s the real scene, in case you’ve never seen it.

Be sure to stick around to watch Carin find what I’ve just spent ten minutes looking for and put it in the comments section after about thirty seconds.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

Watch A Smartphone Tell You About All The Snooping It’s Doing

We all know (or at least I hope we know by now) that our cell phones are spying on us. But I don’t think a lot of us quite understand just how much they’re doing it. I’m not sure how much this short film is going to do to change that, but it sure does make you stop and think. And if it makes you stop and think before you’re about to absentmindedly mash “I agree” on something next time, then perhaps it’s done its job.

Harvest” is a brilliantly chilling documentary short about the daily life of a woman named Jenni as seen through the voyeuristic perspective of her smartphone. Director Kevin Byrnes purposely gave the film a particularly ominous mood in making it appear as if the phone were a stalker lying in wait and watching every move with Jenni as its prey. In reality it’s the fine print of third party app location services that would actually allow her to be stalked in such a way.
During one week of filming in March 2016, Jenni’s phone transmitted her GPS coordinates 3,545 times to third party apps based on the fine print authorizations provided as part of her installation of common applications.

A Chilling Documentary About a Woman’s Life Told From the Voyeuristic Perspective of a Smartphone

by Steve Wettlaufer -

Somebody Tried To Eat Those Canned Hamburgers. Tried Being The Key Word Here

Many years ago, Carin discovered that there is such a thing as a cheeseburger in a can. She had basically the reaction that you’re probably having right now, especially if this is the first time you’ve heard the words cheeseburger in a can presented to you in the context of it being a thing that actually exists. But indeed it does exist, and some crazy bastard found and attempted to eat a few of them.

The fact that some of them didn’t want to come out of the can should have been a sign from the heavens, but on he pressed. The results, to be generous, were mixed. The word “slime” comes up frequently, as do terms such as “tastes like paper”, “no flavour”, “What is that? and on the positively glowing end of the spectrum, “it’s edible”.

You may not want to watch this during dinner, although if you watch it beforehand there may be no need for dinner, so do what you will.