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This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.

It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.

Entries for week beginning January 6, 2008

January 11, 2008

Easy Acid

Large collection of loungecore covers. Hugo Montenegro’s version of “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)” is my favourite so far.

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Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES

Posted without comment: Conference with lots of TVs + geeks with TV-B-Gone remotes = …

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January 10, 2008

Squeezebox Duet Network Music System

The new Squeezebox hardware was one of the best things I saw at CES. The remote is pretty nice, but the best thing is that, like their SlimServer software, the firmware is open-source and Lua-based, so “the community” can write plugins and features for the remote. I predict this’ll be huge.

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How Frozen Peas Started A Movement | The Washington Post

The Frozen Pea Fund gets a write-up in the Washington Post.

January 9, 2008

Macworld 2008 Keynote Brown Bag Gathering at Betahouse

Boston get-together to hit refresh on Gizmodo/Engadget/MacWorld and watch the news of next week’s Stevenote flow in.

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ABC Ferrets Out a New 'Mole' - Zap2it

Woot! “The Mole” is coming back in a non-celebrity edition. This makes me: happy!

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Be jealous

Be jealous

I won a raffle at the blogger party. Amongst the prizes were $300 in cash and free return flights on Virgin America.

My prize? An Intel flight suit. Apparently, Intel was sponsoring one of those Zero-G parabolic flights, and had some custom flight suits made. Do I get a flight on the vomit comet? Do I bollocks. Just the suit.

Not pictured is the huge Intel logo on the back. Discussions soon turned to the idea of wearing it, heading to the Intel booth on the show floor, and pretending to be booth staff. "Our new processor is smaller than an ant, but can do multiplication almost three times faster than even the most skilled ant."

Oh, and when I was carrying the suit, I felt something papery in one of the pockets. Of course, my first assumption was that there was a crisp $100 bill in there. Nope. Sick bag!

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January 8, 2008

Sexxpresso

Sexxpresso

Spotted opposite the Atomic Testing Museum. No idea what makes their coffee "sexy", and frankly scared to find out.

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Rolly

Rolly

The closest thing to an innovation at the Sony stand -- breakdancing robot MP3 players.

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The Internet’s Famous Scoble

The Internet’s Famous Scoble

Getting ready for an interview at the NBC News stand

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Me & Amanda Beard

Me & Amanda Beard

Signing at the Go Daddy tent. There were only five or six people in the line, so I figured what the hey.

As a few of us were discussing in the line, Photoshop has been good to her.

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Crocs O-Dial

Crocs O-Dial

Crocs for your phone. Who else thinks they came up with the name first, then created the product to go with it?

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This one goes to MP5

This one goes to MP5

"You're on MP4 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on MP4 on your player. Where can you go from there? Where?"

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Ars gets its hands on the Optimus Maximus, begins payment plan

I got to play with the Optimus keyboard at CES yesterday, and it is incredibly cool looking, but didn’t feel like a terribly usable keyboard. But pretty? Boy howdy!

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Completely random prediction that I just want to jot down here so that I can point to it if it turns out to come true

This year’s Beijing olympic games will have the highest TV viewing figures in the US for, let’s say, 10 years, since it’ll be the first summer games shown in high-definition.

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BBC NEWS | Clarkson stung after bank prank

Hah! Jeremy Clarkson blusters in his usual ignorantly twattish style that identity theft isn’t a big deal, and to prove his point, lists his bank account details in his newspaper column. Someone took the details and created a direct debit to a charity! `

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Blinged-out Namebadge

Blinged-out Namebadge

After nabbing some samples from the Rhinestone It! booth, I now have the most blinged-out namebadge in Vegas

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January 7, 2008

“More Beneficial Than Smoking”

“More Beneficial Than Smoking”

Bizarre battery-powered cartridge-based contraption that allows you to "smoke" "cigarettes" without technically smoking.

(Rather splendidly, a google search reveals that "NJoy" is also the name of a brand of "personal massagers", so make sure not to get them confused. You might get a funny look if you put a "NJoy Personal Wand" between your lips in public)

www.njoy.com/

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Plen

Plen

I was excited to see Plen, since he's a true celebrity -- Last night on The Amazing Race, one of the choices on the detour involved controlling Plens with cellphones and trying to score goals.

plen.jp/

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Bling!

Bling!

Another common theme at the Sands today: Stickers to decorate devices. Ranging from artistic skins for your laptop, to "bling" stickers, resulting in lovely devices like these at the "Rhinestone It!" stand.

www.cosam.biz/

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Versus Scoreboard

Versus Scoreboard

Portable boombox-type-thing with remote-controlled score displays, a countdown timer, etc.

It sounds a bit gimmicky and crappy, but it's something I desperately wanted a few years back when doing improv. I could definitely see Theatersports or Comedysportz troupes using it for away gigs.

www.versusscoreboard.com/

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Don’t piss in the soup

Don’t piss in the soup

I ate at Sensi this evening, which has its kitchen in the center of the restaurant, surrounded by walls of glass.

I was treated to the view of the steamer. Anyone who was squeamish about seeing live wriggling lobsters going in, and pink delicious ones coming out would not have had fun.

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January 6, 2008

Quick braindump from CES (Day 0)

Greetings from Vegas, or more specifically, Bloghaus.

  • I’m already stunned by the scale of CES. I just went to collect my badge, and caught a glimpse of the smaller show floor. S’gonna be huge.
  • Biggest discussion point so far: Exactly how fucked is HD-DVD?
  • The Las Vegas monorail is $5 for one ride, $9 for a one-day ticket, and $40 for a three-day ticket. Even for Vegas, that’s some perverse mathematics.
  • I’m refusing to wear my badge’s lanyard, cause it’s sponsored by Nero, and they’ve fucked up my Windows installs too many times in the past.
  • The Microsoft keynote was staggeringly weak. I mean, I was expecting it to be; I knew it wasn’t going to be comparable to a Stevenote. But man, there was nothing there. Nothing announced, nothing shared, just horrible public speaking and “Hey, look at this thing we’ve made this year (and please ignore that it’s identical to something you’ve seen elsewhere that’s better)”
  • Also, billg’s keynote section was spectacular in its vapidness. He could have said “We think the internet’s going to be big!”, and it would have been more insightful.
  • As I walk past the guys handing out hooker cards, I’m tempted to respond the same way you respond to a Big Issue seller in the UK: “Already got one.” Although this thought then led me down the semantic worry that I was announcing “I already have a whore”, rather than “I’ve already got a card.”
  • Wondering if my employer has a specific policy against taking your meals per diem, slapping it in the penny slots, and eating with whatever your winnings turn out to be.

OK, going to go take over the Bloghaus TV and watch American Gladiators. Laters!

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My beverages at Bloghaus

My beverages at Bloghaus

I apparently subconsciously like drinks that come in green bottles with red stars on the labels.

An Audience with billg

An Audience with billg

The crowd behind me at the Bill Gates keynote. I was about 1/3 of the way back from the stage, having chosen to ignore the people holding signs, and sitting in the "Press / VIP" area.

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Cracked Camera

Cracked Camera

Bugger! The LCD screen on the back of my camera is shattered, so I have no clue how any of my photos look, and no way to control features like the flash. It might as well be film!

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About This Site

This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.

I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.