Tom McMahon

What Would Be The Real Use Of a GPS-Enabled Child-Tracking Device?

As described here. It strikes me as overkill for normal kids, but it could be just the ticket for parents of autistic children and other kids with special challenges.

DDR Design

DDR Design

This eccentric collection of goods features East German consumer products daringly acquired before the wall was broken down. From foodstuffs to household appliances, East German packaging and product design—sober yet slightly kitsch—reveals a little-known side of German popular history.

Building A Tornado-Safe Room Inside Your House

Info from FEMA. Plus their Kids' Guide to Tornadoes

Cupid Paper Model

Cupid

A Different Way To Discover New Books

From BookBrowse.com:

About 100,000 new books are published each year, and that's just in the USA. How many of these do you have time to read?

Let's say you read one book a week, in a year you'll read about fifty titles, or about 1 out of every 1,200 books. How do you choose which tiny fraction to read?

Some people select books based on other people's opinions (whether it be reading newspaper reviews or taking a recommendation from a friend); others visit the bookstore to see what's new; most of us do a combination of both.

The downside of reading reviews is that you have to take that single person's word for it - you can't browse the book itself, as you would if you were in a bookstore. However, the problem about visiting so many bookstores, on and offline, is that there's no one available to guide you through the overwhelming selection.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a place where you could read the opinions of multiple reviewers and browse the book itself? Well, as you might have guessed there is - and you've already found it - BookBrowse.com.

More Reasons Why CNN and MSNBC Keep Falling Behind Fox News

The wife of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is a Legal Analyst for CNN. And over at MSNBC:

NBC has hired a long-time “Friend of Bill” to take over as President of its ratings-challenged MSNBC. Rick Kaplan, who ran CNN from 1997 to 2000, after a multi-decade career with ABC News, had re-joined ABC News last year as Senior Vice President, the number two slot.

While serving as President of CNN, Kaplan played golf with President Clinton, stayed overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom and participated in a mock debate session with Al Gore. When he was Executive Producer of Nightline in 1992 he advised presidential candidate Bill Clinton on how to handle the Gennifer Flowers revelation and later as Executive Producer of World News Tonight he blocked anti-Clinton stories from getting onto that newscast.

Spin, spin, spin, all day long. That's why the No Spin Zone ratings keep going up and up. And CNN's keep going down and down. And for GE-owned MSNBC, they're so far down in Number 3 it's pathetic.

When business icon Jack Welch was running GE, there was a firm rule that all GE businesses has to be either Number 1 or Number 2 in their markets. Maybe it's time for the new GE CEO Jeff Immelt to dust off that rule and apply it to MSNBC. I mean, how much more embarrassing does it need to get?

An Explanation For The Animosity

From Sofia Sideshow:

Nothing is more irritating than watching your enemies fail to live up to your worst expectations. If George W. was hawking stolen museum art, or John Ashcroft was forcing Shiites to convert, or Dick Cheney was sucking the oil from Iraqi teenager's skin, the Left would have far lower blood pressure. They would be relieved, vindicated, because the war would be delightfully immoral.

The anti-war crowd long ago started measuring themselves as culturally, intellectually, and morally superior to the pro-war crowd, instead of measuring whether their policies were superior. Thus, the incredible success in Afghanistan and Iraq is not a blow to their policy, it is a blow to their ego and sense of self.

(via Instapundit)

Make Free Calls Anywhere In The World

From Skype.com:

Skype is free and simple software that will enable you to make free calls anywhere in the world in minutes. Skype, created by the people who brought you KaZaA uses innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other Skype users. If you are tired of paying outrageous fees for telephony, Skype is for you!

Anybody out there actually use this yet?

For Toughness Over Time, Brett Favre Is Number 1

On USA Today's list of the Ten Toughest Athletes. They say: "What it takes to make Brett Favre miss a game remains a mystery." Well, everyone in Wisconsin knows the answer to that one. You simply tell Brett that the game is The Pro Bowl!

Boy Scout Merit Badges

        
Boy Scout Merit Badges