Gearfuse

When it comes to the ladies, 9-year-old Alec Greven is an expert. This kid gets more ass than a toilet seat and even wrote a book on meeting wome-er, girls. What began as a $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair has turned in to a published dating primer called “How to Talk to Girls” which hit the shelves nationwide last week.

The fourth-grader from Castle Rock, Colo., advises Lothario wannabes to stop showing off, go easy on the compliments to avoid looking desperate – and be wary of “pretty girls.” “It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry,” he writes in Chapter Three. “Pretty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil.” He advises, “The best choice for most boys is a regular girl. Remember, some pretty girls are cold hearted when it comes to boys. Don’t let them get to you.”

The irony about it is this kid doesn’t date girls. He claims its for older people — the 15 or 16 year old kids who steal his lunch food everyday. Not a problem considering that come high school, little Alec will be stealing all of their girlfriends. Parents, lock up your daughters.

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Martin Nicolausson must’ve been bored out of his mind when he came up with the idea of a seesaw bench for a bus stop. Or perhaps he was just tired of standing there all by himself with no one to talk to. His goal: to get strangers to converse in public spaces. It encourages cooperation, requiring two people to work together in order to sit comfortably, unlike the solo act of swinging at the bus stop. What better way to have two strangers strike up a conversation while waiting for a bus. I can imagine it now:

“Whoa, what is that thing?”
“I have no idea, it was there when I got here.”
“Looks like a seesaw. Want to get on it?”
“I don’t know…looks kind of dangerous, you do it.”
“I’m not putting my ass on that, you do it.”
“No, you do it.”
“I’ll do it if you do it.”
“Alright.”

Ah, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Mission accomplished!

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You awake from your bed. It’s a Monday morning. You throw on the coffee pot, blink a few times and open up Gearfuse. Great. An NPR Map.

It may not be exciting like a bunch of light up dildos, but it’ll keep you entertained for sure. With this NPR Map, you’ll be able to find out what your local NPR station is no matter the state/city/town/watering hole. Search around the map and I’m sure you’ll spot WHYY on there.

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Is there anything Mozilla doesn’t create that facilitates your web surfing experience? Firefox 3 came out back in June, yet Mozilla is still working hard to provide its users with top end interactivity for its interweb softwares. Now, Mozilla wants to take its browser to the next level with instant messaging integrated into your web browsing. It’s called Snowl, that’s Snow and Owl combined for the less observant. Mozilla Labs lists a few key ideas behind their design phase:

• It doesn’t matter where messages originate. Whether they come from traditional email servers, RSS/Atom feeds, web discussion forums, social networks, or other sources, they are all the same.
• Some messages are more important than others, and the best interface for actively reading important messages is different from the best one for casually browsing unimportant ones.
• A search-based interface for message retrieval is more powerful and easier to use than one that makes you organize your messages first to find them later.
• Browser functionality for navigating web content, like tabs, bookmarks, and history, also works well for navigating messages.

As of now, Snowl is still in its prototype phase but is free to download at the link provided below. It supports two sources of messages: RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter. No word on whether or not Ogio will make a Snowl backpack. If they did, I’d rock it. Hit the jump for more information:

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The Netherlands-based locksporting group Toool held a panel at HOPE discussing new and advanced opening techniques for high security locks. We sat in on this two hour discussion with Barry Wels and Han Fey commenting on some unorthodox approaches to key copying.

The speakers mentioned how easy it is to copy even the most exclusive of key profiles, which in actuality, only block hardware store copying methods. Noting the classic clay mold approaches to key copying, the speakers quickly alluded to the simplicity of imprinting the key’s marks on your own arm as a form of copying. Go ahead and press your house key into your forearm, the imprint stays there longer than you’d think.

They even challenged attendees to bring their own locks or “impossible to copy” keys, so they can take a crack at it. What daring hackers.

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Each day, as I read the news and write pieces on technology, art or even just my blog, I’m almost always listening to National Public Radio. More specifically, I listen to my hometown NPR station, WHYY 91 FM from Philadelphia, PA. WHYY offers a unique listening experience that’s really unmatched on both traditional and Internet radio. With shows like Car Talk, All Things Considered and Fresh Air (which is produced in Philadelphia) in addition to a wide range of news, music and politics, I feel informed and never out of the loop.

If you’ve got some time and want to hear fresh, new content, I suggest streaming WHYY online from WHYY.org. I just open it up in iTunes and leave it on for days, usually falling asleep to it. Let us know in the comments if you have a favorite local NPR station. If you do, we’ll be sure to include it in the post so people have other sources of radio to check out.

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The folks over at Google have released a new version of Google Talk designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch browsers in the US. No need to text message here because you can now chat on the go. No install or download required either, just go to google.com/talk, sign in and you’ll be on your way chatting it up with all your frienemies.

Now that the iPhone is becoming more and more like a computer everyday, who says you have to miss out on all the internet goodness when you’re away from your PC?

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Could Sony have gotten anymore simplistic than naming their new mouse with an integrated Internet phone Mouse Talk.  It has single-handedly inspired me to invent a toilet with an embedded radio I’m calling “Shit Listen.” If you’re gay for VoIP and you have no need for a comfortable mouse then Mouse Talk is for you.

It lets you make and receive high quality calls while you click away at minesweeper on your 800 DPI optical mouse. A conveniently placed button on the side of the mouse opens the phone to enable speakerphone functionality. As you probably guessed, it’s got a hefty price tag being that it comes from Sony. Ecost.com is letting it go for $84.99 making it one of the more pricey mice on the market.
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When I was a kid I must have subconsciously wanted to become a businessman or something along those lines. At least I knew I wanted to use the phone a lot. I remember playing with my fake phone for hours, and then when I wasn’t playing with my fake phone, I’d be holding two fingers up to the side of my head, pretending my hand was a phone. Who was I talking to anyway?

The Handphone concept literally takes your hand, throws a few wires and doodads on your fingers, and turns your fingers into a portable cellphone device. The navigation and control of the phone is done using natural gestures, as well as including voice commands. One thing we’ll say is that the LCD display on this device is in desperate need of an upgrade. (more…)