Best idea of the week…a robot to attend your meetings. From dailymail.co.uk

Fed up with attending endless meetings when you’d much rather be at home? Step forward the QB from Anybots - a robot who can go to the office for you. Developed by Bob Christopher, the brainchild behind the Pleo dinosaurs, the cute looking robot is essentially a teleconferencing system on wheels. The robot can alter its height from 3ft to 5.7ft and weighs 2.5st, with a main computer and several mini-computers on board. It has an LCD monitor mounted on its head which feeds a webcam image of the telecommuter. It ‘sees’ via a 5MP video camera in one eye, and a lower resolution camera on the head that points downwards. It ‘hears’ via three microphones that feed audio to the telecommuter, and has high-quality speakers for audio in the other direction.

Alright, nicely played. This thing costs 15K, however. I’m pretty sure I could do the same damned thing with an HTC Incredible, broom, Arduino, and an electric wheelchair motor. I would need an area to put some tattoos and earbuds, however. And somehow mimic my general sense of ’leave me alone before I effin snap’ to be fully effective/reflective of me in a meeting situation. And a strong odor of coffee…definitely need that.

I’m either the best shopper or the worst shopper in the world. I love a deal as much as anybody, but I absolutely hate the process of mulling over purchases. Stores make me uneasy…the pressure to buy impulsively mixed with the people mixed with the smells and sounds drives me up the wall. People watching is fun, but not fun enough to shop recreationally. I am the type of dude who knows what he wants. Moreover, I know how to conduct product research. More moreover, I am pretty dang good at cross-referencing, research, and comparison in general. That aspect suits me incredibly well for online shopping…which has become my main means of purchasing goods. Yours truly, for the win. Shop like swantron. I have had it with sites like deals.woot and slickdeals. Too much garbage, too little quantity. If you are truly looking for some online [link removed], hit the link and check out savings.com. Maybe I’m jaded, since I’m a techno-fiend. I don’t think so, though. I have made zero attempt to cover up the fact that I am a Dell fanboy…savings.com has [link removed] that make my offers from Dell themselves look pretty lousy. Don’t jump to conclusions, though…they also frequently push out Verizon deals that smoke the verizonwireless deals out of the water. Just saying. Long story short, this is exactly the type of site that makes my day, shopping-wise. I can sit back and look for deals that I have been considering, without spending any time physically looking for stuff of this nature. Aggregation in it’s finest. Now, the thing that remains is figuring out how to budget more effectively…that might be where [link removed] comes in. Personal finance is the best finance, so it seems. I’m off to check for deals on earbuds. My Skull Candys are out of commission. One earbud is one earbud too few, when you are living ghetto fabulous in a 4x8 cubicle. Offices, for the loss.

I left my Arduino at work. Poorly played. The next best thing, quite unfortunately, is to post another damned robot drawing. Green robots…there you go.

Is there such a thing as ‘phone envy?’ There should be. I am pretty sure I have an extreme case…maybe I could be the subject of some sort of case study. What has me this week? HTC Evo. Android 2.1 and a slick screen…need I say more? This sucker is hot. Long story short, this is the answer to the 4G iPhone and to the Nexus One. I think the Apple Fanboiz would have to admit that the Evo is superior to anything coming out with an ‘i’ appended to the front. Does the iPhone have a kickstand? Didn’t think so. The Evo does. Does the iPhone have two cameras? Evo does; an 8-megapixel and a 1.3 megapixle. Count ‘em and weep, fellas. Since this phone is still under the radar, so to speak, so tracking down HTC Evo Accessories is definitely an online mission. Here is a link to HTC Evo Cases…what the heck…I’ll even throw you a bone with a HTC Evo Screen Protectorslink. In the meantime, I’m going to be sitting here pouting that I still have a RIM phone. BlackBerries seem so 2007.

Per Telegraph.co.uk

A study of 4,000 consumers also placed the Apple smart phone - which has sold 42 million units since its launch in 2007 - ahead of the car, camera and flushing toilet.

Way to go, Britan. You bunch of ninnies. Check the full (asinine) list 100 Greatest Inventions1. Wheel 2. Aeroplane 3. Light bulb 4. Internet 5. PCs 6. Telephone 7. Penicillin 8. iPhone 9. Flushing toilet 10. Combustion engine 11. Contraceptive pill 12. Washing machine 13. Central heating 14. Fridge 15. Pain killers 16. Steam engine 17. Freezer 18. Camera 19. Cars 20. Spectacles 21. Mobile phones 22. Toilet paper 23. Hoover 24. Trains 25. Google 26. Microwave 27. Email 28. The pen 29. Hot water 30. Shoe 31. Compass 32. Ibuprofen 33. Toothbrush 34. Hair straighteners 35. Laptops 36. Knife and fork 37. Scissors 38. Paper 39. Space travel 40. Kettle 41. Calculator 42. Bed 43. Remote control 44. Roof 45. Air conditioning 46. SAT NAV 47. Wi-Fi 48. Cats-eyes 49. Matches 50. Power steering 51. Tumble dryer 52. Bicycle 53. Sky+ 54. Tea bags 55. Umbrella 56. iPod 57. Taps 58. Crash helmet 59. Wristwatch 60. eBay 61. DVD player 62. Nappies 63. Ladder 64. Sun tan lotion 65. Lawnmower 66. Make-up 67. Chairs 68. Sunglasses 69. The game of football 70. Sliced bread 71. Sofa 72. Razor blades 73. Screwdriver 74. Motorways 75. Head/ear phones 76. Towels 77. Push-up bra 78. Binoculars 79. WD40 80. Mascara 81. Hair dryer 82. Facebook 83. Escalator 84. Hair dye 85. Wellington boots 86. Spell check 87. Calendars 88. Cheese grater 89. Buses 90. Post-it notes 91. Gloves 92. Satellite discs 93. Pedestrian crossing 94. Baby’s dummy 95. Curtains 96. Bottle opener 97. Food blender 98. Dustpan and brush 99. Desks 100. Clothes peg I don’t know where to begin. What a effin joke. Curtains? Ladders? IPhones? Pain killers and ibuprofen both listed? I’m not mad, Englanders, I’m just confused and disappointed in your effeminate asses. How about beer, robots, and swantron.com. In that order.

I spend a fair amount of time blathering on about technology and current events. I figured I should put together a post to divulge some of my sources. Think of this either as a master “works cited” reference, or as a “read like Joe” document, of sorts. Take note, I have not had a newspaper or magazine subscription for years. Years and years, actually. All of my sources are online…for better or worse. I’m all about my news…the more varied, the better. I typically begin by checking local online sources, namely the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and Billings Gazette. The Bozeman Police Reports alone make the Cronicle worth checking, for comedic value alone. When it comes to national news sources, I typically stick to drudgereport.com and news.google.com. Drudge is fairly conservative, (some might argue that he is uber-conservative, but I disagree) but fairly thorough. I have Google filtered to give me a ton of national and science-based stories. All in all, these both serve to collect news from a large variety of sources. It serves to keep the reader on his or her toes, by keeping fresh points of view present. I have a few more specialized news sources I check on a daily basis as well. I keep up with our neighbors across the pond with euro news, and stay current with my nerd news via slashdot. Euro News fills in the spaces missed by mainstream media regarding Europe, and slashdot fills in the things that media deems too obscure on which to report. I also check a few other random sites on a frequent basis. The Onion is the best, and their sister site AV Club offers some good reviews of music, games, movies, etc. Geekologie is quickly becoming a favorite as well…sort of like swantron, oddly enough. I keep up on my beloved Chicago Cubs on viewfromthebleachers.com, and to a lesser extent cubs.com. Consider yourselves warned…but please don’t cut out the middleman and stop checking this site out. swantron.com FTW!

green robot drawing…three and three-quarter stars

Well, baseball season is in full swing. The Cubs have some high points and some low points, and are playing sub .500 ball at this point. Good starting pitching, shaky bullpen, sporadic hitting from the middle of the line-up. D-Lee and Rami are playing poorly, while Soto and this guy… …are absolutely tearing it up compared to ‘09. Marlon Byrd and Carlos Silva have proven to be good additions to the team; Marmol is coming around. All in all, exciting year. Win/Loss record, considered. Here is the issue. I live 700 miles from the closest Major League stadium. In fact, I am equally far away from the two closest, Coors Field and Safeco Park. As much as I would love to jump on StubHub and line up some tickets to Wrigley…it is not financially in the cards. Nay, it is not possible to get a week off work to slide over to Chicago, Denver, Seattle, et al. Stupid work. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. Remember that Vegas wedding Katie and I have coming up? That’s right…bring on some 51’s. Last summer we hit a game at Cashman Field. See that orange line? That was the route to the beer garden. We were fortunate enough to hit dollar Bud night at the field. Muy bueno! Anyhow, hopefully the wedding trip will find us at Cashman again. If you manage to find yourself in Vegas…I would highly recommend it. In fact, here here is a StubHub coupon code, for your ticket-getting pleasure. Maybe work will settle down, the Cubs will get in the win column more often, and I’ll be able to make it out to Wrigley this fall. I’m not holding my breath, though, as I have been watching the Cubs crash and burn for 25 years now. I can always dream…I can always dream.

Well, the Cubs suck…green robots don’t. Bam.

I walked into my designated printer room at work today to find the paper cutter broken. What a tragedy, right? I have absolutely no idea why we need a paper cutter, let alone several paper cutters, at our software shop FWIW. Regardless, I took it upon myself to remedy the problem. Sleep tight, thy co-workers…rest assured that you can again transform 8.5" x 11" paper sheets into 8.25" x 11" paper sheets, thanks to my pro bono paper cutter fixing skills. Observe. What You’ll Need:*Broken Paper Cutter *Tape (Scotch) **Steps:**1) Locate Point of Failure You can see that this particular cutter has malfunctioned due to a broken cutting arm. 2) Procure a section of tape (If you are unsure with what to do with the tape at this point, don’t worry…this will come into play in step 3) 3) Place tape section on the displaced cutting arm 4) Place displaced cutting arm on cutting arm articulating housing; secure tape That’s that. Leave it in the printer room for the next idiot who actually uses a paper cutter…I bet bewilderment will ensue