Ale & Pie http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com Delicious! en-us Nucleus CMS v3.51 � Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com/nucleus/nucleus2.gif Ale & Pie http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com Calculator Porn! Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=226 Vintage Technology site he runs, by cataloging his 583 calculators - that's quite a collection he's got!
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He says he hopes to eventually have the 3,000 to 5,000 calculators that were made in the '70s catalogued and online.

It's a fun walk down memory lane to see some of the calculators I remember from my earliest years.

[via Wired]]]> Tech&Gizmos http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=226 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:35:12 -0400 Hyde Park Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=222 image
Hyde Park, London]]> Music,Photos,&Videos http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=222 Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:18:06 -0400 Apple and the Most Advanced Injection-Molding Machine Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=219 the tale of Apple's investment in the exclusive rights to use Liquidmetal in consumer electronics, the Cult of Mac is bringing us even more titillating details.

It seems it will also allow them to use what's being billed as ""the most advanced injection-molding machine ever made." Currently the machine is only a prototype, but it's expected Apple is going to order more of them.

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"The most advanced injection-molding machine ever".


Not too long ago, Apple moved to a unibody design, with the products being laser cut from a single piece of metal or plastic, for most of their products. The advantages of this over the traditional method of sandwiching layers together, is greater strength, less product waste, and tighter component tolerances.

Clearly, being able to use injection molding, like one would with plastics, with the high-tech alloy, Liquidmetal, allows them to continue even further down this path, providing cost savings, while at the same time being able to make lighter, stronger, longer lasting products.

[Cult of Mac]]]> Tech&Gizmos http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=219 Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:51:50 -0400 John Mellencamp Says the Internet's Like An Atomic Bomb Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=217 image
Once again, ignorance wrapped up in the guise of controversy.

Has-been musician, John (Cougar) Mellencamp has recently been quoted as saying, "I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb. It's destroyed the music business. It's going to destroy the movie business," while at the same time acknowledging the fact that technology could slow rock 'n' roll's inevitable death.


He goes on to illuminate his ignorance on the subject by mentioning how he listened to a remastered Beatles CD then compared it to the files on an iPod. Of the experience he says, "you could barely even recognize it as the same song. You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different."

Now there are a couple of major problems with this statement. First of all, is he talking about the encoding of the CD? And was this iPod plugged into a sound system or is he talking about listening through little earbuds?

The Beatles music has never been for sale on iTunes, so clearly the problem is not iTunes, but rather whoever encoded the files for the iPod. I think one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a 320 or 256 kbps AAC file and the original CD. Or it could even be encoded using Apple Lossless format or even just ripped as an .aiff or .wav, in which case there would be virtually no difference at all. So the problem is most definitely not the iPod.

On the other hand, if he's referring to listening through the little earbuds, well that same problem could have been said since the dawn of the first Walkman, so nothing has changed there.

Mellencamp shows he's clearly unable or unwilling to make this distinction which is quite disappointing considering he's supposed to be a savvy musician.

Sure illegal downloading and listening through tiny little electronic speakers, and so on, has downgraded our music experience to a large degree, but just as free music has hurt the business side of things, it has also opened up so much more music to people than ever before. Music is being appreciated more often by more people.

The only real issue is that the industry has failed to find a way to capitalize on it, so we get knee jerk ignorance from people like Mellencamp, and flailing tactics by groups like RIAA.]]> General http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=217 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:22:38 -0400 The RIAA and NAB Want to Force FM Radio on You Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=214 Recording Industry Association of America and National Association of Broadcasters need to get their heads out of their asses and look to innovation rather than desperation to save a music industry in trouble.

First we had to watch the RIAA sue everyone from the homeless to the dead and now they, along with the NAB, are trying to have the US Congress require electronics producers to put FM receivers in all cell phones, PDAs, music players, and other portable electronic goods.

As the the president of the Consumer Electronics Association, Gary Shapiro puts it, "Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do." He also refers to it as "the height of absurdity".

How can one disagree with that?

This is like suggesting that when the lightbulb was invented, companies should have been mandated to include a kerosene lantern, or when the automobile was introduced it should have included a horse harness.

Innovation happens. Technology happens. Corporations and industries have to learn to adapt rather than desperately clinging to the edge just waiting to drop into the precipice. It is inevitable, congressional mandate or not. We shed old technologies for a reason, just as we shed old senses of ethics or morals, for example. We learn. We evolve.

As Bob once sang, "the times they are a changin'", and as George once said, "you're either with us, or you're against us".

[Ars Technica]]]> Tech&Gizmos http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=214 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:51:57 -0400 The Cutting Edge of SIM Ejector Tools Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=212
After news broke that Apple had bought exclusive rights to use Liquidmetal for consumer electronic goods, Cult of Mac interviewed the inventor of the hi-tech alloy who stated that upon buying an Apple product, he immediately recognized his invention being used already by Apple.

Cult of Mac then held a competition to guess what that product was. The winner would receive a new Magic Trackpad.

The winner was revealed today.

And the product they already use Liquidmetal in? It's the SIM ejector tool for the iPhone 3G.



It seems Apple wanted to test out the viability of using liquid metal, and so chose a product that wasn't so significant and important as to cause problems if they had to source out another metal. And of course the properties of Liquidmetal are ideal for such an item; it's light but strong and rigid.

They must have liked what they saw, since they ended up purchasing the exclusive rights to use it in their products for a price estimated to be over $11 million.

[Cult of Mac]]]> Tech&Gizmos http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=212 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:48:15 -0400 The World's Most Prolific Bike Thief Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=207 BoingBoing about notorious Toronto bike thief, Igor Kenk, and the recently released graphic novel biography, Kenk: A Graphic Portrait.

I too had dealings with Kenk. He was indeed a character.

He fixed my bike soon after I'd moved to Toronto. He fixed my brakes and tuned up my bike, charging very little, and handed me a greasy piece of cardboard on which he'd written its make and serial number, telling me to keep it in case the bike ever got stolen.

One day, quite a while later, after I had made quite a few friends in the bike courier community, I mentioned him to one of my courier friends, explaining the good service I'd gotten. My friend's vitriol and anger at him and his well known bike theft ring, made me reconsider the experience I'd had. In my naiveté, I hadn't even realized he was stealing bikes, even though as I'd stood talking to him, a truck had rolled around the corner with a trailer just packed to the brim with bicycles of all styles, colours, and sizes.

His crazy, obviously eccentric, rundown shop across the street from Trinity Bellwoods Park was a constant hub of activity, with customers and sketchy hangers-on coming and going. Its dilapidated, unpainted front and tacked on junk belied the fact that Kenk was making obscene amounts of cash dealing in stolen bikes and also crack cocaine (a fact that's rarely mentioned - the police originally had no idea he was dealing in drugs, until they began the search of his overwhelmingly cluttered shop, despite having had him under surveillance for months).

When the police began letting people in to the various warehouses that he had stashed his vast hoard of almost 3000 bikes in, the depth of Kenk's strange habit became even more apparent, as people found bikes that had been stolen years before. I had, for example, a friend who found his first courier bike that had been stolen 7 years earlier.

Kenk liked to pretend he was saving bikes that had otherwise had been neglected and uncared for, and though there might have been some sort of truth to this, why would you steal a bike only to neglect it in an old warehouse for years if that was really your motivation?

One of Kenk's warehouses.

There is a depth and curiosity to his methods and motivations that indeed deserves some kind of scrutiny. One thing is certain, Toronto cyclists are better off without this man on the streets.

[BoingBoing]]]> General http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=207 Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:29:36 -0400 The Best Way to Pour Champagne Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=205
Using infrared imaging to show the loss of CO2 as champagne is being poured, French researchers have discovered the best way and temperature to pour the drink.

Since previous studies have already shown the importance of CO2 to champagne's flavour, it is presumed the best method would retain as much of the gas as possible.



They found that it should be poured like beer, on an angle, instead of the traditional method of pouring straight into the glass, to reduce the amount of gassy head which causes much more C02 to escape. They also tested different temperatures and found it best served at the colder temperature of 4C.

Let's raise a toast to science!

[BBC]]]> Booze&Food http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=205 Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:42:00 -0400 The Most Beautiful Car Ever Made Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=203
Img: Ron Kimball/Kimball Stock


Do you have an extra $6 million kicking around? If so, may I suggest you slap a bid down on this incredible, over the top 1949 Delahaye Roadster which has been beautifully restored? It's up for auction today.

It was given to actress Diana Dors when she was just 17 years old - not even old enough to drive it. Dors was a 1950s sex symbol who has been called the 'British Marilyn Monroe'. Born Diana Mary Fluck, she died at the age of 52 in 1984.

This roadster is only one of 51 made of the 175S model. The company stopped producing them in 1951, because after the war, demand fell off for such decadent items.

It has been called the world's most beautiful car, and I might have to agree. What a masterpiece.

Too bad they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Be sure to check out the image gallery at Gizmag - the details are phenomenal.

[BBC + Gizmag]]]> General http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=203 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:14:08 -0400 Power Up Your Thinking Cap Adam http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=201
While we need both sides of our ATL to process memory, the right is connected to visual memory while the left is related to context. Increasing the visual portion, while decreasing the sometimes confusing interference of context, increased visual memory.

Ok, so this is not the actual cap.

They knew that people with autism have lesions in the left ATL and so they were attempting to find out if inhibiting that area could improve memory and perceptual skills.

The same scientists had already proven that a similar technique could be used to inhibit false memories.

Very cool. Where can I get one of these caps?!

[PopSci via New Scientist]]]> Science http://aleandpie.suburbanbungalow.com?itemid=201 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:12:51 -0400