The Information Superhighwayman

Can’t Seep, Clowns Will Eat Me.

21 March 2007 Michael No comments

Today I discovered that you can get a Bedwetting alarm that takes the form of a mat that goes under a child’s sheet. When the kid wets the bed it sets off an alarm that wakes the kid up and presumably, they will cease their weeing.

I got to thinking that if I had designed that, the alarm part of the device would be shaped in the form of a giant clown head whose nose and eyes would light up and flash red at the same time as the clown screamed and howled at the child. I’d probably build an electric shock mechanism into it as well just to be sure the kid woke up as soon as it started wetting the bed.

Cyclops Clown

The more advanced models could incorporate some learning systems that picked up on the child’s weeing patterns. Just before a predicted incident it could whisper “IF YOU DO, I AM GOING TO EAT YOU!” in a menacing voice whilst glowing, just a little…

To make this system more effective it needs to be hidden from view when the child is awake. I suspect a holographic device would be the best means of doing this and would come with the added plus that if the kid somehow got enough spine to throw something at the disembodied howling head; it would pass straight through it, adding to the mystery.

Inventions, Observations, Pretty Pictures none

Hail to the TV.

11 March 2007 Michael No comments

I watched Battlestar Galactica a few days ago and that is another 40 minutes of my life that I want back please. Nothing happened, well except Starbuck dying but no doubt they will force her back on us as a Cylon or something so we won’t get rid of constant whiney misery PMT girl in the near future. She started off cute, quirky and amusing, but then so did most people in that show.

When it came out, I remember saying it was the best thing to come out of the US for years. And it really was. It was well made, well plotted, well acted, well shot and an improvement on the original. The problem is when they ran out of the original 80’s story to mirror it just stopped and died. Now it is utter boring dross. Just you wait, we will end up with robot dogs, kids with the most annoying American accent in the universe and the invisible Battlestar and fleet hovering above earth for a whole finally fated season one day.
Prison Break has really improved again, it had a lull at the start of season 2 but that seems to have mostly gone away; though I can’t really see how it can carry on for much longer with all the amusing side characters dead now.

Heroes seems to have stayed good, but then it’s still only on its first season so that’s to be hoped really. Mind you, in 3 seasons I may stop finding Hiro charmingly amusing and switch to annoying as fuck.

LOST (interest) goes on and on and on and unfortunately most of them seem to be immortal. I wonder if the actual actors will die of old age before the series ends.

Boston Legal is consistently brilliant, superb and wonderful. It just gets better and better. I want Shatner and Spader as my weird old gay uncles that nobody else in the family talks to.

Gilmore Girls is… Well the same as ever, nothing has really happened at all in 7 years and I like it that way. One small problem is that every time I see Lorelei I keep thinking of her yelling “FUCK ME SANTA!” whilst being shagged in a car by Billy Bob but then, that makes makes me giggle so it’s all good. Kirk is my hero and I fancy Paris still; so Gilmore Girls is ok by me still.

Veronica Mars is good mind and eye candy and she’s still cuter than most of the others. Eat your heart out Buffy. I used to like it a lot more but it does seem to have gotten a little boring, but mostly still fun.

NCIS is NCIS – I like it, they seem to keep trying to introduce long term plots but failing miserably but that doesn’t hurt it. It’s fine as a whole load of mostly standalone episodes to me. Mind you, I am biased, I think Bellasario is generally wonderful anyway, unless of course he still has anything to do with the new Battlestar Galactica in which case he should be shot.

Dexter was great, but it didn’t last very long. I am told it’s coming back but I bet they will find some way to spoil it.

House is consistently good, though getting a bit convoluted. I am glad that stuff with the police guy is over though, yawn!

Stargate SG1 is just ridiculous, but it’s about to die anyway and so it’s allowed. Stargate Atlantis is better than SG1 but still, ditto. It’s not quite completely lost the plot yet like SG1 has but I am sure it will. It’s kind of a shame they killed off the Scottish guy just to have an impact; given that he was one of the only good actors in it.

Ugly Betty, apart from not having a single ugly person in it, is still amusing me. Unfortunately most of that show’s entertainment comes from the gay nephew. Him, Paris, Abby and Kirk need to get a show of their own. Maybe something based on Charlie’s Angels.

Finally, My Name is Earl somehow has managed to stay original despite having played the same story about 40 times now. I don’t know how it does it but I like it anyway.

That is Michael’s summary of American Telly at the moment. I know you don’t care less anyway but it’s my weblog and I will post what I want.

Rants, Reviews none

Global Warming and Carbon Footprints

16 February 2007 Michael 1 comment

I decided to measure my personal Carbon Footprint using http://www.carbonfootprint.com today – This site seems just to be some (hopefully) well meaning con to guilt-trip people into giving money to plant trees somewhere in Africa which I am sure will end up being chopped down to make paper or something before they are of any use whatsoever in carbon sinking.

The site is a little simplistic and only provides an un-offset figure – It doesn’t ask the question “How many acres of woodland or forest do you have” which is odd considering that ultimately, their aim is to get you to fork out money so that they can plant trees to offset all the carbon that you are pumping out into the atmosphere.

Anyway, all that aside I put my data into it and my Carbon Footprint per year (before any offsets are applied) is 9,273 Kg compared to the national UK average of 5,013 Kg. Of course, it doesn’t allow me to factor in offsets so I did my own adjustments and apparently my Carbon Footprint is actually -190,700 Kg.

That is over minus 190 tonnes a year – How fucking smug should I feel now? Absolutely, enormously, stonkingly, hugely fucking smug, that’s how fucking smug I should feel now.

Right! Now! Speaking from my absolutely, enormously, stonkingly, hugely fucking smug and very righteous pedestal, I want to express my pissed offness at this new airport passenger tax which has been imposed on us by Blair’s Stasi and backed by the Green Party and Friends of the Earth. When twatty little environmental group spokespeople with their half million quid, solar-aided middle class homes and their £40,000 environmentally friendly cars say that they want to make air travel so expensive that normal people can’t afford it; claiming that this will save the planet for their privately schooled, chinless little offspring Tarquin and Lucretia, then sorry but I want to put an incendiary bullet into them and their methane recycling systems. Cheap Air Travel is a godsend to Europe and is doing a hell of a lot more social good than it is doing environmental bad.

I have never had problems with Friends of the Earth before but now I do and I can’t be the only one. A fluid European population and workforce is a good thing and cheap air travel is vital for this and of course, the people this will most effect are the poor. Go pick on someone else why don’t you?

Green, Ponderings, Rants none

Damned Yankees

5 February 2007 Michael No comments

I am holding off on publishing the design for MICHAEL’S DEATH MACHINE for a few reasons. Firstly, I am still getting the safety systems for the prototype and secondly because I am not sure I should be responsible for the death of millions of bloggers. It would be a bit pointless having a blog taking the piss out of them if they were all dead and self-parody is so very 1990’s.

Anyway, I figure I owe you something so this week I will present How to Hack a Stanley Yankee Screwdriver in glorious digital kodachrome. The Stanley Yankee is one of those screwdrivers that you push in and it twists itself in the direction that you set; they are useful for doing things without people hearing you, unlike those pesky noisy electric things and they are just generally cool things. One of the problems with the Yankee though is that the bits are expensive and as far as I know there is no interchangeable tip system so – I made one.

The standard flathead bit looked like a good start since it already had a taper in the shaft which would save a little bit of cutting. The aim was to create a tapered 1/4 inch square drive on the end so that a bit changer could be fitted.

Case hardened steel is no match for my Dremel and a sodding great vice! Anyway, it needs cutting off at the neck.

Eventually, with time and some effort, it’ll fall off. Happens to us all in the end. You need to keep this bit in case you were wondering:

You need to taper the end now – Luckily two sides are already done as part of the flathead so just match these up on the other side to make a nice square.

With luck, the 1/4 inch bit will fit onto the end nicely – A bloody big hammer makes it fit better though.

And just to prove it still looks cute – Here’s the end product.

There. Now don’t say I don’t occasionally post something useful!

Inventions, Nothing in particular, Photos none

Care in the Blogger Community.

23 January 2007 Michael No comments

As somebody who was fast-tracked to the position of Master Blogger, I realise that I probably owe something back to the all of the normal bloggers out there. I have been pondering what I can give back but I had been uninspired. Until now, that is!

Having read a few random blogs in my research it has become very apparent that what most bloggers really want to do is to kill themselves. There seems to be a common theme about how miserable their lives are and how they want to end it all so it struck me that what they need is a simple, quick and painless suicide device that requires no bravery to use and can be built for quite a small amount of money from easily obtainable parts.

Inspired, hey? It is! Honestly… Most means of killing yourself require a large leap of faith and may well fail leaving the person too much of a cabbage to even class as a Myspace user. My new patent free “MICHAEL’S DEATH MACHINE” (sorry but the upper-case is required) won’t fail and has the advantage that if timed correctly the user can even write a final blog entry whilst hooked up to it.

I am building my prototype now. This is somewhat delayed by the fact that the prototype is already costing a small fortune because needs to have safety mechanisms and measuring systems built in so that I don’t accidentally kill myself during testing. I don’t want to be providing shonky goods here! As a favour to Nature, Humanity and the Internet Community as a whole I think I should make this device as effective as possible.

Watch This Space, Bloggers!

News, Ponderings none

Fancy Mags, Babe!.

17 January 2007 Michael 1 comment

I have been an inventin’ again Momma.

Today I turned my mind to the issue of car thieves. Contrary to popular opinion, deterring car thieves isn’t a problem; all you have to do is to drive a peice of shit that none of them would be seen dead in. A yellow Citroen AX with a one litre engine is pretty good since they won’t even steal it as a quick ride home, it would generally be quicker to walk. No no, Theft Deterrent is so 20th Century, this century should be all about Theft Retribution.

The idea is so simple, I am amazed all cars don’t have one. All you do is to fit a couple of Magnetrons into the driver’s seat (a magnetron is the thing that cooks things in your microwave oven) at the points where the car thief is in closet contact with the car seat and have it so that unless it is disabled, the magnetrons start up with the car engine. It is a nice cosmic convenience that the most boilable parts of the car thief’s body also happen to be in the places where he is in closest contact with the seat but you could also put one just underneath the scrotum should you be feeling mischevious. I was thinking something like this:

Anti Theft Carseat

I haven’t done any field tests yet, so I am not sure how quickly the car thief would actually notice their insides being boiled. It may be possible for them to get out of the car before they actually died. One problem I can see is that when they explode in the enclosed space it will be rather messy to clean up but we can address that by putting the devices on a timer linked to a weight sensor on the seat. Nicely cooked, as opposed to completely obliterated. For those readers who are interested in eating the heart of their enemies, this should also be a major selling point.

I shall be approaching companies with my new invention shortly, I can see the letters of thanks and wonder pouring in already!

Inventions, Photos, Technology none

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