Ark Design's MFD (Multi Function Display)

I'm a car nerd. I love cars and I love tweaking them even more. Maybe one day I'll show you how I modified my trunk light to illuminate more than just a single corner of the trunk. But for now let's talk about Ark Design's MFD or Multi Function Display. This is baby plugs into the car and gives you all kind of information. It's simple because it can easily plug right into your OBD-II port or you can hack into the wires of each sensor. Each display can one of six gauges displays. Analogue: single or duel, Digital: single, dual, four, or eight. 

This is the Analogue Single display. 

Source: http://arkdesign-us.com/products/electronics/mfd-multi-function-dash

Design Talk: Touch interfaces suck!

Being a blogger and programmer, design doesn't come to mind very often. I just want something that works and has decent looks. But the real idea behind design is the idea that every tool has a purpose, and if you aren't using that tool for what it was intended for, then you're breaking it's design. This website in the source makes a great argument about how touch screen will not be the future of UI (User Interaction/Interface) mainly because it's the wrong tool for the problem. I tend to agree. There isn't a whole lot you can do with just your finger. We need a tool that utilizes the whole hand.

Source: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

31 Steps to a Financial Tuneup

The NYT was nice enough to set up a easy reference page to assess the state of your finances. I'm a pretty frugal guy so I happened to pass all the items on the check list but for any man, you should know where your money is, how it's growing and if you're losing any of it. This is for both men and women. Always know where your money is!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/24/your-money/financial-tuneup-checklist.html

Kim Jong Ill is dead.

Apparently, North Korean leader, Kim Jong Ill is dead. There's speculation on who is successor will be but no one has been announced yet. The New York Times has a pretty extensive article on Kim Jong Ill. I never knew that much about him or his nuclear program. Or that he's the middle of three male siblings. The article wasn't very clear on how he ended up ruling after his father.

I've heard that his son is worse than he is, living a very lavish lifestyle and what not. Let's hope that he doesn't create as much of a stir or someone that can bring North Korea back to world table takes the reigns. Otherwise, the US might be heading into another war... Hell knowing the US, we might just provoke whoever lead North Korea into another war via threats of weapons of mass destruction.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/asia/kim-jong-il-is-dead.html?_r=1

The real problem with our government.

I'm honestly very happy that someone had the balls to say it. I've been saying this for awhile now.

Holiday Cheer!

It's that time of year and to celebrate, here are some of the best holiday cards I have ever seen. I am definitely buying some and sending them to friends and family alike. I hope they still talk to me after this.

Source: http://theoatmeal.com/horrible

DreamHack: the 120Gbit connection

I can't believe the US aren't the ones in charge of this. Oh wait, that's right, we're only the 15th best provider for internet world-wide. Yea, 15th best for something we came up with. Wow, how the mighty have fallen.


Well, Sweden (those crazy Swedes) has partnered with Cisco and Telia to try and create a 120 Gbit/sec internet connection. I'll give you a second to stop and ponder. That's 120 GIGA-BITS PER SEC! According to their math, "you can download a movie in a 47 thousandths of a second." Now this isn't just a test from one computer to another just down the table. This is from Stockholm to another Swedish city 300Km away and capable of servicing 750,000 people simultaneously at that speed! 


At this speed, we could video chat with our doctors as they run virtual scans from afar. We could stream videos from our own computer to anyone else in the world. We could ... do pretty much anything at this point since the bottleneck is now on our own computers at that speed. This is the infrastructure we need to make miracles happen. And where is the US in all of this? We still pushing around 5mb/sec ... or at least I am from home. In Hawaii. With no real options for anything faster anytime soon. Damn private broadband connections companies and their lack of wanting to grow their infrastructure... 


From Hawaii... Enjoy.

Source: http://www.dreamhack.se/dhw11/2011/11/22/120-gigabit-at-dhw11/

50 apps we're most thankful for

Following my post on the 21 apps to keep your computer healthy, here's another Lifehacker page on the 50 apps we're most thankful for, I guess for Thanksgiving. So that mean this post is pretty late. Yea, I've been slacking. Holiday times have been keeping me fat and lazy but I'll try to keep up the posts in the oncoming weeks. Stay Tuned!

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5862252/50-free-apps-were-most-thankful-for (Lifehacker)

Modular USB Flash Drives

This is a really smart idea. Too bad it's only a concept for now. I hope they actually put this into production and it gets State-side. I know I would probably trade in all my flash drives for something like this.

The basic idea is that each USB flash drive can be plugged into another flash drive. This increases the size of the overall storage at the same time separating out your data into small drives. I'm not quite sure how the software is going to work out for something like this. Once you have multiple drives plugged into a computer, how do you know which one your saving to? Or is each working like a daisy-chained hub, where each drive keeps showing up as a new drive?

A lot of interesting questions come up but still interesting nonetheless. I would buy a few and try it out. What about you?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/23/modular-usb-flash-drive-concept-offers-a-new-way-to-sort-your-da/ (Engadget)

Pride in your work.

This gizmodo post is about a guy that makes his own brand of kitchen knives that are reputed to be very good. I think this is what's missing in the world today. Really having pride in the work that you put in. It doesn't have to be something fancy. Just put your all into your work and everything else will fall into place.

Made by Hand / No 2 The Knife Maker from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5857181/the-life-of-a-modern-day-knife-maker-who-still-makes-knives-by-hand-is-fascinating