NWA is one of the main groups in my youth that let me know there was life outside white rural midwestern country. I almost feel bad about enjoying weird remixes of their stuff, but its too good to pass up.

Sensitive Singer Gangsta (video) – And the remixes of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton just keep on coming! Here’s a video remix, with music by Veruca Salt’s Nina Gordon, taking the gangsta rap classic back to its coffeehouse roots: [download video: 3.5 meg mp4]…

(Via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog)

 Another step closer to a geek version of "Pimp my Ride"

Fuzzy D20s for your windscreen – Cory Doctorow: You can now buy a pair of fuzzy 20-sided dice to hang from your rear-view mirror, and let your geek-flag fly. As Alice says at Wonderland, "+10 coolness, -5 visibility, +35 nerd cred." Link (via Wonderland)

(Via Boing Boing)

There has been much ballyhoo in Web land the last week or so about AllPeers, a filesharing plugin for Firefox that lets you share anything at all with those in your buddy list.

Now I am not among those who think this will revolutionize anything and would certainly not call it a "Killer App".  For my money, Firefox itself should earn that title since it has comepletely changed the way I use the web.  But AllPeers certainly looks like a cool tool for doing things that I would like to do on occassion.  Most notably, I am tired of using IM clients to send a file to a friend of mine quickly.  AllPeers does exactly that.  And since its a BitTorrent client as well, the transfer can be done with minimal muss, fuss, and bandwidth. 

Really fascinating story at Wired about a gentleman afflicted by deafness and his quest to use technology to be able to once again hear his favorite music.

 About a year after I received the implant, I asked one implant engineer how much of the device’s hardware capacity was being used. "Five percent, maybe." He shrugged. "Ten, tops."

I was determined to use that other 90 percent. I set out on a crusade to explore the edges of auditory science. For two years tugging on the sleeves of scientists and engineers around the country, offering myself as a guinea pig for their experiments. I wanted to hear Boléro again.

 The CES products are rolling into the gadget blogs this week and, bad headline aside, this one looks pretty cool.  Granted it will make it even harder to tell when someone is talking to you or talking on their phone.  But its one step closer to the cochlear implant that will make me the cyborg I truly want to be.

Motorola H5: Headset or Butt-Plug – You Decide –

Motorola is showing off their tiny, in-ear headset at CES. The wee fella is about as big—and cute—as a button and doesn’t have a strange boom mic hanging off of it to add to my "moron on the go" look.

The H5 sequesters itself into your ear canal and picks up audio via the bones in your head, leaving your hands free for driving and slaughtering the Spring lambs.

Moto’s button-sized Bluetooth headset [T3]

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Related: Three Nokia Headsets Launch at CES
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(Via Gizmodo)

 This one is posted for dawnuh.  My favorite Law & Order junkie.

Law & Order: SVU – Sleepy Victims Unit –

This past week, I had to brave Long Island to meet my girlfriend’s parents. Through tasty bagels and annoying accents, I found myself one night at someone’s house watching one of my favorite shows, Law & Order: SVU. The chick who put it on is obsessed with the show, so her sister made her this Christopher Meloni/Eliot Stabler pillowcase. Using Photoshop, a stencil was made and then screened onto a pink pillowcase to create the face of everyone’s favorite police officier who beats up rapists. That’s not all though, a Mariska Hargitay one is in the works for the men who are a bit too lonely these days. And don’t even think about an Ice-T model. He’s scary enough.

Flickr Photostream

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(Via Gizmodo)

 Get ready folks.  If Google throws its sizable hat into the OS and PC market things will get interesting very quickly.  It is hard to imagine that they will supplant a significant portion of Microsofts market share but I can see something happening in the PC market similar to the effect gmail had on free email services.  That is, with a new powerful player on the field, Microsoft and hardware manufacturers will have to come up with innovations to keep pace.

Google PC to Hit Walmart? – Fahrvergnuugen writes "According to latimes.com Google is set to launch the Google PC which will run Google’s own operating system. From the article: ‘Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft’s Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.’"

(Via Slashdot)

I’m really not one for New Year’s resolutions these days. It’s not that I dislike the idea of reflecting on the past little while and figuring out what to keep and what to change – indeed, I think that’s an incredibly important exercise. But doing so at the End of the Year seems too scripted for my tastes. I like to think that I can have this reflection and introspection without being tied to a particular date.

Still, there are a couple of things that have been ongoing for a while, things I’d like to continue to work on in the coming months. Some of them are personal enough that they’ll stay in my head (at least for now), but here are a few of them:

1. Write more. This one is simple enough – I have a few projects kicking around in my head, such as the Wisdom Unlooked-For essays, a couple of short stories that I want to finish, and some exercises in a writing book I got for Christmas. One way I’ll be measuring this is with a dated journal I picked up recently. It’s nothing fancy – just a page for each day of the year. I originally bought it with the intention of using it for a daily journal or some such, but I revisited that plan almost immediately. Instead of saying “Write a page a day,” I’m simply committing to filling the book up within 12 months. I’m three days “ahead” after the first two weeks, and I like the idea. Of course, only a portion of what I write is in that journal – some of what ends up at Green Scissors will start there, or letters, or snippets of stories, but certainly not all of it. Even so I’m pleased to have something measurable to look at.

2. Get in better shape. By this, I mean “a less round shape.” I’ve lost 10 pounds since Thanksgiving, which I’m rather pleased about. Of course, half of that was weight that I lost in the first couple of months of 2005 and subsequently regained, but we’ll take what we can get. As it is, I’m now about 10 pounds lighter now than I was the last time I said “Dammit, I need to lose weight.” So it’s a start, at least.  

3. Continue working to be less cynical. Skepticism is one thing, but when I let that part of me have free rein, I descend into a dark mood that I have to really work to get out of. It’s not one of my better traits, to say the least. But I’m working on it, dammit. To wit: Last night, I got home at around 2am from a short trip to St. Louis to visit family for the new year. We had our annual White Elephant gift exchange, and I rang in the new year standing around a campfire with a plastic party hat on my head. It was a good time, and the trip home was also pleasant, as I spent approximately 4 ½ hours talking to a friend on the cell phone. That made the drive pass much more quickly. I made it home at about 2am with nary a problem from the car the whole way. Life was good…until I decided to go out to get a haircut this morning, that is. Two blocks down the road, the Check Engine light came on, the car started sputtering and when I popped open the hood and started it up again, I saw (yikes!) sparks jumping off the alternator. Now, my immediate thought was “Goddamn it, what a lousy time for this to happen!” About 3 seconds later, though, I realized that it was the PERFECT time. Two driving hours earlier, and it would have happened just after midnight with me about 130 miles from home. So I’m about as cheerful as I have ever been while having a mechanic look at my car.

Hm. And now they’ve called to report that they can’t replicate any of the problems I had, and when they took it out for a spin it ran perfectly. I am confused by this, but we’ll hope the same is true for me when I pick it up. Maybe the car just needed a little mechanic osmosis, rather like the computers I fix for friends and family.

So, it would appear that this list will remain incomplete for a bit. I’m off to start the day – three hours late but moving fast, as the saying goes.

 So its your first visit to her place.  Its probably the third date and you are beginning to think that maybe you and this lady have some chemistry.  Then you notice her knife block……..

Catharsis Can Brighten A Lackluster Kitchen –

Catharsis Can Brighten A Lackluster Kitchen
For the girl who has everything…but the boyfriend she just caught in bed with another woman? Via Kate Coe, this stylish knife holder makes quite the statement!

(Via Advice Goddess)