WE LIKE THE CLOCKS THAT GO ‘BOOM!’

ITEM [via Gear Diary]: Finally, an alarm clock for the Jack Bauer in all of us: the Danger Bomb Clock.



The premise is simple enough: when the alarm goes off, you’ll have 60 seconds until it plays an explosion sound “designed to get you up and out of bed”. To stop the explosion, you have to disconnect one of three wires (which are reset randomly every time).

Clever. I’d never actually buy one, of course.

PRODUCT INFO: "Not suitable for children under 15 years old"

WARNING: If you buy this, you’ll probably end up on the terrorist watch list. And never, EVER take it with you when you travel.

The clock is ticking,

This is dF

WE MAKE CLOTHES SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

ITEM [via Neatorama]: Fascinating post from Kelsey Timmerman, in which he introduces to you a few of the people in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China and (yes) New York who work in clothing factories.

Sample:

Nari
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Quote: “The workers at beauty salons make less than garment workers, but I will be an owner and make more.”

Nari works at a factory that makes blue jeans. She shares an 8’ X 12’ apartment with seven other girls. Four of the girls sleep on a bamboo bed and the other four sleep on the concrete floor. Nari irons jeans. It’s a job that she had to pay a $50 bribe – a month’s wage – to get. Fifty dollars is probably enough for one person in Cambodia to live on, but Nari, like many of the garment workers in Cambodia, supports her family of six. She is attending beauty school and hopes to open her own salon someday. She doesn’t like bowling.

Based on his new book Where am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes, out now.

Timmerman’s blog is here.

How the other half lives,

This is dF

SEXYTIME FOR SCIENTISTS

Now playing on a Cinemax near you on Friday nights: Forbidden Science!

The synopsis:

Set in the near future, FORBIDDEN SCIENCE revolves around an elite corporation, 4Ever Innovations, whose young and brilliant scientists download and sell memories. They replace those we've lost with clones and devise technology that helps us live out our greatest fantasies: from saving a failed relationship, to creating the perfect lover, to being irresistible to the opposite sex -- but sometimes our deepest desires come at a terrible price, for there are secrets within 4Ever Innovations that may cost you your life.
 

Put another way, it’s softcore porn with a sci-fi theme.

Check yr local listings. If you don’t get Cinemax in yr area, call yr local cable provider.

[Slightly NSFW trailer for further consideration]

I approve.

Granted, it’s not the most original idea – Alain Siritsky has been blending softcore, daft sci-fi and Cinemax for over a decade now (see: remote libido amplifiers, sex with invisible men, sex with aliens, Emmanuelle in an alien spaceship, Emmanuelle with a magic psychic headband transmitter, etc), with generally amusing and sometimes sexy results.

I can’t say for sure that Forbidden Science will be anywhere near as entertaining. Like Sir Lawrence Olivier once said, “Dying is easy. Comedy and hot softcore sex is hard.”

Still, as someone whose goal in life is to write sci-fi porn comedy for a living, I feel I should encourage this kind of programming on general principle. Hurrah!

Also, credit to Cinemax for embracing softcore. When I left the US 13 years ago, Cinemax was regularly mocked for showing softcore on late night weekends. It’s nice to know they’ve made “Skinemax” a nickname to be proud of, rather than doing what most media companies do in such situations (i.e. cave in to fundamentalists).

However, if they really want to impress me, they should be brave and take the next major step: full frontal nudity for the male actors. It’s 2009, for God’s sake – America has to get over its strange, giddy fear of seeing penises sometime. Why not now?

Don't fear the penis,

This is dF

TIME TO ROAST THE CHESTNUTS

It’s winter in Hong Kong. You can tell because (1) it’s below 13ºC, and (2) hawker stalls like these are on the sidewalks.



There’s one outside my office building right now. (Not the one in the picture – that one was in Tung Chung a few weeks ago when I took a picture of it.) Roasted chestnuts are the main attraction, but they have sweet potatoes and salted eggs as well.

I’m partial to the eggs, myself.

The chestnuts are nice too, but I’m off chestnuts on account of they give me teh gouts. But I love the smell of them on hot coals in a giant iron pan. It’s the kind of smell that goes perfectly with cold weather, like wood smoke from a bonfire.

Think I’ll grab a couple of eggs to go before I head home.

Comfort food,

This is dF

PIRATES OF VICTORIA HARBOUR

Saw this parked where my ferry home was supposed to be tonight. Promo stunt of some kind, judging from all the photographers. I didn't ride it home, no.



Wed 14.01.2009 20.24