CHICKS DIG CHEAP GUITARS

So do cops postmen, evidently.



Via Mutant Family Values

You can't handle the music I'm playing,

This is dF

PUTTING THE DESKTOP IN “DESKTOP COMPUTING”

I get emails.

Sometimes they contain The Future.



That’s a demo of “surface computing”, a user interface that ostensibly could replace yr keyboard, mouse and even yr monitor. Put another way, it could turn yr desktop into a giant iPad.

Or, in this case, it could turn the table at a restaurant into an interactive menu, game console and message board.

NCR Corporation and DesignerCity list some potential apps:

Specialty wine shops and restaurants – the surface device presents information about the wine’s vintage, country of origin and aroma and taste attributes to help customers make selections that complement their menu choices, delivering a vivid and immersive visual experience. Through Bluetooth transmission, shoppers can also save useful product information to their mobile phones for future reference.
 
Restaurants – the surface computer is transformed into an interactive dining table to create unique dining experiences. Customers simply scan their loyalty cards on the table to read daily menus and promotions, presented in a visually engaging way. Each guest can place their order by tapping their fingers on the table, check their loyalty point balance or browse other information with ease. After finishing their meals, customers will be able to scan their payment cards to settle the bill by themselves instantly.  

Bar environment – surface devices can be deployed as interactive tables in a bar. Apart from touch-based drink ordering, customers can also play popular bar games with friends on the table. Customers who are on their own can also play games or chat to people virtually sitting across the room at another table via the communications feature.

I’m a little skeptical about people using tables in bars to chat to other people at other tables. But then for all I know, people at bars spend as much time updating their Facebooks and Twitters as they do actually talking to people.

I know I would – at least in the boring bars (and most bars these days are boring places). But then yr not likely to find me in such bars anyway, since I take all my drinking advice from Charles Bukowski and George Thoroughgood.

That’s me in the corner,

This is dF

AFRAID OF ALL THE WRONG THINGS

ITEM: Parents concerned for their kids’ safety are more focused on rare and improbable dangers than actual threats, according to a new book.

Based on surveys Barnes collected, the top five worries of parents are, in order:

Kidnapping
School snipers
Terrorists
Dangerous strangers
Drugs

But how do children really get hurt or killed?

Car accidents
Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
Abuse
Suicide
Drowning

Why such a big discrepancy between worries and reality? Barnes says parents fixate on rare events because they internalize horrific stories they hear on the news or from a friend without stopping to think about the odds the same thing could happen to their children.

The same could be said for the US govt’s counter-terrorism strategies. Or the Tea Party. Or that dingbat in Florida. Or ...

Well you get the idea.

What’s really interesting is that this idea isn’t even new. Another book – The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things – covered similar ground. It was published 11 years ago.

Somehow I don’t think we’ve progressed much since then.

Much ado about nothing,

This is dF