Me: I can’t get motivated to get back to running, I should try to make those derailleur adjustments on my bike so it shifts consistently and correctly
Also me: who the fsck invented these things and why are they so damn impossible to adjust?
4 Likes
I have cinnamon with my breakfast in the mornings.
Every time I pick it up my head starts singing “Oh cinnamon, where you gonna run to?”
Annoys the f**k out of me but I just can’t stop it 
Now that I’m older, I can appreciate the relationship between Higgins+dogs and Magnum better.
Good stuff, the old stuff.
To sleep, perchance, to dream…
Great. Now I have a SOLILOQUY earworm.
Does anyone know of a company that sold a new product with the specific goal that it would fail? I’m not talking about anything that was discontinued because of not enough demand, and we can rule out vaporware and FUD tactics (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) to sabotage a competitor. And not really a scam or a con where the goal is to swindle people.
Just literally “We’re going to sell this product for a specific period of time, we know it’s going to fail, and after that time’s up, the product’s gone.”
1 Like
ummm… Microsoft and their Windows OS?
Windows Millennium Edition does spring to mind as a possible contender. “We just need a stopgap because XP isn’t ready for prime time yet.” I felt guilty every time we installed that for a customer.
The upcoming Playdate is a possible example:
Essentially a small but long-lived macOS software developer (they did help publish Firewatch for multiple platforms among other things) decided instead of doing an anniversary shirt or statue or whatever to do a weird, niche, game console. It’s B&W, limited controls, a crank, limited features, etc. And it comes with a package of released/planned “included” mini-games. It’s also a year late, but some of that is 2020 (and they haven’t even taken pre-orders yet as they have a sense of shame.)
I have a feeling it will be “one and done” with no production after the initial run. They’re releasing tools to make games so it may have some lifespan, but I don’t expect a PlayDate 2 before perhaps 2030 (the whole anniversary thing).
And, yes, I will probably order one.
I saw this elsewhere and this part was the one that stood out to me the most. The crank is NOT, as many people would assume, some sort of low-tech way to power the battery in this piddly little thing. No, it’s a control method. There are gameplay elements that will require you to turn the crank on the game console.
What have the people that developed this thing been smoking/inhaling/injecting?
As I said, I will probably order one. That may make me a crank. 
This whole project is totally “Let’s make something cool because we can.” and it sounds like they’re stretching a bit to find uses for the crank, but some will have clever bits. I think one promised game has a ‘time travel’ gimmick and you can use it to rewind time for example.
The design company behind the industrial aspects is “Teenage Engineering” who seem to do some similar weird little artsy bits of tech. A lot of their stuff embodies the tech version of the term ‘twee’ I feel: Cute in a minimalist/exposed hardware/“80s nostalgia focusing on the bits like $5 keyboards” aspects. I can’t comment on the value of their music stuff, which seems to range from a relatively pricey minimalist portable synthesizer to some cheaper ‘barre board’ synthesizer gadgets that look like bare-board hand-held LCD games from the 80s. There’s a strong vaporware feel of 80s nostalgia probably made by people who were barely born in the 80s.
But I’m being an old man yelling at the clouds to get of my lawn and, yes, the playdate does have me interested albeit as a novelty.
I have one of these and would happily acquire more of them. They’re very popular with those making music in the glitch/lo-fi aesthetic. Mine is among the cheaper ones (the PO-14 Sub) but it is terribly entertaining for portable music-making; It lives in a little hard shell case with ear buds in my backpack. Their higher end synths (the OP-1 and OP-Z) are very popular and I would love one of those, too, but they’re a little too niche for me to justify spending that much money.
Also, no mention of the Bop-It can occur without linking this video.
1 Like
I don’t know if those are quite what I’m looking for. We’ll see in a few days.
Oh, lovely. Somebody’s already bought fireworks.
Same here.
In my younger days we played with crackers etc.
Now that I’m older, I don’t like it. Weird.
I had the thought today that a language construct I dislike is “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Commonly used when picking up a chore without being asked… Doing dishes or even taking plates in from the dining room are common examples.
I’d prefer a simple “thank you” as I feel it’s more meaningful.
4 Likes
I think it’s really funny that Roger Stone said there would be fabricated charges brought against Trump’s businesses because another way of saying “fabricated” is “trumped-up”.
1 Like