Random

I was drinking in the notion that, according to the Global Status Report on Health and Alcohol, Germany is the 22nd most inebriated country in world (the U.S. came in a pathetically puritan 57th), when I discovered some fine and sober German ingenuity.

BMW, the folks who make cars for the highly self-aware, has just opened a factory where, aside from Watson's distant uncles, all the employees are aged over 50.

Somehow, we get lured into believing that all technological progress is created by young, slightly impersonal people in gray t-shirts who will put on a white one (with a collar) … Read more

Correction at 12:04 p.m.: After this story was published, we heard from PBS producer Michael Bicks that it was not, in fact, Watson that crashed during the show's taping. He would like to make clear the following: "I missblogged last night--It was not Watson, but the system that was the interface between Watson and the Jeopardy computer, completely separate from Watson, that crashed during the taping."

It's been a little difficult coming to terms with the end of civilization.

Watching IBM's Watson last night make spaghetti bolognese out of the silent lambs of … Read more

She's working late at the office. She says she is catching up on paperwork. But she works at Facebook. Or Google. What paperwork could there be?

However, you know you can trust her. Why? Because if she happens to indulge in extra-marital hanky-panky with a barely-washed coder, you will receive a text. Not from your wife, but from her garter.

This might sound like Boon-filled Mills to you. But it is, in fact, a wonderful invention from GorgeousGarters.com.

These are garters that you can buy for the woman (or man) that you love. They contain a sweet little … Read more

If you, on your lesser days, could reach for a thinking cap to make you a little brainier, what would you expect?

Would you expect to solve math problems quicker? Would you imagine that complex scientific puzzlers would suddenly seem like simple amusements? Or would you expect to be able to paint a convincing forgery of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in your three-bedroom ranch house?

I ask because a professor in Sydney, Australia, has created a "thinking cap" and thinks he has the answers to the above questions.

According to AFP, Professor Allan Snyder has been testing his invention … Read more

For me, it's the American Airlines check-in staff in Miami. For some reason, they seem to function in such chaos that they are desperate for you, the passenger, to have as miserable a time as they seem to be having.

For you, it might be another airport whose staff members make you wish that the nice, but very firm, lady from Tabatha's Salon Takeover would perform a flyover atop their attitude.

Now some enterprising, technology-loving Brits are attempting to see if virtual staff can be more helpful than the skin-and-boned.

From this week, passengers in Terminal 1 of Manchester airport will be greeted by smiling, happy, and possibly even helpful airport staff. For they will be holograms of the real staff, presumably created to reflect their brightest, most cheerful selves.… Read more

Every time I see a concept car, I wonder why, many years later, I have still not seen anything like it on a road.

Every time I see a hybrid car, I wonder why, many years later, they are still on the road.

Thankfully, VW seems to have a psychic link to some of these concerns. For last week at a glitzy show in the motoring hotspot of Qatar, the company unveiled the Formula XL1.

If you look at this fine, silver object of grace, it is as if John DeLorean was gazing on the world from heaven and channeling … Read more

Sometimes, it seems to take a lot of energy to save energy. It seems to take a considerable carbon footprint to save a carbon toeprint.

So please join me in commending the council members in Redditch, U.K., who, according to the Guardian, have come up with a mortally interesting concept to heat their Abbey Stadium swimming pool and leisure center.

They'd like to keep it warm by using cold, dead bodies. Well, scalding dead bodies, to be precise.

I am sorry if this alarms you. But, in a rather charming example of zoning, there happens to be a … Read more

If you, like me, sometimes wander around Sephora and find that all the perfumes seem to smell the same, I bring you the odor of change.

It's called Money. It's the nosechild of Microsoft VP of Sales Patrick McCarthy. And it gives off a fragrance of brand new bills.

His Money Cologne and Her Money Eau de Parfum are, quite clearly, what the material world has needed for a long time.

Sometimes, it's hard when you're out on the town, in search of someone who can pay their own cab fare home (or yours), to know … Read more

Given that we are unlikely to get past 2012, perhaps it's churlish to even think of what 2025 might look like.

However, the indelible optimists at NASA have revealed images of commercial aircraft designs that might well take to the air, should 2025 actually materialize.

It seems that in the darker parts of 2010, NASA gave Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Brumman money to ponder what improvements might be made to our current aerial cattle carriers.

The initial designs, published on NASA's own site, will make some drool and a few, perhaps, shiver.

For at least two of … Read more