And Then There Was Three

Following my last self-adoring post, I now have someone else to adore.

My wife Leanne and I welcomed our daughter Darby Lane into the world at 1.12am on December 12 2002.

Darby tipped the scales at 7lbs 13oz and was 54cm in length.

She is amazing.

At the risk of blowing one's own trumpet and heaping self-adoration upon myself, I write the following:

I was recently quoted several times in a published article (http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20126.html) about future gadgets and the like.

For the record (Always the perfectionist), it's wear-ware not wear-wear as mentioned in the story.

Not Just A Black Box

For the latest in retro TVs check out the 'new' line of Predicta by Telstar. Very cool. With names like Princess, Holiday and Meteor how could you go wrong?

Hollywood Could Be Responsible For More Plastic!

I know that some ill-conceived movies are often referred to as bombs but this is ridiculous!

Technology that makes DVDs self-destruct in a few hours or days has already been developed, raising the prospect of a world without late fees.

In one recent promotion, Atlantic Records made a limited run of DVDs containing footage of the hip-hop group Nappy Roots that was viewable only for a few hours before the disc 'expired.' (Has the *group* expired yet? Must we wait long?)

Both Flexplay and SpectraDisc add a chemical time-bomb to DVDs that begins ticking once the package is open and the discs are exposed to air. Think of all the consumer items that would improve with "chemical time bombs" that rendered them inoperative. Land mines, stale pharmaceuticals, political campaign posters....

SpectraDisc applies an outer chemical layer to the disc that begins evaporating and changing in color as the expiration time nears. Flexplay integrates its chemicals into the inner layers of the disc. SpectraDisc DVDs turn blue. Flexplay discs also turn darker, becoming so opaque that the laser inside a DVD player no longer can read the disc.

MGM Studios used self-destructing DVDs with music videos and trailers to promote the new James Bond movie, 'Die Another Day.' Movie critics were told the DVD would self-destruct in 36 hours - a nod to 007's gadget- providing character Q. I can imagine some serious alternative uses for auto-decaying storage media. For instance, pirates would find them very handy for destroying legal evidence against themselves.

Of course there is always the environmental angle, Self-destructing DVDs would create considerable waste. A study conducted for Flexplay by environmental policy expert Jonathan Koomey found that if disposable DVDs made up 10 percent of all U.S. video rentals, an additional 350 million DVDs would be discarded, creating 5,600 metric tons of solid waste annually. The environmental impact would be mitigated somewhat by fewer cars making return trips to rental stores, Koomey suggested. [Writer gazes in a moment of contemplative pause] Right...