In the "People" section of the 9.12 issue of Wired magazine, there's a short interview with Christine Peterson. She and here husband Eric Drexler are unabashedly pro-nanotechnology. So much so that they don't even save for retirement because nanotech will make money meaningless.

When Wired asked her how she'd like to be remembered, she answered,

"I want to be remembered as someone who's not dead."

So I was at the QFC in Ballard this afternoon, and I stopped at the cash machine. While I was waiting for things to authorize, I noticed a receipt sitting on top of the machine. Needless to say I was amazed at the savings account balance of nearly $300,000!! Why would anyone keep that much in their savings account? Also notice the person withdrew only $20. I guess they didn't want a wad of cash burning a hole in
their pocket. Geesh.

I'm always a little surprised that people leave their ATM receipts laying around, but when you've got a $300,000 account balance I'd think you'd want to be just a bit more careful.

This is to freaking cool. From a Slashdot post:

Remember those magnetic sculpture things you can buy at the mall where these small metal pieces stay in one shape. Imagine doing that with Ferrofluids. This is just too cool. Dan is the nerd's nerd.

Marilyn Vos Savant's 7 October 2001 presents some "Janus words" (words that have two meanings that are opposite) from Richard Lederer's book, Crazy English:

buckle: fasten together, and fall apart (buckle a seat belt, buckle under pressure

clip: separate, and fasten (clip the coupon from the newspaper, clip the coupon to the grocery list)

oversight: supervision, and neglect (he was responsible for oversight of the project, his oversight ruined the project)

qualified: competent, and limited (a qualified candidate, a qualified success)

sanction: approve, and disapprove (sanction the event, impose a sanction on a country)

temper: soften, and strengthen (anger is tempered with reason, steel is tempered by various means)

Start with any English phrase or sentence. For example:

"Making Wireless Work"

(which happens to be a slogan of the company I work for). Then translate it to French. Then translate it back to English. Then translate that to German then back to English. Repeat for Italian, Portuguese, and finally Spanish for good measure. Here's what you get at the end:

"In order to finish the works without the chain"

Courtesy of Lost in Translation, where you can enter any phrase you want.

aquaone pointed
me to this one a few days ago: a toaster that burns a picture of the
sun or a cloud with raindrops based on a forecast it downloads from the
web. From his email:

I got a good laugh out of this one. It's creative, I'll give him that much.

"Honey! What's the weather gonna be like today?"

"I dunno, lemme make breakfast and find out!"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/19442.html

Oddly enough, just today I ran across this one:

The Top 5 Drawbacks to Having a Web-Enabled Appliance

5> It now takes 250MB of RAM to toast a friggin' bagel.

4> Due to your fridge's embedded tracking software, your web surfing habits lead to some interesting drawings stuck to it.

3> Your vibrator is now not only ordering it's own batteries, but also submitting letters to Penthouse Forum.

2> "MAKE $$$$$ FAST BY JUST EATING TOAST !1!1!"

and the Number 1 Drawback to Having a Web-Enabled Appliance…

1> The oven keeps calling you at work because it's "lonely."

[ Copyright 2001 by Chris White ]

[ http://www.topfive.com ]