07.13.08

I Want That! Picks

Posted in life, tech at 12:44 am by mridley

There’s a fun television show on the Fine Living television network. It’s called I Want That! and it’s probably not a TiVo season pass pick for anti-consumerism activists. The show is pretty much explained by its title - they showcase a lot of “cool stuff”. I thought I’d post some recent items I saw on the show that appealed to me. Enjoy.

GeoChron is a wall map of the world that actually functions as a clock. It updates the view of the world showing current daylight and takes into account the rotation of the Earth on its axis and other factors that impact the “terminator” on the globe. At the top of the map it shows the current time in each time zone across the world. It’s quite pricey and there are free software programs that provide equivalent functionality. But I like the idea of having a “wall map” clock that doesn’t take up screen real estate. I do work and interact with people all over the world and keeping track of global timezones in my head can be a pain, especially with daylight savings time in the Northern and Southern hemispheres being opposite. I don’t see myself buying one any time soon, but if I had an extra $1800 that I had to spend, I’d consider it.

Reversica makes a hardware mount for cabinetry that allows you to have a cabinet rotate 180 degrees on its axis so that you can hide, for example, a plasma television with bookshelves on the opposite side. When I build my super hero hideout I’ll be sure to get one. But since I currently rent I don’t think I’m investing $3,000 in custom cabinetry hardware to hide a plasma TV I don’t have. But once I do finally buy a place I may re-evaluate.

Digital Concepts makes something I might actually buy, the Digital Concepts Ps-101 Portable Lighting Studio. It’s a small table top lightbox for photographing small objects. I can think of any number of uses aside from taking pictures for ebay listings. Particularly since I’ve never sold anything on ebay. I couldn’t find a link to the manufacturer but it’s available on Amazon.

Someone asked me today how much coffee I drink a day. I don’t really know the answer, but suffice it to say I consume an above average amount of caffeine. At work. At Starbucks. In my car. But not at home. For whatever reason, I don’t actually own a coffee pot. That’s simple enough to remedy but I suppose I haven’t purchased one because I’m always on the go and I’m drinking my coffee in the car or at work or some other location. The Wagan 12 V Travel Mug is a coffee thermos that has a 12 volt car adapter to keep coffee hot during the drive. When I googled to find out more information I learned that there are a million of these things out there, including coffee mugs that can be powered by USB. But I was not aware of any of this, so I post it here for your information. Maybe I’ll have to finally get a coffee maker for my house.

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