A Favor to Ask, Followed by Other Stuff

If I May Humbly Ask a Favor Can I ask a favor? I spend tens of minutes each week writing entries on this blog, and I’m wondering who is reading it. If you read this blog, could you just put your name in the comments section? You should be able to comment by choosing "Anonymous" in the list of options you see. Just write a comment with your first name and last initial – no one outside family and friends will be able to figure out who you are that way. I’m just curious. Thanks! 

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Useful Inventions I have a product idea I hope no one will steal from me, as it is brilliant and stealable. I should produce a mouse that has an internal flash drive. That way, laptop users could plug in their mouse and plug in their external memory drive at the same time, and they’d only have to keep track of one thing. I think this would require two USB plugs – one for the mouse and one for the memory, but they could be combined in the same cord. Ideally, the memory/flash drive would be removable (say, from the bottom or side) in case the owner wanted to take it somewhere without the mouse. Or in case the memory and the mouse were tired of each other and needed some time apart. Another invention idea I have is the scanning monitor. If you want to scan a page into your computer, you just hold it up to the monitor and a little bar travels across, like a copy machine, and takes the image. Then the image is displayed back to you. This would clear off your desk space for more important things like pencils your kids leave laying around the house, or all those Lands End catalogs they keep sending. 

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Friday Evening Linkfest A few places I’ve stumbled across recently that have some interesting projects and pictures. Browse at your own risk, but I don’t think these have any objectionable content. 

First, miscellaneous stuff, a lot of recycled objects and so forth. http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/ 

 The next two are about steampunk objects. Steampunk is a loosely-defined art form that tends to merge mechanical objects with lots of copper and /or brass and/or exposed gears, etc. to create vintage-looking objects with a hint of science fiction/mad scientist. Some of the better ones look like they would be steam-powered if they were real, but for the most part they're decorative. There are plenty of steampunk costumes as well. http://steampunkworkshop.com/ and http://steampunkpics.blogspot.com/ 

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 M's final two football games are tomorrow - they have a game in the morning and if they win, they play in the championship game in the early afternoon.