The Gadgets Page

I had no idea that the Rocket Belt was real. I sincerely thought it was the product of science fiction. Every time I’ve seen a man flying on television with one of these, I’ve assumed that they were on wires and that something like this couldn’t possibly work because his legs would be burned by heat of jet fuel burning.

They weren’t using jet fuel, though. They were using compressed gas. Apparently, the conversion of a liquid to gas has quite a thrust.

Here is a video from The History Channel about the Bell Rocket Belt and its place in history:

You can find out more technical information here:

• Bell Rocket Belt – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Rocketbelt Convention 2007

• Bell Rocket Belt

I’m kind of angry that my flying cars haven’t shown up, but finding out that jet packs are REAL is almost enough to make me feel better about it. My only question is where can I buy one.

Via: Drink. Drive. Go To Jail. – Jumpin’ Jetpacks

The Smart Car Road Show came to Park City, Utah, so we took a drive up there to test drive the new Smart Cars that will be available here in the United States soon. You can see the video here:

Embed this video on your website – Download this video for your iPod

Driving the Smart Car felt a lot like driving a Mini Cooper. It had that go-cart feel. Even though we only stayed within the parking lot, I could really feel the road, so that makes me wonder what it would feel like to go 65 mph in it. Would the little car just vibrate so much that I wouldn’t be able to feel my extremities?

No matter, this is NOT a car for long road trips unless you’re going alone. There’s barely room for one suitcase in the trunk. The sun roof is large, however. You can’t open it, but it makes you feel like there is more room in the car than there actually is.

Despite all that, it was a FUN car to drive. I thought it was a manual transmission, but it is a strange mixture between manual and automatic. When I drove it, I used the automatic mode, but there is supposed to be a manual mode as well (but no clutch to contend with).

For being such a small car, there was plenty of room for me. When the seat was all the way back, I could barely touch the pedals, so for a taller person, there should be plenty of room. Of course, there’s no room for more than one friend, but most of the time, we’re alone in our cars, aren’t we?

The big question for me is cup holders. Does the Smart Car have cup holders? Yes, they have two good sized cup holders within easy reach. This feature alone puts the Smart Car head and shoulders above every Volkswagen I have ever owned.

The car I drove did not have a glove box, but the guy driving with me assured me that there would be a glove box in the final models released in the USA. The Passion and Cabrio models come with air conditioning, but it’s not available on the base model. None of them have cruise control.

The Smart Car feels like a movie star because it has been used as a joke in so many movies. Seeing it close up is a lot like seeing a real movie star close up. It’s not quite as pretty or tall as you remember it, but it’s exciting to tell your friends about it anyway.

Here is a great video of the interior of the Smart Car. This unit has the glove box and if you look carefully, you can see the two cup holders on the floor in front of the gear shift.

Here is a quick project you can do to wrap up your earbuds:

• Instructables Earbud cord wrapper in 5 minutes or less!

It’s so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

Via: Twitter / Wendy Yao: might be useful: Instructab…

Since the Nike+ has been so helpful to my running, I was planning on bringing it with me on my next race. Looks like I need to read the rules first. According to Wendy, there are many races that ban iPods and headphones.

• About.com – Races That Ban iPods by Wendy Bumgardner

They say that it’s for safety precautions:

“Last weekend, my walking team did the Rock ‘n Relay marathon. As we were going through the race info right before the start, we saw that they banned wearing headphones or earphones during the event, for safety purposes… The stats don’t bear out that pedestrian accidents happen more often to walkers distracted by being on the cell phone or wearing headphones. Instead, in 40% of pedestrian fatalities the victim was imbibing alcohol. It is of interest that we got a ticket for a free beer at the beer tent to have at any time during the event.”

Real healthy, Rock ‘n Relay. You can have beer, but you can’t listen to your tunes while you run. Technophobia strikes again.

As a teenager, my favorite watches were made by Swatch. I could barely tell time on them, but they were so cool, I owned several of them. I STILL own them today and most of them are still running. That’s how well-made they were.

Swatch is still ticking along. They just released a new line of watches called Puzzle Motion. They are like a kaleidescope of color moving on your wrist.

• Official Swatch Website:: Spring Summer 2007 collection:: Puzzle Motion

Here are their videos showing how the watches look:

Embed this video on your website – Download this video for your iPod

If I have to have a watch that doesn’t do anything but tell time, at least it should show me pretty pictures.

Here is a video of the Swatch Puzzle watch in person:

Retro Swatch Ads after the break: (Continue Reading…)

This postcard from PostSecret is strange to me.

Technology doesn’t scare me. If I could just plug in a machine and it would make me sleep immediately, I would have that jack put in my head. If I could solve all my eating problems by installing a machine into my brain, I would do it. If I could download my memories via USB, I would do it religiously every day.

Where do I sign up for the cyborg revolution?

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

I have enjoyed the use of an ear light similar to this one: EarLite LED Task Light. Aside from the cool Borg-like appearance it gives me, it has been indispensable every time I have gone camping over the last two years. It is so much easier to take that scary walk to the outhouse in the middle of the night if I don’t have to worry about not dropping my flashlight.

Because the light is attached to my head and is directed in my line of sight, I always have light where I’m looking. I didn’t think this would be as useful as it was. I bought it for the geek-appeal. I thought that I would just use it for reading when we went camping. I have to admit that I have never used it for that. I have used it for writing in my journal, but mostly, it’s the perfect flashlight to take with you to the outhouse. Because it directs the light exactly where you need it, you’re not fumbling in the dark looking for the toilet paper. Additionally, you don’t have to worry about touching it before you can get to the hand sanitizer because it’s attached to your ear.

The last camping trip we went on, I thought I had lost it, but I found it right before night fell. I was so grateful that I realized that I better look for a replacement. The EarLite LED Task Light is a little more expensive than what I paid (by $3), but it looks like it would be a little better, so I think I’ll go with this one.

I have to give Suunto some credit. At least they’re trying to make a women’s digital watch that isn’t ugly. This is a pretty good looking watch for a digital, unfortunately, it’s not the kind of watch that will help me. I don’t need an altimeter, barometer, four languages or a compass. If I did need those things, I would wear the big ugly Casio digital that does all that for half the price. I don’t need my watch to be beautiful when I’m hiking.

• Suunto – Suunto Lumi

I need my watch to be beautiful all the other times of my day: walking around town, going to work, having dinner with friends. I want a pretty digital watch that will tell me the time and date on the face. I want an elegant digital watch that will time me with a stopwatch and give me a countdown timer. I want a lovely digital watch that will tell me what time it is in Vegas AND back home. And I want it to be small. I KNOW the watch manufacturers can do all of this, but for some reason they don’t.

Good try, Suunto. Thanks for thinking of me. I really appreciate it. Game over, man. Try again.

Via: Shiny Shiny: Sunnito Lumi – ‘An outdoor sports instrument for women’. Huh?

I have yet to find a laptop bag that I truly love, but that’s not the case for Thom Allen. He broke the shoulder connector on his previous Outdoor Products Powerpack Travel Laptop Backpack, and he went right out to buy another one because he loved it so much.

• Meet my new friend, the Power Pack | Thom Allen Weblog

His favorite feature is the ability to charge his laptop without taking it out of the bag:

One of the really cool features of this pack is the ability to connect the power system to your laptop, internally, and plug the power cord into the wall without removing the laptop from the pack. This makes it nice if you’re traveling and want to recharge in airport or restaurant.

According to the reviews on Amazon, it looks like it’s a favorite. D. Camp writes:

I’ve bought three of these laptop backpacks and this is the best. Well-made, well organized, and lots of space. Seems durable, but haven’t used it enough to vouch for it. Will protect my laptop physically with its padded pouch, but also from theft. How? The backpack doesn’t yell out “I contain an expensive laptop” – it looks like a cheapo student bookbag. And you can’t beat the price. Highly recommended.

I would love to see pictures of that nifty inner pocket that allows you to charge your laptop without taking it out of the bag. Anyone able to send me one?

The answer is 13. If you want to see all the karate kids crammed into the car, watch the video. There were not, however, enough seat belts for them all.

Mike and I saw a Xebra on the road in Montana the other day. We were surprised to see such an efficient car so far out in the wild.