The Gadgets Page

I saw this Kickstarter and it really appealed to me. It’s a paper planner.

• The BASICS Notebook: Simplify and Improve Your Life by Jon Richards & Jacob Durham — Kickstarter

About three years ago, I went back to paper for my to-do lists. I still have my scheduler in my iPhone because that works much better than paper because it can sound an alarm to remind me. To-do lists, however, are woefully inadequate on the iPhone. I have yet to find a to-do list program that worked as good as Ecco Pro for the Palm did for me in the Nineties.

The BASICS notebook looks good, but it’s not what I need. It’s an undated date book with not enough room for to-do lists and journaling. For years now, I’ve been printing up my own journal pages on paper using Excel. That is what the loss of Ecco Pro did to me. It sent me back to paper; both for journaling and to-do lists.

I have recurring to-do items that I do every day to keep myself from going insane. While those things might work for me, they might not work for you, but unlike the BASICS people, I’m willing to share mine with you for free.

• Download Journal and To-Do Pages from The Gadgets Page – Excel Spreadsheet

These pages print up on normal 8 1/2″ X 11″ paper. You set the date on the first day of the “Front” and the rest of the days will update for the month. Then you print the Front, put it into your printer and print the Back. Cut them in half and you have a month’s worth of journal and to-do lists. Change them however you want they are yours to play with.

You can make them pretty like I did by adding a picture and reducing the opacity to about 35%. You can trim the edges and use a six-hole punch and they will fit in that old Franklin Planner from the Nineties. Go back to paper? Yes. Until they create a to-do list for the iPhone that actually WORKS, I am stuck with paper.

This video just made me cry. I have a huge fear of being pulled in by the undertow because it happened to me when I was a little kid in a lake up in Wisconsin. This girl, was filming herself and her family when the riptide hit. Fast forward to the 2:13 mark to watch it.

At the 2:25 mark, when her panicked voice said, “I can’t,” I felt that terror of being pulled under the water again. Her father grabbed her by the selfie stick and got her away from the riptide. Fortunately, the life guards swooped in and saved all three of them. You can see the point when the life guard got to her because she let go of the stick and it just swung by the lanyard.

The next time I feel that self-righteous rage at someone filming themselves with a selfie stick, I will remember this and relive the horror of being pulled under the water, knowing that one time, a selfie stick saved someone’s life.

Via: Girl Caught in Riptide Saved by Selfie Stick – POPSUGAR Tech

A post from Juliet Peck Moore on Facebook introduced me to the coolest bike I’ve seen in a long time. It’s called the Spacelander and it was designed in the Sixties by Benjamin Bowden.

• Wikipedia – Benjamin Bowden

In the early or mid 1950s, Bowden moved to Michigan, in the United States. While in Muskegon, Michigan in 1959, he met with Joe Kaskie, of the George Morrell Corporation, a custom molding company. Kaskie suggested molding the bicycle in fibreglass instead of aluminium. Although he retained the futuristic appearance of the Classic, Bowden abandoned the hub dynamo, and replaced the drive-train with a more common sprocket-chain assembly. The new name, Spacelander, was chosen to capitalize on interest in the Space Race.

Financial troubles from the distributor forced Bowden to rush development of the Spacelander, which was released in 1960 in five colours: Charcoal Black, Cliffs of Dover White, Meadow Green, Outer Space Blue, and Stop Sign Red. The bicycle was priced at $89.50, which made it one of the more expensive bicycles on the market. In addition, the fibreglass frame was relatively fragile, and its unusual nature made it difficult to market to established bicycle distributors. Only 544 Spacelander bicycles were shipped before production was halted, although more complete sets of parts were manufactured.

There is some hope for being able to own one yourself, though.

Beginning in the 1980s, there was a resurgence of interest in the Spacelander as a collectors item. Two bicycle enthusiasts, John Howland and Michael Kaplan, purchased the rights to the Spacelander name from Bowden, and have manufactured a small number of reproductions and replacement parts. The first reproduction was sold in 1988 for $4,000. The reproduction’s design has been modified to improve durability.

I found a couple on eBay, but they are priced way too high for something I’d be willing to ride around town. They are so gorgeous, though.

I feel so sad that awesome designs like this disappear and are unavailable. I am happy with my Schwinn cruiser that I bought at Kmart for $125, but I can’t believe that we don’t have awesome bikes like this on the road and in stores today.

Images via:

• Juliet Peck Moore on Facebook
• spacelander | The Invisible Agent
• 1946 Bowden Spacelander Prototype – Dave’s Vintage Bicycles
• Bowden Spacelander: Bicycles | eBay

I love robots, so the idea of a hotel staffed by robots sounds like ten kinds of awesome.

• Henn-na Hotel

And then I remember what kind of robots we’re talking about. These are like Disneyland Robots who give automated speeches. They don’t look at me, recognize the RFID tag on my hotel key and say, “Hello, Laura! How are you today?” They tell me where to go if I want to find the swimming pool.

The Luxor hotel had this back in 1993.

These camels bragged about the hotel and all the fun things to do there. I’m sure the dinosaur and woman in the pill box hat do the same thing. At least Henn-na has robots deliver food to you.

Of course, they keep getting stopped for photo ops, so I think I’d just prefer to get my food myself.

In the end, I think robots are cool and every step toward their development is a step in the right direction. I just wish I was to that House of the Future time when the robots were actually helpful and interactive.

Via: Meet the faces of Japan’s first robot-staffed hotel

VolkerWessels, a construction company, has created a plastic road.

• VolkerWessels introduces the PlasticRoad – VolkerWessels

Their description:

PlasticRoad features numerous advantages compared to conventional roads, both in terms of construction and maintenance. Plastic is much more sustainable and opens the door for a number of new innovations such as power generation, quiet road surfaces, heated roads and modular construction. Additionally, the PlasticRoad design features a ‘hollow’ space that can be used for cables, pipes and rainwater.

In Utah, we need a road design like this because the snow plows tear up asphalt like it is paper. I love how the design accommodates channels for electric pipes and drainage.

This is the future of roads that I would like to see NOW. I don’t know how slippery the roads would get with snow, water and ice. Also, those large channels underneath might cause a greater likeliness of freezing.

If we were able to create roads that could be fixed just by removing a panel and replacing it in one day, construction wouldn’t be a problem anymore. If we were able to fix power and water lines without digging up roads, the repair would take half the time.

I love the design of these roads. They would be even better if the top panel were solar panels. There was an entry on solar roads here:

• The Gadgets Page – Solar Roadways Prototype in Idaho

A modular road system with solar panels exposed to light all day long would truly be a sign that we are living in the Jetson’s world.