Category: Quickhit

[Might as well face it, you’re addicted to Civ](http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/66515.html). This game is one of the few to have encouraged me to play through the night. Something about that ‘one more turn’ nature.

[Make your own business cards using acid].(http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/08/how_to_make_your_own_embo.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890). That’s the acid ferric chloride, in case your mind took you somewhere else entirely.

[An application to get your contact details out of Facebook](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/23/with-friendcsv-data-sneaks-out-facebooks-back-door/). My biggest worry about Facebook is the closed system nature – while anyone can write an application, you don’t get to control your own data. This is a partial solution, but not a complete one.

[Plasma and LCD flat panels use a lot of electricity](http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/how-green-is-my-plasma/2007/10/24/1192941120182.html?s_cid=rss_news) Frankly I doubt they’ll ever be banned in their current form, as some people suggest. Still, there is a *lot* consumer electronics manufacturers could be doing to make it easier to save energy.

[Underground coal fires contribute as much to global warming as all the cars in the US](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/from-bagels-to-coal-fires-an-unorthodox-economist-keeps-pushing-for-change/). One of the real problems in designing the long run policy on this stuff is deciding how to assign property rights to emissions like these. A price imposing scheme (be it a tax or permit system) needs these property…

[GPS receiver in 1985](http://img.engadget.com/common/images/0131583169424672.GIF?0.8677629570302273) [GPS receiver today](http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/19/proportas-freedom-key-ring-gps-receiver-stays-out-of-sight-kee/)

[A powered crescent wrench](http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/24/black-decker-auto-wr.html). I can only think of this as another step towards the eventual robot domination of the world. Good-o.

[The people using it aren’t the ones buying it](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/669-why-enterprise-software-sucks). I think this is a little bit true, but often you get the same problem even when people who’ll use the software are involved. I think the bigger problem is that people don’t really know what they want in software, and hence end up buying something…

[Electric powered roller skates](http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/24/ishoes-electric-roll.html). Feh, 15mph. Give me rocket skates any day.

[A remote control with a bigger dose of ‘weird’ than ‘usable’](http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/10/the_tv_remote_control.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890). What I *really* want is a remote control like the one Superman has in his fortress of solitude.