I lived in the UK for a couple of years, and so the tube map (or "London Underground Map") holds a special place in my heart as I'm sure it does for a lot of others. Those stifling days in 40+ degree carriages with a power shortage, wafting odours of sweating businessmen, tourists, and that other demographic who seem to get the absolute most out of their single ride by staying on the train 24x7... ahhh.... memories...

So, is it any wonder that there seems to be a never ending line of merchandise emblazoned with the tube map - there are teddy bears, wallets, posters, t-shirts, towels... almost everything...

so, where is this coming from? I saw this version etched onto a mirror the other day at suckUK


Imagine rushing a look in the mirror as you're heading off to work in the morning - "bugger... I've spilt cornflakes on my Elephant & Castle"

so...

I was just starting to look around for my newest wishlist as my birthday is coming soon (it's a couple of months away, but I like to make it last as long as possible...) and came across this little beauty on Gadget-Box:


I don't know, but I'm pretty sure you can never have too many little devices that shoot foam disks at people when they get too close...

I was having a quick look through the 2006 IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Awards) list and thought I'd share a couple that I liked - some are just designs I think but it's a glimpse into some nifty little treats on the way:

...more »

I found this little gem on Chris Linfoot's blog the other day - but if you don't want to go through the emails for the whole story, The Register has a breakdown.

Essentially it outlines a city official who makes an honest mistake and believes a company's software is blocking their websites... but the problem is that the software in question is actually the operating system that their site is hosted on... their site was down but instead of getting their IT guys to look at it, he unfortunately went straight into "hardball-mode" and started with the threats of FBI investigations... brilliant...

It's along the lines of incorrectly entering a website name into a browser, and threatening FBI action on the browser software unless they remove their "illegal" 404 page!

Apart from it just being funny... top marks for Johnny Hughes of CentOS... he didn't give up, or just ignore the messages, but instead followed it through to the end and ultimately helped an unrelated party get to their solution - top marks for customer service guys...

ok... this is looking pretty cool... Samsung has developed a 32gig flash disk for notebooks
- half the weight
- 3 times the read rate
- 1.5 times the write rate
- no motor, no noise
- 5% of the energy
(compared to existing notebook drives)

"The 32-Gigabyte (GB) NAND flash-based solid state disk (SSD) can upload and download data quickly and quietly as it uses instantly-accessible, static NAND flash memory instead of the rotating discs found in hard drives"
Hard drive's days are numbered - Breaking - Technology - smh.com.au

update - ohhh baby... check out this usb key - 64gig!