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Stardate: 20190621.2307 | |
Location: Family Room | |
Input Device: Cybah Rig | |
Audio: Dog barking off in the distance | |
Visual: Fujitsu Face-Mounted Display | |
Energy: 30% | |
Mental: 25% | |
Emotional: Tired | |
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It's already after 11PM and I just finished | |
working. There goes my Friday night. Well, that's | |
what happens when I'm on call. I just don't like | |
that I'm in this standby mode and can't really seem | |
to get into much of anything without worrying about | |
being interrupted and even if I don't worry, I'm | |
too tired to really do much of anything. This | |
seems to be the pattern whenever I go on call. At | |
least it is for 2 weeks every 2 months or so. | |
In this "standby" mode, I've been doing too much | |
looking at stuff to buy online. Every June, I cash | |
out 2 weeks of my vacation time since I don't use | |
it much and I accumulate too fast. This cash out | |
is usually used for whatever...usually equipment | |
upgrades, electronic gadgets, vacation | |
spending money, whatever. This year, I didn't | |
ear-mark it or anything and it's been burning a | |
hole in my pocket. So I have been going online to | |
see what is out there while in standby mode. This | |
was triggered by going to some gadget store in | |
Santa Monica that's like a Sharper Image or | |
Brookstone kinda store. Overpriced gadgets that | |
nobody really needs, some of which is kinda | |
interesting. | |
In this store, I ran across this projector that | |
caught my eye. It was called a Puppy Cube and ran | |
Android, which was projected onto a table. You can | |
touch/swipe/interact with the projection like it | |
was a tablet, but it was just a projected image on | |
the table, kinda like those laser projected | |
keyboards they used to sell for cell phones/PDAs. | |
I never got to try one of those and they seemed a | |
bit gimmicky when they came out. | |
I played around with the projector for a bit and | |
mostly tested typing, which seemed to work pretty | |
accurately, but felt strange since I was just | |
tapping the table. I probably couldn't touch type | |
without looking at the keyboard. Acually, it kinda | |
reminded me of typing on a touchscreen, which I | |
never really enjoyed. I would much rather have a | |
hardware keyboard. | |
I didn't mess around with it for too long but I | |
thought it was pretty neat, so I took a photo to | |
research later. | |
Well, I did some research and this thing is | |
expensive...like $999US! Also, it runs an older | |
version of Android and the manufacturer's website | |
has not been available since April. This Puppy | |
Cube was one of those crowdfunded devices and there | |
didn't seem to be too much activity going on when | |
they were raising funds...well, not as much as the | |
Gemini PDA. | |
The device has lots of other cool features, like | |
being a short throw projector, various input | |
options, built in speakers, bluetooth, wifi, etc. | |
After I got thinking about it, I couldn't really | |
see where I would need to use this. Yeah, cool toy | |
but yeah. | |
So from there, I start wondering what else is out | |
there and I start getting that itch. That gadget | |
itch that I want to keep scratching...but then I | |
catch myself and have to apply some self-restraint. | |
I can easily get caught up in that and end up | |
making unwise purchases and wasting time with the | |
research. I have too much junk as it is and don't | |
need to add to the pile. And in the late nite, TV | |
infomercial, Home Shopping Club state that I'm in, | |
I'm in a dangerous place. | |
So I jack out of the web, jack in to the gopher and | |
create some plain text content. I can't really buy | |
anything here so I should be safe for the time | |
being. | |
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