What If You Could Control Cinema Session Times?

I go to the cinema about 3 or 4 times a year.

The primary reason is that the pre-set evening session times are annoyingly inconvenient.

Movies that start at 6pm is no good. It’s too early because I’m starving when the movie finishes at 8pm. 8pm is too late for dinner!

And cramming dinner down before 5.30pm to get to the movie in time for the 6pm session is just as bad.

And a movie starting at 8.30pm is too late because my wife and I can’t handle getting at home at 10.30pm like we used to.

So the solution would be a cinema that can play the movie when I choose.

My ideal time would be 7.24pm which is after dinner, after the kids are in bed, and will finish at 9.24pm. Perfect.

What’s your perfect movie starting time?

Is there a way that we can all go to the cinema but we all get to choose our movie start time? (And it would be handy to pause when we need to go to the toilet too).

Perhaps the answer is to install aeroplane seats into cinemas!

6″ screens aren’t going to cut it of course so we’ll need nice 22″ inch HD screens in the back of the seat in front of you (3D capable of course).

We’ll need headphones too. Nice padded, high quality ones with a volume setting that you control.

One more thing – you’ll be able to order snacks right from where you sit, and they get delivered to you by chicks on roller skates!

To make this awesomeness happen I’ll need investment.

10,000 people investing $1,000 each should do it for starters. Are you in?

If so, make a deposit in my bank account right now, and I’ll start enquiries to buy old 737 seats.

What’s Your Favourite Way To Drink Coca Cola?

Here’s a list of my 3 favourite ways to drink Coca Cola

  1. Coca Cola 250ml Glass Bottle Crown Cap
    • My #1 favourite because:
    • Glass keeps the coke super cold
    • The contour of the bottle not only looks elegant and sexy but is functional too because it pours the coke pleasantly down your throat
    • You need a bottle opener to get it open, and I like that because it restricts access to an elite club of people with an opener
    • They are expensive, about $3 each (=$15/litre). And rare, you can only get them from Cafe’s. Psychologically these factors make having one more of an experience
    • But: 200ml’s is just not enough. I need at least 2 of these
  2. Coca Cola 330ml Glass Bottle Twist Top
    • My #2 favourite because:
    • Glass keeps the coke super cold
    • Again, the contour bottle is great
    • But: 330ml’s is only barely enough, it doesn’t quench my thirst. Available from the supermarket in 4 packs which actually is a bad thing because it reduces it’s exclusivity
  3. Coca Cola 355ml Can
    • My #3 favourite because:
    • Cans are cheap: only $0.70 per can in NZ when you buy them in packs of 18 from the supermarket
    • I’ve had one a day for almost 20 years (that’s about 7,000 cans)
    • Because the serving size is quite small you can drink it within a few minutes so it’s fresh and cold and fizzy throughout the experience
    • The Can is reasonable at keeping the coke cold, but not as good as glass
    • On a side note; have you noticed that cans commonly have “Not for Individual Sale” printed on them and yet most retailers happily do so? Funny.

The 3 worst ways to drink Coca Cola:

  1. Coca Cola 600ml Plastic Bottle
    • My #3 worst choice because:
    • Probably the most widely distributed, available in every dairy on the planet. That’s why I hate it
    • The same contour as the glass bottle just doesn’t work when it’s plastic. It feels cheap in my hand. Yuck.
    • But to be honest, when faced with zero alternatives, I have purchased one a few times
  2. Coca Cola 2.25lt or 1.5lt Plastic Bottle
    • My #2 worst choice because:
    • Plastic is nasty to drink from
    • If the 3 options above are not available, the only way I could possibly tolerate coke from a big bottle is poored very slowly over a tall glass filled to the brim with ice. But of course most of the fizz has gone by the time you’ve finished this process.
  3. Coca Cola Post-Mix
    • My #1 worst choice because:
    • A huge revenue generator for Fast Food restaurants all over the world
    • It is pure evil. Who is the sick genius who created this abomination? Did you know it costs about 4 cents to fill a paper cup? One squirt of syrup, add water, squeeze in some Carbon Dioxide. Yuck.

I’ve heard about these 700ml glass bottles with Crown Caps in Brazil. Ohhhh yummy. I hope to visit in a few years!

Do you have different ideas for the order of the list? In what ways do you most like to drink Coca Cola?  Which ways do you loathe it?

12 Reasons Why I Am Anti Smoking

Before I begin this rant, I want to be clear about something: It’s not just the act of smoking I find revolting, it is the people who smoke that I really hate.

Some may say “they are helpless victims under the spell of a powerful and addictive drug”.

To that I say:

  • “Do we all get to make choices in our lives?” Yes.
  • “Do we all have the power to change?” Yes.
  • “Are we all therefore choosing (through action or inaction) to be smokers or non-smokers?” Yes.

One more thing, I wanted to tell you that it took me a long time to write this headline:

  • I started with “12 Reasons I Hate Smoking” but I realised that that headline suggested I was a smoker and I hated the fact I smoked.  I am not.
  • I also considered “12 Reasons I Hate Smokers” but even though it’s true, I do actually hate smokers, most of the reasons in my list weren’t about the smokers, they were mostly about the act of smoking.
  • I also considered “12 Reasons I Hate Cigarettes” but the word cigarettes is hard to spell. Are there two “g’s” or just one? Two “t’s” or just one?

12 Reasons I Am Anti-Smoking

#1: Smoking Kills Fresh Air

When it’s a beautiful sunny day and I want to go to a cafe and sit outside, I can’t, because smokers are defiling the fresh air.

So I sit just inside the door so at least I can see the sunny day from there, but smoke blows in the open door. grrr

#2 Cigarette Butts Kill Seahorses

Why don’t smokers think that throwing cigarette butts onto the street or into gardens is ok? It’s not ok. It’s littering.

Littering is a crime against the community. Some poor sod will have to pick up a soggy butt that has been in a smokers mouth.

Furthermore, many of those butts flush out to sea, just think of cute little sea horses choking to death on them! Poor little buggers, why should they suffer?

#3 Smoking Employees in Uniform Kills Brands

Employees who loiter around the front door (or back door) of their work place wearing their uniforms sucking in their cheeks and blowing out toxic clouds looks nasty.

And have you seen the tin cans that are often used for collecting cigarette butts but are seldom emptied? And sometimes they get kicked over and the butts spill out everywhere? Gross.

#4 Smoking Kills the Hotness of Smoking Hot Chicks

There’s nothing worse then spotting a smoking hot chick at a distance, taking a moment to have a perve (as you do), and then seeing her bring a cigarette up to her mouth. Yuck.

It just ruins the whole perving experience.

It makes super hot chicks in movies look old. It makes hot chicks look barely better than average. It makes average looking chicks look ugly. It makes ugly chicks look…

Along those lines, I’m sure we all fantasise about kissing hot chicks, but the thought of kissing an ashtray mouth shatters that fantasy.

#5 Smoke Gives Killer Headaches

Perhaps I am more sensitive to smoke than most people because if I am unfortunate to be engulfed in a cloud of smoke I get an instant headache.

#6 Smoking Kills Family Members

Smoking killed my grandmother. She died of breast cancer, which is very close to the lungs so I think her many years of smoking is to blame.

She lived a shorter life on this planet because of smoking. My family would have liked to have her around longer.

#7 Smoking Kills Poor Peoples Financial Priorities

I hate to see people on the unemployment benefit (who get paid with my taxes) buy a $18 packet of cigarettes and then realise after that purchase that they can’t afford bread and milk for their kids for breakfast so the kids either get nothing or get to share $3 worth of hot chips.

#8 Stop Smoking TV Ads Kill The Mood

You’re sitting there enjoying your favourite TV sitcom when the TV ads start with a stop smoking “shock” campaign. Images of diseased lungs and hearts fill the screen. I don’t even smoke and yet these images are in my face. Not fair.

#9 Smoking Breaks Kill Productivity

Have you noticed that smokers take more breaks at work? They are happy to leave us non-smokers to keep working while they go outside for some “fresh air”.

#10 Smoking Kills A Positive Image

A smoker’s clothes stink, their breath stinks, hair, house, car, pets, you name it. And their own sense of smell is so deadened they don’t even realise!

In a job interview situation do you think smelling like smoke decreases your chances of getting hired? I’m sure it does.

Doctors who smoke are the worst. How could you trust a Doctor to look after you when they can’t even look after themselves?

I love meeting new people, but if I catch a whiff that tells me they are a smoker I can’t help but think less of them. I think I perceive them as weak because they are addicted and can’t control themselves. It’s unfair to them, but I can’t help it.

Furthermore, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked by a smoker “do you mind if I smoke?” (to which I reply “actually yes, please refrain, thank you”). Why do so few ask this question? Are they so addicted that they can’t be courteous?

#11 Smokers Don’t Care That Smoking is Killing Them

If you give a smoker a list of 100 reasons to quit, present them with irrefutable medical evidence that smoking does indeed kill, impose ever increasing restrictions on where they can smoke, even after all that they keep smoking. That’s just annoying.

#12 The Best Alternatives To Smoking Are Killer Clever

Have you noticed that the most popular “smoking alternatives” contain nicotine and they are therefore just as addictive as smoking?

This is no co-incidence. Why are companies legally allowed to create products that are chemically addictive to their customers?

From a business point of view this is a licence to print money.

Governments not only tolerate these products, they endorse them.

My 10 Favourite iPhone4 Apps

Google Search

Why? Because it makes it easy to search Google Images, Google News, Google Places etc and tells you if you have unread Gmail

AutoStitch Panorama

Why? Because you can stitch up to 16 photos together to make a giant panorama

DropBox

Why? Because you can store documents in your DropBox.com account and store them on your iPhone offline

TeamViewer

Why? Because you can take control of your computer at home (or anyone’s for that matter) from your iPhone

JotNot Scanner Pro

Why? Because it enables you to take photos of receipts, crop them, convert them to B&W and upload them to DropBox or Email. A paperless office.

IMDB

Why? Movie ratings, movie trailers, actor’s details, all at your fingertips

TED

Why? Because these 5-10 minute videos about Technology, Entertainment, and Design are inspirational and completely free

Kindle

Why? Because Amazon’s Kindle books are cheap and you can read them on your iPhone

Flight Control

Why? What would it be like to be an air traffic controller for a day? This cool game is as close as you’ll get

Zynga Poker

Why? Because you like Texas Hold’em and they give you $100,000 play money to start with

 

 

Evidence That Natural Selection Doesn’t Work: Rabbits Bums

Here in New Zealand we have 2 kinds of rabbits: Domestic pet rabbits (that are often white and fluffy) and wild brown rabbits.

When you see a NZ wild brown rabbit running away from you, you will notice a flash of white with every bound they take.

No, it’s not a camera with a flash strapped to their behinds, it’s because their bum hair is bright white (in sharp contrast to my Uncle Bruce).

Surely this flash would make it easier for natural predators to kill them, such as Hawks and Leopards?

We all know that rabbits “breed like rabbits”, well maybe God made their bums white as a form of population control?

If that’s true, then why haven’t rabbits with white bums been all killed off and the ones with brown bums taken over?

There are 2 possiblities:

  1. Either natural selection is bullocks
  2. Or there are so few predators in NZ that the rabbits have no incentive to change (in fact, we have just 1 species of hawk and they are very small, and we sadly, have no leopards)

What do you reckon?

How Long Will It Take For Gmail To Reach 10GB Of Storage?

Did you notice that last year the rate of increase on the Gmail homepage slowed considerably?

In fact, the current rate increases storage by just 4 bytes per second which is only 345.6 Kb per day. Equivalent to one unoptimised photo from your digital camera.

So how long will it take for online storage to grow from today’s 7.3GB to 10GB?

  • 4 bytes per second growth
  • 7438.721503: Current MB
  • 7438721503: Current bytes
  • 10000: Target MB
  • 10000000000: Target bytes
  • 2561278497: Shortfall in bytes
  • 640319624.3: Seconds to get there
  • 7411.106762: Days
  • 20.30440209: Years

20 more years until Gmail online storage grows to 10GB!

**UPDATE** On the 24th of April 2012 Gmail bumped up storage to 10GB to make things smoother with their new Google Drive which is a cloud storage service that competes with DropBox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

4 Reasons Why The Internet Hasn’t Made TV Redundant Yet (And Never Will)

What will happen

  • The internet will take an ever increasing share of advertising expenditure
  • The quality of TV programming may reduce because of less advertising dollars sponsoring development
  • The audience will continue to fragment between an ever increasing number of channels

But TV won’t become redundant.

Why?

4 Reasons Why The Internet Hasn’t Made TV Redundant Yet (And Never Will)

1. Watching TV Requires Less Equipment

To watch TV you just need 3 things: a TV, a remote control and some potato chips.

To watch videos on the internet you need keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, computer (or a laptop with all this build in), internet connection, desk (or a lap).

2. You Can Sit On The Couch When You Watch TV

That is more comfortable and more social than sitting on an office chair in the spare room.

And TV’s are big.

Who has a TV that is smaller than their computer monitor?

No one,  that’s who.

3. TV Content Is Always Playing

Just change the channel to change the content. One press of a button is all you need.  The channels are running 24 hours a day, you don’t have to click the “Play” button.

For videos on the internet you have the additional hassle of searching for them. Exhausting.

And then you have to click the “Play” button!

And then you have the added hassle of wading through all the garbage before you find something funny. At least on TV another human has deemed the content of interest to most people, with YouTube videos you’ll get all sorts of pointless shit in your face. It feels like your life is draining away.

4. TV Demands Your Attention Right Now Because Of The Schedule

If you don’t watch the TV show now, you’ll miss it. (Yes, yes, I’ve heard of TiVo, but most of the time a show is interesting enough to sit and watch it right now, but not valuable enough to actually bother to record it)

Videos on the internet are there forever, there’s no hurry.

Do you agree? Do you disagree?

Add your comments below, don’t just sit there like a passive vegetable, speak up!

A Mobile Phone For Phone Calls And Text Messages – No Other Features Please!

That’s all my dad wants in a cellphone.

Just 2 functions:

1. Phone Calls

  • Huge “Dial” and “Hang Up” buttons
  • Huge characters on screen so he can see his address book

2. Text Messages

  • A mind reading interface would be good here because the current system with “every key makes 3 letters” nor a QWERTY keyboard are going to help

So when is the cellphone manufacturers going to start taking away features rather than adding more on?