FIREBALL SUICIDE SHOES

They're gasoline-powered inline skates! Via McClatchy's China Rises newsblog, which says:

The skates have a 25cc engine and a small fuel tank behind the right heel, and are controlled by a handheld throttle. But there is no brake! The only way of stopping is a waist-level shut-off button that kills the motor. Skaters likely then go sprawling.

Imagine what happens in a crash: The plastic fuel tank catches fire and the skater quickly gets crispy.

What's Cantonese for "ACME"?

Things that are apparently hard

1. Keeping an accurate "new voicemail" flag on a mobile phone. (See Note 1)
   
   
2. Sending a text message from a phone. (See Note 2)
   
   
3. Monitoring the temperature at a data center and keeping the A/C running. (See Note 3)
   
   
4. Receive and file paperwork, first entering it on a computer database. (See Note 4)
   
   
5. Render a web page. (See Note 5)

Note #1: This has been true since the first mobile phone I used. Voicemail flags stick for days, or never appear. The flag will pop up two days after a message is left. Sometimes the victim must reset the new voicemail flag by leaving voicemail for him or herself and then deleting it. How can this be?

Note #2: As long as I've been using SMS, it has failed to send about half the time. The signal bar will show full strength! yay! Then, when an SMS is sent, the phone will tell me that the message in fact cannot be sent. A few minutes later, caught in a lie, the phone admits to having no signal at all and starts trying to find one.

Note #3: Thermometers are cheap. So are loud bells. Summer happens every year! So why is it always the customer who discovers it's 80 degrees Fahrenheit inside? Isn't this job #3 after "not on fire" and "power on"?

Note #4: You're an insurance company. What is it you do there, exactly?

Note #5: When the page causes a browser to look up DNS for five or six ad services, and won't render the page until this is done, DNS then blocks and the viewer either never sees the page at all or gives up in disgust after a minute or two. I can't see how this benefits the advertiser or the website owner or anyone, really. Why even use hostnames? Why a duck? Why not a chicken?

SPOTNICKS!

Nick, this is for you. Sorry yeah, two videos in a day. I couldn't resist. Thanks to Tom Fuhrmann for this gem.

One word beer review

New Belgium Brewing Company "Mothership Wit": YES!