Frankie's back from Russia

Click here to listen to the official audio show

Mark, Wes, and guest Frankie at the Swad restaurant in Lafayette, CA

Sites of Interest:

• The little-known Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve.
  
  
• Most Bay Area cellphone carriers now work in the BART Transbay tube. That article shows problems at first, but the service seems to be good now.
  
  
• Comparison of prepaid cell phone plans, including unlimited plans that compete with Metro PCS.
  
  
• If you aren't familiar with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's personality, please watch this video first so you will understand the context, then watch this Video of a guy who says Steve Ballmer personally fired him because he wasn't enthusiastic enough about the word "Bing!"
  
  
• Mark's puppy is a Bichon Frise.
  
  
• Nettop computers are miniature desktop machines that use basically notebook components so they are very small and use little electric power. Mark got an Acer Aspire Revo 1600 for $200 and is happy with it for the price.
  
  
• Taffic and runway lights with incandescent bulbs are being replaced with LED lights because they last far longer and use less electricity, however because they run so much cooler, they create a hazard in the winter.
  
  
• World Climate Report, a blog skeptical about global warming.
  
  
• If you are truly concerned about global warming, the best thing you can do personally to save the planet, is to eat your pets
  
  
• Here are the pictures Wes took of his trip to Thailand.
  
  
• San Francisco mayor backs mandatory cell phone radiation labels.
  
  
• Inform 7 is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language.
  
  
• USB Hourglass random number generator and random number generators based on radiation.
  
  
• Twitter co-founder starts a new company, Square, that lets individuals and small businesses accept credit cards for payment using a tiny cube accessory that plugs into the audio jack of iPhones and other cell phones. See a video here.
  
  
• Mark sees a similarity between Square and the beginnings of PayPal, which started as a way to beam money from one Palm Pilot owner to another.
  
  
• Google goggles is an Android app that lets you take a photo of a product or building and lookup information about it by matching your photo to others of the same object that Google knows about. Google says Goggles will eventually be implemented on the iPhone.
  
  
• Wes saw the Rama IX Bridge in Bangkok, which was dedicated to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on his 60th birthday.
  
  
• The latest rumors about an Apple Tablet device.
  
  
• Reference manuals for the Apple Newton including a scripting language for end-users
  
  
• Be sure to buy an iPhone, not a Blackberry or Android device so you can run fine applications like these: iboobOrButt, Bing, Pull Santa's Finger, iLust, Stool Scanner (Fingerprint Test), ISOCK-the talking sock!, Assassin FPS, and Pie Fight.
  

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

• RacerCoaster -- race a powerful racing buggy over roller-coaster-like race tracks?