Saturday, July 12, 2008

Video: Motorcycle Texting

This sounds like it is from India or Pakistan. A guy is laying down on his motorbike, on the highway, texting.


Guy Lays Down To Text On Motorcycle - Watch more free videos

Video: How Not To Drive Thru

This guy's camper is too tall, and he knocks the roof of the bank drive through down with it. I hope he wasn't hurt, it looks like the roof sheared the side of his door as it came down.


How Not To Use The Drive Through ATM - Watch more free videos

Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Hijab And The Muffin Top

Today I took my family to the Detroit Zoo. At the excellent kids playground (near the Penguinarium), I saw a sight common to Metro Detroit: a young Muslim family. The mom was wearing a hijab dress, which covered her hair, arms, and legs, but kept her face open, similar to the photo below. Muslim Mom had a playful side to her otherwise very conservative outfit, she had fancy checkerboard shoes.

Exhibit A: Example of Hijab
From FLICKR

If you pause to think about it, there is some wisdom to this style of dress, even if it is very alien and threatening to us Americans. By being so explicitly modest, the Muslim woman forces you to look at her face--you can't talk to her chest, or any other physical part of her. In other words, you are forced to consider her as an individual, not as a sexual object. I don't think this is the case, by they way, with the more restrictive forms of muslim garb, like the burqa, which by hiding the face of the woman seems to me to nearly dehumanize her.

The Muslim woman, in her modest dress, really stood out because she was surrounded by average blue collar Americans, on a sunny 80 degree day. That means women in flip flops, tight shorts, tank tops, many of which were too large to pull off such revealing clothing gracefully. Not to mention all sorts of tattoos, muffin tops, whale tails, butt cleavage, and so on. What does the sloppy, revealing clothing say about the women who wear it? Doesn't it say, "I don't care what I look like as long as I am comfortable", or maybe "go ahead and look, this is my best asset"?

And what about the competition this sets up? The thin, pretty women in revealing clothes will be compared, by men and by women, to the not-so-thin and not-so-pretty women. But the modest women are competing on a higher playing field, they have to be judged more by what they say and do, not by their physical shape.

Exhibit B: (mild examples)
From FLICKR

Given the choice between seeing hijab and décolletage at the Zoo, I would pick hijab. And I'm not a Muslim!*

Update: I am not saying that women should be required by law to adhere to some dress code, as some of the commenters seem to assume. I am saying people should be more thoughtful about what their mode of dress portrays.

*In fact, the rulers of Iran would like to "purge" some of my "Zionist" relatives.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Video: Brutal Accident Caught On Traffic Camera

This is painful to watch. An SUV runs a red light and side impacts a pickup truck. I would expect that some people were seriously injured or killed in this accident.


Jeep Ignores Red Light - Watch more free videos

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Video: Dangerous Business

Motorcycle racing is a dangerous business, just watch this short video.


Biker Barely Misses Wrecked Biker - Watch more free videos

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Roku Soundbridge Rocks

I recently got a Roku Soundbridge. This is a wireless MP3 player with a large, easy to read text display that plugs into your audio/home theater system. It is a very well executed gadget, worked right right out of the box. It is one of the best gadgets I have ever owned, and has nicely replaced my CD changer.


The way the system works is that you run a streaming server on your Windows, MacOS, or Linux PC which indexes your MP3 collection and streams it on demand to the SoundBridge. iTunes and Windows Media Player already have the capability, or you can install a third party free server. The Soundbridge has a simple remote and an easy to navigate menu system, which you use to browse or search for music. It has a built in display, so you don't have to use your TV to see what you are doing, unlike some competor products. It talks wi-fi, so you don't have to run an ethernet cable to it.

The other really cool thing about the SoundBridge is that it can receive internet radio stations, without going through your computer. I use it to lisen to my local AM radio stations in static free digital glory.

I'm not shilling for Roku, just a satisfied customer.

Segways Of Doom

Buy a Segway. Paint it black. Now it's a S.W.A.T. Tactical Segway! (From Telegraph.uk web site, Chinese SWAT team training... on Segways?)

I'm not sure a real SWAT sniper would be shooting from a Segway...