Year: 2005

Staples’ One-Touch Stapler with Staple Gun Power

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

This is why I love Teh Interweb. Ask MetaFilter — the site where you can ask just about anything and community members will chime in with advice and suggestions — has an entire thread on staplers. R0x0rs.

There're several mentioned, but the one that intrigued me most was the One-Touch Stapler from Staples with Staple Gun Power (!). As jjj606 put it:

Staples’ stapler reinvented the whole idea. You use the same force to go through 2 sheets of paper, or 20 sheets. It can stand on the nose end, too.

The next time that I have a need to staple anything, I’m totally getting one of those. Or maybe I should pick one up just in case :).

Winding Road — Free Car Magazine

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I’ve recently discovered Winding Road which, as you might guess, is a car magazine. Among other cars, they’ve recently reviewed the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, the Lexus IS350 and Nissan’s 350Z. The interesting part is that subscriptions are free.

Granted, it’s published digitally (as PDFs), but it has the layout and features of a regular magazine. Apparently, they’re doing this to form a readership so that they can attract advertisers more easily. Rest assured, that’s just print advertisers — they pledge not to give away your e-mail address. In any case, I’ve just signed up for a subscription (why not?).

Pics of a Crushed Landing Gear

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Remember the Jet Blue flight which had a twisted landing gear and had to make an emergency landing in LA? Well, apparently someone has posted photos from a similar accident which happened in 1992 photos of the damaged landing gear.

The extent of the damage is fascinating in a way — about half the wheel was filed away in the process of landing. That aside, it’s almost worth viewing for the snarky comments alone (”It’ll buff out.”, “Nothing a bit of duct tape won't fix.”, and others).

Update 2005-10-06: Apparently, the pics aren’t from the recent Jet Blue emergency landing but from one is 1992. Wording updated.

Clowns Ease Anxiety in Patients

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

Reuters is reporting on a study which concludes that clowns ease anxiety in young patients:

A clown in the operating room may relax anxious children who are about to undergo surgery, but the entertainer has to learn to keep out of the way, Italian researchers said on Monday. […]

I mean, sure, I can understand that clowns would need to stay out of the way, but I can only imagine the extent to which the study covered that issue if the reporter thought it relevant enough to mention it in the opening paragraph.

“You damn clowns!” exclaimed Dr Frederick Petronko as he shoved Honkers out of the way. […]

Well, all right, that’s not actually a real quote. But that’s what I was hoping I’d come across as I read through the article.