Pushin’ products, pushin’ products… Starting grad school across the city in the Fall so I am in serious need of a transportation option that doesn’t have anything to do with Septa. Trolling the internets I came across this ridiculous contraption by Derringer Cycles. OH LORD how nice this ride would be! Feeling lazy? Pop on that 180 mpg engine and enjoy the ride. Feeling eco-conscious? Get your lazy ass on those pedals. No more car-share for me! Even with gas at $10 a gallon, this would still be cheaper than the bus… Its like a Vespa for a dude (or a motorcycle for a chick). Ok, ok, unfair sexual stereotypes aside, this thing’s got a little for everyone. But then you start looking online for prices and they are conspicuously absent from any sites. That’s the catch, initial outlay looks like its around 3,500, which is kinda’ an issue (read prohibitively expensive). Oh well. I’ll settle for lusting after that iPod touch.
Update: Oh, and they are only sold in LA. For me, its probably for the better.
Update 2: Interesting video…
Has anyone even tried to pirate Photoshop CS3 for the Mac??? It is damn near impossible. Installing it is a bitch. The serials never work. If you try and update it it realizes your sinful ways and locks up for eternity. Honestly, do yourself a favor and just stick with CS2. By the time you have CS3 in something slightly resembling working order, you have wasted so much time it might have been cheaper just to drop a few bucks on a pared down Photoshop lookalike.
Which brings us to an even better option. Pixelmator is a nice Photoshop replacement for us Mac users who have only a very limited interest in the actual inner workings of graphic design. Lets be honest, for most of us 99% of Photoshop might as well be in German. I downloaded Pixelmator the other day and have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to use… case in point the new header. Not big on pushing products, but this seems like a pretty decent graphic design app for the Mac. Get it here.
Nuttin’ like tellin’ it how it is. Kudos to Piers Fawkes for taking a solid position against the sheer craziness that is C.E.S. I love when people just put their shit on the line and talk truth. So check it out here… It is quoted at length below…
Another year, another electronics and gadgets conference that is out of whack with modern concerns around sustainability and the planet. The C.E.S. is an arrogant refusal to admit to the problems the electronics industry has created in terms of material waste, poisonous polution, energy waste and over-consumption.
Our man on the ground, Scott Burns, tells us that although some brands there might be talking about sustainability or at at least the advancement in technology in allowing devices to perform more with less power, the show itself is anything but green (aside from the mass transit and buses).
Ironically, CES says that it is reducing its own impact on the environment wherever it can - but it doesn’t seem to register that it’s actually contributing to a greater problem than the number of nonrecycled water bottles left over at the end of the show.
The fact is that the CES is another gory broadcast of all the products we don’t really need and that we’ll have to replace very soon. It’s fueled by the blogs like Engadget and magazines like Wired that hype the consumption of this plastic-metal and ignore any modern notions towards sustainability.
Wired sadly continues to talk double standards - their magazines praise 100mpg cars, their retail projects sell 21mpg cars and their coverage of the CES with 50+ posts, Wired fails to review the show with any eco-concern that can often be found in the pages of its magazine.
In the New York Times, this column by Brad Stone is just pointless geek masturbation to get eyeballs to the page - rather than what is needed: an engaging debate about why the hell C.E.S. is allowed to continue as it is without significant criticism of the companies who showcase there.
And as for Engadget… well, it’s always been a geek-porn site feeding the frenzy - maybe it’s time it had a conscience?
At this point, all we can do is pray.
