Steve Mays @smays@mastodon.technology

I bought a box of little figurines that were manufactured in China. A little squirt of plastic into a mold (I assume). But did someone the have to hand paint these? How long could one do that before going insane?

Does the following from Neal Stephenson'sl, Cryptonomicon (1999) sound familiar?

"Before you leave home [...] you buy or rent a little gizmo from us. It's about the size of a paperback book and encases a thimble-sized video camera, a tiny screen, and a lot of memory chips. [...] Whenever you feel like communicating with the folks at home, you turn it on, aim the camera at yourself, and record a little video greeting card. [...] You plug the gizmo into a phone line and let it work its magic."

iPad in 2010

Sorry, that should have read bird "bath" instead of "feeder"

Riley not sure about the Golden Retriever bird feeder.

“A new study ranked four Missouri cities in the top 100 U.S. cities for cases of sexually transmitted diseases. The study conducted by Innerbody.com, used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Census. The four Missouri cities are Columbia, Springfield, St. Louis and Kansas City.”

Of all the things we might train a child to be...

"Smartphone users in the US can try to help catch sex traffickers with *a app designed to identify hotel rooms where victims are held*. TraffickCam, asks users to upload photos of hotel rooms where they may be staying and compares those to photos by law enforcement that depict suspected sex trafficking. […] TraffickCam uses an algorithm that matches hotel rooms by comparing features such as carpeting, furniture and accessories." (Reuters)

App no longer exists. Cool idea.

Next to a sleeping Golden Retriever, I can think of nothing more relaxing than a good fire.

Okay, a hour-long, full-body, hot oil massage.

@natecull

And this from 2004:

“…the Internet has become our entire business environment, not just another medium for distribution … the franchise is not the newspaper, the broadcast station, or even the website. The franchise is the content itself. … Get ready for everything to be Googled, deep-linked, or Tivo-ized.”

— Tom Curley, President and CEO, The Associated Press, in keynote address to Online News Association Conference, Nov. 12, 2004

I assume this is a real job. When the wide receivers and running backs all race to the end zone for the obligatory dance/pose-off, that had to have been rehearsed.

How I'd love to be there when they gather at one of the mansions to rehearse.

One minute video of a snowy creek in mid-Missouri.

https://www.smays.com/2020/01/snowy-creek/

Low-light video with iPhone 11
Fire was only light in the room.

Playing with iPhone 11 camera (low light feature)

Two old dogs and a pup

The Kansas Audio-Reader Network is “a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired, and print disabled individuals in Kansas and western Missouri.”

https://www.smays.com/2008/06/radio-for-the-blind-and-print-disabled/

I’m not a pro football fan but I love seeing fresh examples of obscene wealth. Apparently the Cleveland Browns fired their head coach but have to keep paying him. And they’ve been in this situation before. Many befores.

“Crain’s estimated that the Browns owed more than $55 million in dead salary to fired coaches from 1999 through 2012.”

https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/cleveland-browns-head-coach-firings-cost.amp