A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

Seriously, who would not want a Lava heater? I am ready to order one today.

Contrast with the “Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch”, Samsung’s latest phone. How stupid a name is this? Do they seriously think this will have lasting impact in the market? What will they call an upgraded version some day? Will they increment the S or the II or the Epic or the 4G or will they just abandon this?

I’m no product naming expert, I used to excuse myself from all naming discussions while at Microsoft since it always felt like a discussion of how many angels on the head of a pin. Ultimately good products can overcome bad names, and bad products aren’t helped by clever names. But I admire cleanliness and simplicity in names, and the Lava name is simple, evocative, and to the point. The Samsung name is ridiculous.

UPDATE: a smart guy informs me that the Samsung name of the phone is the Galaxy S II. A little long but not egregious. It is Sprint that has slapped on the “Epic 4G Touch” modifier and Sprint deserves the blame. Pro tip: if you include “epic” in the name, pretty much guarantees the offering is not epic.

I don’t need or want any of this stuff actually but am drawn to all of it…

• Car map light. Ok who looks at maps anymore, but this is nicely designed!
• Multimeter Clock. Love the reuse of old tech here. Wish I had the skill/vision to create things like this.
• Carol Kipling Plates. Love the platter but $2800 is steep…
• 14 wheel skateboard so I can suck at skateboarding 3.5 times as much.
• Tourbillon vase — awesome organic-looking glass.
• Urban Balance Wave Hammock — can this possibly be stable? But cool.
• Designer Scrabble I love board games and I love nicely crafted items. I have a great cribbage board, would love to buy great boards for other games — Catan, TIcket to Ride, etc.
• LaserPegs. Lasers make everything better, including construction blocks.
• Freesia Book Stands — these look awesome, seems like a great item to have.
• Chemically Accurate Crayons. OK these are just labels you stick on crayons you buy, so kind of dorky, but I love the idea. “Could you please pass me the Yttrium Oxide crayon”?

Just one item here, a classic: Sweet spreadsheet grill eliminates BBQ turf disputes — I know a lot of people who would probably like this

• Poken: Tiny RFID thingies that share all your personal data with others. Nice idea but looks like something an 8-year-old would carry.
• Jean Marc Gady vases.
• Timberkits. Look like fun
• Cleo wall mirror with photos. I could actually see buying this.

• Imm Living. Love these totem coffee cups.
• And this woodgrain pillow tho the color choices don’t work for us anywhere
• Brilliant little painting tool
• Corner clamp — looks positively frightening when not in use, like some medieval dentistry tool

Feld Thoughts – Where Did I Put That Manual? — fairly useful. I’m always looking for the manual for that 4 year old device.

• No-staple stapler is better for the environment (and looks cool) — I hate freaking staples. This looks useful and cheap
• B&W Zeppelin iPod speaker system. I would probably never actually buy this but it looks wicked.
• Powerkayak. Take a nice ecofriendly sport like kayaking, and jam some gas-consuming horsepower onto it! Wonderful!
• Tancher wrist beacon. I think this is just a concept but looks cool and is lifesaving
• Credit Card multitool. This would be super useful. TSA approved?
• Another HD hard disk videocam. Decent reviews.
• Digium asterisk appliance. Now if it would just use my cell service as the outbound line…
• A bunch of awesome watches all with a black theme.
• Emergency food supply
• Edge Brownie Pan. OK I actually got one of these. It works great — the fins really help with heat distribution.

• Bell & Ross BR 01 Phantom — beautiful sparse design. Not sure I could ever justify 4-5K for such sparseness tho.
• The Teslaphonic Organ — I pretty much love anything involving a Tesla coil.
• Burning Rocks. They just look cool.
• Ultralight Pack. If/when I ever get serious about hiking I will have to go ultralight
• Electronic guitar tuner. Not sure that adding a bunch of electronics and a battery to the process really helps in guitar tuning…

• French Ranges – Lacanche Stoves — beautiful ranges
• Pioneer music tap — in the sonos, slimdevice space
• d3o shock responding polymer — absolutely no need for this but it is cool
• Van Hoy Snap Lock Knife — cool opening mechanism
• Casio Youtube Camera
• Belkin Vision Router — i hate most of the belkin gear i get but this is a nice innovation on your standard ugly router box
• Remote Control Jousting Knights.

• Cementex Tool Kits.pdf (application/pdf Object) — very nice, pretty expensive
• Looks like a jetski/golfcart combo – the golf cruiser — would Tiger ride one of these?
• I would have loved this rug as a kid — if they added a Nascar logo it would sell a billion
• Motion/temp/light sensor — not sure what I need it for but might be useful at halloween

• Have to lead today’s list with the iphone. My lizard brain wants one. The rest of me has no idea why. I’m going to attempt to hold off until V2.
• Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Magnogrip Magnetic Wrist Band — wow this actually seems super useful.
• Nike floor hockey cleaning concept
• PuchiPuchi bubble wrap toy. Can you imagine having one of these on an airplane?
• Rich and Bob’s advice for lens cleaning tools.
• Phoneflasher. Not sure I can pull this off.
• Magnatag whiteboards. These appeal deeply to me tho I have no specific need. Maybe I can use one to manage my halloween efforts?

• The Kwikset Smartscan. Ok I am not sure I really want this. What I’d really like is a lock that could be programmed to respond to my car’s fob. I have to carry the car thing around anyway, why can’t it open my house too? I don’t want my thumb to be the identifying device, I don’t want to encourage anyone to chop off my thumb.
• Crystal Weather Station. Looks cool. Why not available in US?
• Another doohickey to let you use your dremel — this time as a plunge router
• A Drobo storage robot. Sounds way cooler than “hard drive enclosure”
• Ceramic Jellyfish — awesome looking

• The Big Picture | Cognitive Biases: A Short List — great list of the ways we screw up decisions
• marca’s view on the best scifi of the decade
• Larry’s recommended security blogs
• EDSBS’s top 5 legends of football parenting, or, how to give your child a lifetime of therapy.
• super slim wallet designs
• 10 reasons I need to upgrade to MT4

• Unclutterer: Under stairs storage: brilliant — simple but brilliant
• Scuttling spider robot — who wouldn’t want one of these? freaking awesome. the scourge of pets everywhere.
• Hydrodynamic building set — it was a sad day when they took real chemistry sets away from the kids but this looks pretty awesome.
• Capacitive touch everywhere — sure microsoft can give you a table that is a computer, but with this technology you can turn every surface in your house into an active surface.
• The perfect charging station?
• brad likes his reader. OK i actually have one of these. actually broke my first one, it is off getting refurbed now.

• From Toolmonger, a magnetic alternative to pegboard. Pretty awesome.
• USB Fairy Lights — so happy!
• Steam powered RC Vehicles
• Wind Turbines — when I was a kid we had a wind power generator at our cabin, mounted on the roof — the whole cabin rocked on a windy night
• Animated power consumption monitor — why shouldn’t thermostats be fun like this?
• Swing analyzing watch — all that separates me from Tiger.
• Yet another awesome watch
• Damascus pocket knife — I love Damascus steel

• Grizzly Drill-Powered Hobby Lathe — another clever way to reuse a power drill. Not sure how large a part you could really fabricate on this but still. Oh and here is a hand’s-on review
• Alpine’s latest car deck — i love the crazy looks of high end car decks tho I have never purchased one…
• The LED Jellyfish Aquarium
• Universal Key Fob — just a concept but man do I want this
• TEAC Bone Conduction phones — because they look cool
• Generally I find USB hubs to be disasters but this one is awesome looking

• Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Mark On Wet And Oily Surfaces With Stanley’s New Marker — ok this might actually be useful at halloween time when I am working outdoors a lot. I wonder how it works on slimy mossy surfaces.
• Laser-guided scissors. Lasers AND sharp blades, awesome.
• Noise cancelling windows. So like, if you try to have a conversation in a room with these, does the sound just disappear?
• Programmable hose timer. Another thing I could actually use at Halloween to control flow of water to my fog system.
• leatherman for the garden. Because I am such a horticulturist.
• Quick prototyping material — seems like another useful Halloween product. Not cheap though.
• Ruggedized flash drive. Flash drives are moving from the utility to the fashion accessory category.
• Mobile basketball hoop. I am sure there is a whole post to write about “what to do with your trailer hitch that you never use”
• Brushed aluminum keyboard. Awesome
• Umbrellas for windy weather.
• Programmable hair. Strange.

• Cymat: Home — metallic foams. Because they just look cool. The resin coated version would be a cool desktop.
• Intensity vacuum. The folding-up-ness is nice.
• Kraft paper sofas. Because no one else will have one. Oh and their felt rocks look cool.
• Floating Jellyfish pool lights
• Highgear adventureplus — all the cool campers will snicker at you
• A finger skateboard game. just strange.
• Wallet optimized for cards. Why more of these don’t exist puzzles me.
• Non contact infrared thermometer. Seems like a totally useless gadget to me. Will go in the drawer with my stud finders.
• Rich on HD camcorders. OK I really need one of these. Really.
• Clamp multimeter. nothing unique here, I just like these.

• Clear airport pass — OK actually I would be stupid not to get this.
• A $209 hammer. I drive like 3 nails a year so clearly I need this
• USB chess game. I have no patience for chess but clearly this would improve my game dramatically
• The Cabestan watch. Gorgeous.
• 1/9 scale V-8.
• Obelisk chairs. I think the rest of the family would barf but these are awesome
• Skycaddie GPS golf accessory. It is very important to my game that I know the exact position of my ball and the pin to the meter. I am pretty sure that my lack of this knowledge is why I have a 36+ handicap.
• Marble machine. Anything like pachinko is cool.
• A watch with built in slot machine. Where does it store all the coins?
• Pipe lamp. Steam engine chic.

• Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Dremel’s Workstation: A Micro Drill Press For $40 — this actually seems like a pretty cool way to get more out of a dremel
• Active Crystals — you can never have enough Swarovski.
• Load-thing — cool looking but is this really a problem?
• Another USB turntable and high torque so you can really drag the needle thru the vinyl
• Belkin grommet shaped usb hubs — this actually seems somewhat brilliant.
• Diamond-tipped screwdriver bits
• Bosch miter saw — this thing seems to have infinite degrees of freedom
• and a howto for making your own plastic vacuum former