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Four-Year Old New Yorker Being Sued

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

After riding a bicycle on a New York sidewalk, a 4-year old accidentally ran into an elderly woman.  She fell and broke her hip.  The 87-year old woman died three weeks later as a result of the accident.

Now, a judge has ruled that the family may sue the 4-year old girl.  Bikes Can Work reports on the story,

Kids and adults alike ride their bikes on the sidewalks of New York because there is no other place for them to go. I don’t even want to consider the idea of whether a four-year-old can be found to have been negligent because it’s a detour into the absurd.

Just how rich is this poor little girl is what I want to know.  I’m so sorry for the elderly lady, but this child will now be traumatized for life because of this accident.  How sad.

Pictured is Erin when she was about six years old.

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Wordless Wednesday: On The Set Of "Empire"

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Image:  On Set: The Empire Strikes Back via Vanity Fair

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Financial Adviser Pitfalls

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

Choosing a good financial adviser can be hard work.  You’ll want to get references from your families and friends.  Ask lots of questions, ask about their training and education.

And once you’ve found a good consultant to help you with your finances, you can watch out for warning signs that they’re looking out to pad their own pockets rather than helping you.  From The Sun’s Financial Diary, we have a list of signs that you need to run away from your adviser, including:

If you have your choice, you’d prefer to work with a financial advisor that charges you based on the time spent with you or as a percentage of the assets that they are managing for you versus the commission they can earn on what they sell you.  An advisor who gets paid based on the size of your portfolio has an incentive to grow it which is good for both you and them.  A sales-based advisor can be more concerned with just selling you a high commission product that may or may not be suitable for you.

Read the whole article… good advice!

H/T Brip Blap.

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Music Monday: Happy 25th Anniversary, Mario!

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

I turned 29 years old in August.  The year I was born, the iconic video game character Mario hopped out of Shigeru Miyamoto’s skull and onto the screen at arcades around the world in the iconic video game Donkey Kong.  Four years later, Mario got his own title, Super Mario Brothers, and the character once known as Jumpman became an international sensation.  To celebrate Mario’s 25th, The Guardian has put together 25 fascinating facts about everyone’s favorite plumber.

When I was a youth, I didn’t have a Nintendo Entertainment System for years.  My best friend at the time, the kid across the alley, had a NES and I used to go over there and we’d play Super Mario Brothers for hours.  If you still have an NES or one of the re-released versions (like for the Wii’s virtual console) then I suggest you fire it up.  You’ll find it’s still an awesome game.  Unsurprisingly, it holds up really well to this very day.  There’s no shooting or 3D, but there’s a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of challenge (especially if you don’t cheat and use the warp zone tricks).

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The New Apple TV

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Back when it first debuted, Apple TV was basically just an overpriced home media server.  Sure, it connected straight to your iTunes account and could store iTunes-purchased movies and television via a DVR-type hard disk drive, but aside from connecting directly to your computer for streaming and acting as an AirPort node, it wasn’t anything spectacular.  There are other devices that do similar features, and for the price, you could just buy a traditional media server that’s much more powerful and flexible, even if it’s not as easy-to-use.  However, that’s the old Apple TV; we’re talking about the new Apple TV.

The new product launched as Apple TV earlier this week is basically a Roku-style streaming video box for a brand-new iTunes television and movie RENTAL service.  That’s right, no more actually buying movies or TV episodes; now you’re renting them from Apple (at least via Apple TV).  That seems like a huge step back to me; why would you rent a TV episode for $1 when you can buy the episode for $2, or just watch it for free online via the network’s website, Hulu, Netflix On Demand, Amazon VOD, or any one of a million other streaming video options that Apple’s trying to take on.

Granted, it’s not like Apple TV’s been a big success.  Since it rolled out in 2007, it has only sold about 3 million copies (versus the iPad, which sold 3 million in as many months).  Why not experiment a little and see if you can succeed in an entirely new venture?

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Wordless Wednesday: Ari's iPad

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Via Engadget.

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Jet-Powered School Bus

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

It’s the latest and greatest thing in getting your kids back to school!  With a top speed of 387 miles an hour, you’ll never be late again thanks to Paul Stender’s custom ride, The School Time Jet-Powered School Bus.  If you’re a gear head, this is the car for you.

Stender made this beast out of an old yellow school bus and (the special ingredient), a jet engine re-purposed from an F-4 Phantom.  Not only can this thing fly, it’s also capable of producing a jet flame from the back end, with a fire-blowing radius of 80 feet!  Just the thing to keep tailgaters at bay.  Stender says he came up with the idea for School Time to keep kids of drugs, adding, “jets are hot, drugs are not.”

Of course, there is a downside:  the bus’s jet engine consumes 150 gallons of fuel per quarter-mile.  Odds are that won’t pass the emissions test.  Then again, what cop could catch you?

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Wordless Wednesday: Marvel-ous Pedicure

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Via Neatorama

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10 Fun Facts About Microsoft

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Last week, I showed off 10 fun facts about Apple.  In the interest of equality amongst the OSes, here’s a corresponding list of 10 fun facts about Microsoft, including one of the most adorable things I’ve ever read:  MS’s Redmond, Washington, campus is full of abandoned baby bunnies.  That’s way cuter than the infestation of hipsters on Apple’s campus in Cupertino!

Also among the cool facts about Microsoft is that the company is actually a lot hipper than people let on.  Not only do they ask some incredibly strange questions in their job interviews, the Windows boot-up noise was actually composed by avant-garde musician and generally experimental sound guy Brian Eno, who has worked with everyone from David Bowie to U2 and Coldplay. Like record producers, the company also gives code names to pretty much everything, in an attempt to obscure products before they hit the market (like how movies are shipped to theaters under fake names to prevent bootlegging straight from the 35mm film or how record producers give albums false identities for the same reason).

Another fun fact about Microsoft is that employees celebrate their anniversaries with M&Ms.  No, they don’t get them, they give them!  Specifically, they have to bring in a pound of everyone’s favorite chocolate candy for every year of employment with Microsoft.  Who gets those M&Ms?  Probably the company’s thousands of employees each get one.

Really, how can people hate on a company whose first staff photo looks like the inside of a Doobie Brothers album?

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Fun Friday Videos-Typewriter Music

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Remember the typewriter?  Well, it lives on still.  While it’s not longer weighing down every desk in every office, it’s still a vital component of our nation’s musical heritage.  Musical?  That’s right, Musical.

In 1950, composer Leroy Anderson composed “The Typewriter,” which is a pops piece for orchestra plus one special instrument.  If you said the glockenspiel, you’re wrong.  If you said the typewriter, ding!  Speaking of the ding, let’s listen to the classical piece made famous by pretty much every cartoon character who has ever typed something in a hurry.

That’s the one thing I hate about the modern keyboard.  You get some soft clacking noises, but nothing like the incredible sound and tactile pleasure of clacking away on an old-school typewriter.  If they ever had a keyboard that made typewriter clicks and dings, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

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