April 4

• From the Heifer International site: Kids can make a difference this summer as they participate in your local Read to Feed library program.
• AOL bought Engadget, but forgot to make sure they’d retain the site’s editorial staff along with it. Oops.
• E One Entertainment is seeking a Toronto-area web designer to revamp its large record label site. Send CV and quote w/examples to ealper@entonegroup.com.
• Wine Expo, a favorite Santa Monica wine shop, will have the Eat Phamish Vietnamese food truck parked outside its Wine Bar this Wednesday, April 6.
• A fantastic story from The Guardian: “I’m a 91-Year Old Body Builder.” Proof that it’s never too late!
• Have mad organizational skills and enjoy working with video? Consumer electronic review and how-to site Tecca wants you.
• Fantastic news for F1 fans as well as fans of gripping documentary: SENNA: The Movie finally comes to the States this summer.
• Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion unveils enhanced hitchhiking ghosts.

April 5

• Funny or Die gives us its version of the talking twins from the viral video. This time they’re all grown up and have turned into Michael Chiklis and Patton Oswalt. Now, if Patton had shaved his noggin it might have been even funnier…
• Gawker cites a Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center study that meditation can be more effective than morphine, even for people with little meditation training. That’s good news for me since morphine wreaked havoc on my tummy the last time I had it.
• The Wall St. Journal looks into why some (lucky) people can function well on relatively little sleep. Sadly I’m not one of them.
• The Huffington Post picked up on ThinkProgress’ report that Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy prevention nonprofit paid her over $250,000 in 2009 – over seven times more in 2009 than it actually dispersed for teen pregnancy prevention programs.

But that doesn’t mean I love everything about it. Here are 5 of my current pet peeves. If you have workarounds for any of them, or know of updates on he horizon that will address them, please let me know in the comments.

1. Limit incoming email messages to first nK. For heaven’s sake, I could do that on my Treo 600 back in the day, but I can’t on my iPhone? For those of us who travel internationally… or just don’t feel like waiting while a large photo or file downloads… it would be nice, and vastly money-saving when roaming internationally, to have that option.
2. It’s too many clicks to get to the #. Why not move the hash mark to the numeric keyboard window? Currently you have to click though from THAT keyboard to get the one with the hash. Hashtags have become such a staple of social media, which many of us access via smartphone… why so many clicks to access the hash?
3. You can’t access a map directly from the Location entry in a calendar item. That’s just silly. If you can do it from address book, why not from calendar?
4. You can’t attach multiple photo album images to an email. Why ever not?
5. You can’t easily delete or move all emails in an inbox. Even though you now have the circles, you still have to click them individually. Why no “select all” option in email to delete, move, etc.?

Those are my top 5. What are yours? Leave them in the comments.

Via Uncrate.

It would also come in handy on international flights when carry-on cabin baggage can be subject to weight limits.

This particular model displays either pounds or kilograms, and uses a strap as opposed to a hook to attach the bag for weighing. That makes it somewhat easier to secure the bag, although it can still be a strain on your back and leg muscles when you’re using it to hoist a 49-pound bag off the floor (trust me on that one) to get a reading.

1. Calendar: Clickable addresses. What’s the point of having locations in a calendar entry if you can’t click through to a map/directions?
2. Email: A “select all” option for deleting/moving email.
3. Email: The ability to move an email from a POP3 inbox to a different folder (e.g. “save for later”). Currently you either have to keep it in the inbox, or delete it.
4. App Store: A “bookmark” or “save for later” option when checking out Apps in the App Store. Sometimes, when I’m interested in an App, I’d like to check it out further before making a decision The only thing you can do now is buy it or email it to yourself.
5. Contacts: Ability to access ICE (In Case of Emergency) contact details if one chooses (as I do) to keep your phone locked. I’ve done a workaround by putting my emergency contact details on my wallpaper, but it doesn’t seem right that you have to choose between one and the other.
6. Printing: Wireless printing (without having to use an add-on App).
7. Photos: An easier way to get photos off the phone and onto your computer. Come on, already.
8. Camera: A front camera for video chat.
9. Storage: An SD slot (although someone’s coming out with an SD reader for iPhone this spring, supposedly).
10. Battery: A removable/replaceable battery. We all know how much power 3G, Bluetooth, etc. drain. Why not give us the option to pop a new battery in, especially when (on planes, at events, or in long meetings) a charger might not be readily available?

I try to stay pretty current on this stuff, but it’s possible that some of my wants already exist for the 3G, and I don’t know it. If so, please enlighten me in the comments!

swissmiss | Tea Sub.

3-D glasses dress by Nicole Lindner – Swell 3D (with thanks to Ben for finding it).

I love watching movies, and once I moved into my college dorm room, I wanted better sound and picture than my laptop provides.  This is what I’ve devised so far: my dorm room bed – aka “The Screening Room.”

This sheet acts as a curtain that helps to keep light out. It’s not a perfect seal of course but it doesn’t need to be. Even with the lights on the video looks good.

This is the crux of the whole project- my projector, and its shelf. Both had their difficulties; finding the right projector, and then having a stable place to put it. I was using a clip-on shelf with a C-clamp, but it was very unstable and the projector was constantly sliding around. A few sketches and a trip to the hardware store later, and I have a proper shelf which is very stable. The shelf is also fairly easy to move if I want to make it higher or lower.

It’s effectively bolted to the bed using plumbers tape. Even with just one of these brackets, the wood was firmly fixed. With four it isn’t going anywhere even if someone hits it.

Here’s a closer look at the projector. My copy of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is keeping it propped up at the right angle. I was going to do something fancier but so far I haven’t felt the need.

Another crucial component- the screen. This is a stretched canvas used for painting which I bought at Michael’s for $17 (it was 50% off). While technically any flat, white surface would have worked, it’s better to use something matt and unreflected. The canvas is also very tough and the wooden frame makes it an easy task to simply hang it from some cord.

Behind the screen, some speakers. That shelf was actually originally from my mini fridge, but I had removed it so that I could fit in my water filter. The shelf is attached to the screen frame and rests on one of the bars of the bed frame.

Having the speakers behind the screen was very important. In movie theaters the center speaker is always behind the screen, and generally it just makes logical sense subconsciously that the sound should be coming from the same source as the visual. The speakers are hooked up to my computer via a cable running under the bed.

Here you can see the relation between the computer and the projector. That cable running along the wall is the VGA video cable. The audio cable running to the speakers runs along the floor, as does the USB cable for the mouse (next photo).

Since I can’t reach my computer from my bed, I need to be able to control it from there. A trackball mouse was the easiest way to go; a traditional mouse would not work, because moving it around the uneven surface of the bed would have been difficult and inaccurate. Of course, I still can’t use the keyboard, so I plan on replacing this mouse with a wireless keyboard that has a trackball mouse in it.

And so here is the projected image. It’s about the equivalent of a 40″ television screen (that’s measured diagonally). All told so far I’ve spent about $400 on the project, with most of it going to the projector and the supplies to build the shelf, and the rest being made up of smaller purchases (cables, adapters, etc). That’s not counting some things I already had, such as the speakers.

I don’t consider the project done- it will be a continual work in progress throughout the year, and probably beyond that when I move to a different room next year and redesign it. The main priority now is making it more user friendly and with added features, such as a wireless keyboard and a switch that will allow you to switch from using the speakers to headphones without having to get up or unplug anything. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out and it’s been a blast working on it.