CLACKITY CLACK CLACK! Do you miss the old IBM keyboards that gave your fingers a workout? The ones that actually hurt if you dropped them on your toe because they were made of metal? You can still buy those old workhorses from the original manufacturer. Old ones can be sent in for repair at a reasonable $30. And if you want the quality without the accompanying CLACKITY CLACK, they also have “enhanced quiet touch” models. (via Gizmodo & MSNBC article)

With Aaron Sorkin leaving “The West Wing”, no forthcoming Region 1 DVDs of old episodes, Bravo (reruns Q3 2003) sadly missing from our current cable subscription, and all 45 “Sports Night” episodes pretty much memorized, there’s no wonder my mind is pondering what the next Sorkin project will be.

Annie Lennox returns to the solo scene with a new album, titled “Bare,” which will be released in June. Short clips are available on her official website. Owners of her previous solo album, “Medusa,” can hear three selections. The process asks for a bit of personal information and then requests that you place your “Medusa” CD into your computer’s CD drive for verification. Lennox is currently on tour and her show in San Francisco was reviewed very favorably.

Photo Friday
Today I get away from words and go for the visuals. I’ve picked out 13 favorite photos from the past couple years and put them into a gallery. I haven’t yet learned about post-processing digital photos to clean and brighten them up, and I do almost no cropping as I spend a lot of time framing my shots. So these are the raw images, reduced for web consumption. Enjoy the photos.

The way the band and connector on this USB watch fit together is wonderful. Company morale officers take note: “The dial can be imprinted with logos and trademarks.” (via gizmodo)

Food service distributor Sysco, undisputed king of restaurant supply, may have strong competition coming in the years ahead. The NY Times notes that Walmart may expand their subsidiary McLane Foodservice beyond its current fast food customer base. A battle between two companies famous for “unsentimental business tactics” whose survival depends on logistics management could provide much fodder for a business school case study.

Useful and neat! “ShapeTape is a fiber optic based 3D bend and twist sensor, that knows where it is continuously along its length, providing accurate position and orientation information, even when in partial or variable contact with an object or person.” The product fuels creative ideas for new methods of human-driven computer input. When used with a foot pedal, special software helps users create 2-D and 3-D shapes in drawing software. (via nooface)

These look awfully familiar. Old dinosaur books won’t help you converse with the latest crop of dinosaur-obsessed five-year-olds, but they are fascinating archive material. I feel hopelessly out of date when I play with kids now, as I do not know the updated names and behaviors of the Giant Terrible Lizards that used to walk the earth. If they ever change the alphabet or rename the colors, I’ll be truly sunk. (via LarkFarm)

If your PowerPuff Girls fanatic is having a birthday, consider baking him or her a lovely cake in the shape of his or her favorite PowerPuff. Here are instructions and a printable template for Bubbles (she’s the joy and the laughter, y’know).

Hi-tech chain mail? Well, it won’t protect you in medieval combat, but X-Static metal-based fabric will keep you smelling fresh after a long day of jousting. X-Static is composed of a layer of silver bonded to fiber. The fabric eliminates odor-causing bacteria and transfers heat away from the body. You can get X-Static socks, anti-static gloves, t-shirts, and all kinds of sportswear. The fibers are also being used in dressings for wounds. X-Static has used in industrial products for many years.