Now you can resign from your job anywhere you have Internet access (and the necessary chutzpah). Hotpaper.com lets you pick a resignation letter, complete it online, and use their document fax service to send it to your boss. And soon electronic signatures are going to be legal, so you’re all set!

Well, even though the iMac has made translucent electronics all the rage, I still covet them, as I mentioned previously. At (the customer-service wasteland known as) Fry’s, I spotted the Harman/Kardon iSub. Wow. It is a completely clear subwoofer, designed by Apple and engineered by Harman audio engineers. Unfortunately, it only works with iMacs, so I won’t be getting one anytime soon. According to this review, the audio from most personal computers can’t reproduce anything lower than 250 Hz which is middle C on a piano. That’s pretty sad for the multimedia experience we expect from PCs these days.

After picking up, turning over, and poking at the iSub, I headed to the checkout line and spotted a see-through mini Swiss Army knife at the “impulse buy” display. It was translucent blue, and I suspected that Victorinox had other colors, but didn’t see any. So, I did the usual web research and found that they are offering three translucent colors: sapphire, ruby, and emerald. Also, their CyberTool comes in translucent red.

To wrap up (for now) my DSL saga, Covad called last week to do a customer satisfaction survey. They were calling customers who had decided to cancel their DSL service in order to find out how to better fulfill their needs in the future. I was very nice to the guy who called, after all, he was just the survey taker. First I had to explain to him that it wasn’t that I wanted to cancel my service, but that ADSL was impossible with the line Covad had to work with. The piece of information I hope I got through was that Covad is better off speaking directly with the technically savvy customers they are servicing instead of going through the ISP’s reps, because those extra layers caused me a lot of frustration. Since he specifically asked me if I would have preferred to speak directly to Covad, I hope that they are indeed considering that as an option.

I found my razor on the Star Wars Replica Props site. Now when I shower, I can pretend I’m talking to Obi-Wan on his similar looking one. Or maybe I’ll only be able to contact the woman in the next condo unit. (“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’m all out of soap!”) (via CamWorld)

While waiting for a table at a Lyon’s, we pondered the delivery mechanism for Muzak. I had this faded memory that the music was delivered over telephone lines, and also remembered seeing a switch on a restaurant wall that basically said “Muzak, On/Off”. Telephone lines seemed like a low quality delivery mechanism, but it turns out I didn’t make it up. According to the history on their website, Muzak originally used a cutting edge technology known as phonograph-through-telephone lines. Yup. They evolved to other delivery mechanisms such as tapes and satellite transmissions. Nowadays they also provide a myriad of services such as producing specially branded CDs for companies (that explains the proliferation of CDs branded with Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, etc. that you see while shopping), customizing the music for companies’ on-hold and in-store experience, and designing the sound systems for their clients.

Happy One-Year Anniversary to Medley! (I wonder if I’ll make it that far.)

The casual business wear backlash may be upon us. The article hints that a “Dress-Up Thursday” is being considered in some East Coast firms. I remember my dad going off to work every morning with a tie, no jacket. And when he was traveling on business, he would go off to the airport with a big flowing trench coat on. He had half a dozen slender ties from way back when they were in style, and I borrowed them to look trendy when they came back in style for new wavers in the eighties.

I’m yakking about movies today. IMDB lists The Prisoner scheduled for 2001 release. Patrick McGoohan, the original Prisoner himself, is listed as executive producer, but it is yet to be seen how influential his role will be. Staying true to the spirit of the TV series is a tall order. Surreal is an understatement when describing the show, and I’m not sure the mass movie audiences take well to surreal. With Barry Mendel (Sixth Sense) producing, it has a good chance of keeping the dark flavor. I will hope for the best. After all, nothing could be worse then when they changed the ending to The Scarlet Letter.

Titan A.E. wasn’t bad. There is some beautiful scenic animation, which unfortunately makes the characters look a little flat. The dialog had a familiar ring at times, so I should not have been surprised to see (Mr. Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Joss Whedon’s name scroll by as one of the screenwriters. He’s also on the credits for X-Men, so he’s been a busy guy. They showed a trailer for “C:R-1”. That’s the Mission: Impossible themed Chicken Run trailer (and it was tons funnier than MI:2).

Thanks to BrainLog for discovering the wonderful Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It’s still in progress (and will be a living, changing resource), but entries for cogsci and behaviorism are there.
It includes instructions for citation which made me realize that I never had to worry about citing web sites in my days of writing papers.