More Google Wave Invites

Guava goodness
I’ve run through the winners from the last round of Wave invites and was pleased to note that I received a slew of new ones in my Inbox this morning. I’ve sent out the invites for folks who were left over from that round, so we can consider that particular contest closed. (The answer was “Amish Paradise”.)
So, let’s try this again.
I’ve got 20, count ’em, 20 Google Wave invites for folks who follow @zamoose over on Twitter and can answer the following question:
What is the name of the lucky, lucky, lucky little boy that gets to drink from the firehose and what did he find in the oatmeal?

Google Wave Invites

Guave Eeenvites
I just recently wrangled my way onto Google Wave and, well, there’s not a whole lot of folks to talk with as of yet, since invites are so scarce. However, I’ve a total of four Wave invites sitting in my Inbox, waiting for disbursal.
So, the first four people that either follow me on Twitter (@zamoose) and/or are able to guess what Weird Al song I’m thinking of right now get an invite.
Caveats:

  1. Once you’ve followed, leave a comment on this post so that I can send your invite to the appropriate email address.
  2. It’ll be a subjective thing, but if it seems like you’re a spammer or a very new account on Twitter, I’ll give you a pass on the invite.

Sunday Schnitzels Cripples

Regular readers will no doubt recall my previous encounters with Google Voice’s automated message taking. It seems as though my experience is not unique, as the New York Times Personal Tech section’s columnist published his Voice number and asked readers to give the message transcription feature a run for its money. The results, well, are downright hilarious. E.g.:

we hope you straight to be self evident that all manner created equal apparent out by their creator with certain valuable right the money for like 430 in the pursuit of happiness this is securities rights concert instituted mobile among the and driving their just powers from the content of the covered that whatever any former governor because destructive of the and it is the right people to offer to abolish it thank you and see if you got on the 28th sunday schnitzels cripples organizing powers and such 4 at today i’m sheltie most likely to check to see if you have any

+10 EXP and a bonus to strike for anyone that can name the founding document that comes from. *grin*

Internet Future-/Navel-Gazing

A quick thought (and corresponding question) occurred to me: Bill Clinton was the first President to face opponents on the Internet, George W. Bush the first to face organized opposition, and Barack Obama the first to capably utilize that opposition to get elected. What “first” will the next President likely face?

From The Dep’t Of Unintentional Hilarity, Google Voice Edition

I’ve been a Grand Central member since they were doing private betas and never had a whole lot of use for the service, but since Google activated Google Voice, I’ve been giving the whole shebang a thorough going-over.
The feature set is definitely reduced from the GC days, but one nifty addition is voicemail transcription. Some folks have worried over the privacy implications of allowing Google to effectively “read” your voice mail but I’m not worried. As I said, I’m using this nifty feature right now. I say “nifty”, not so much because it actually works, but because it doesn’t work and, as the title of the post suggests, results in unintentional hilarity.
To wit:
Heh.
[Names/phone numbers redacted where necessary.]
Thanks to Google Voice transcription, my wife now callsfriends now call me “hey dark dark”, I don’t work store, jeff just called and said “that dude five four oh hey pete” and I’m liken some gypsum board, I tell you whut.
(The feature stays on, as I haven’t laughed this hard in ages.)

Tweet Fulfillment

There are days that I’m amazed by the Internet, and then there are days that it lives downup to my expectations. Take, for instance, a recent Tweet of mine in which I pondered

I was quickly answered by Stephane, who pointed out the wonderfully-implemented and -documented iPod Shuffle RAID0 array.
A few days thereafter, Slashdot posted a story detailing a semi-automatic 3.5″ floppy disk “gun”, a story whose comments section revealed a wonderful link to a gentleman who decided to create a RAID constructed entirely out of 3.5″ floppy drives.
While all that’s awesome, it’s still incomplete. Here’s where you come in, Internet. I want RAID arrays constructed out of

  1. Commodore tape decks
  2. Jazz/Zip Drives
  3. reel-to-reel drives
  4. 5.25″ floppy drives
  5. floor-standing “washer”-style hard drives
  6. ENIAC-style tubes

No bonus points will be awarded to those suggesting punch card RAID arrays for reasons I’ve made clear elsewhere. Now snap to it!