By calling it the CKE, for short, they’ve probably scared away a lot of people. That is until you give it a shot.

For example, as a paramedic, you visit a 30 year old fella who says he weighs 110kg and is 5’8″. That looks overweight, but with the Wolfram CKE you can see how bad this really is. Just type into the box: 30yr male 5’8″ 110kg and hit enter. Soon you’ll be informed that:

Captain Tubby’s specs are:

• BMI of 36.9 = obese.
• His ideal weight is 68.5kg (he’s 41.5kg too heavy).
• He’s got 6.1 litres of whole blood pumping around.
• His lung capacity is 3.9L.

Click the more button and you’ll get:

• His basal metabolic rate – 2138 calories/day.
• Other stuff.

How amazing is that? Type in your own details and be prepared to be scared.

Need help with that crossword on a cold lonely night shift? Type in _a_a_edic and voila out pops “paramedic”.

Need to know how much that apple and carrot just cost you in calories and how much protein you just gobbled up? Type in 1 apple + 1 carrot and you’ll see that you just had 104 calories and 761mg of protein. I wonder how much that cheeseburger just cost me? 550 calories apparently.

Type in drug names, places, formulas, electrical calculations, words, peoples names, blah, blah, blah. You will learn something new.

The best thing for paramedics? Next time you have someone in the back of your truck you’ll have some new tidbit to chat about. No more painful silences and pretending to do paperwork. Bonus.

Anyway, I’m just scraping the sides of what this thing can do. And by the sounds of things Wolfram Alpha is just getting started as well.

Wolfram Alpha. The new google or just a plaything. Could be both. I reckon there may just be a synergy that could work out nicely.

Enjoy. Let us know what you can find.

Little snippets of nothing that apparently mean something. Sounds like a Milky Way Ad.

My problem, I think aside from my other idiot-syncrasies, is that Twitter is little more than the status updates from Facebook but just with a little added Ashton and Oprah.

Isn’t it?

Maybe I’m narrow minded. But according to this article, 60% of people who try Twitter stop trying the next month. Forever.

That’s crap. Facebook is at least lots of percents more.

Anyhoo. Sorry for the delay in the posts. Except from my Tweets on the right hand side. Pass the Duchy, Twitter does have a use. Micro-updates to blogs.

What a hypocrite.

Let’s hope this isn’t one of them:

Anyhoo, I’m sure this never happens in Australia.

And just in case your looking for the link to Paramedical life – one word – GASTRO!

Having a heart attack? Just walk it off! Well no, not really.

This is a story about an Italian Dr who has a heart attack while operating on some blokes brain. And he doesn’t stop. And they both live!

Sorry about ruining the ending. Just pop over to the link and have a read.

I just can’t understand the concept of Twitter. Way too random.

“I’m loving this toilet seat”

“His bum looks big in those jeans”

“Bob is feeling furry today”

Too scary and who’s really there to listen?

Facebook on the other hand…

But now I’m a little suspicious.

A recent post on Tech Crunch asked the question, “Did Last.fm hand over listening data” to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). More specifically information about the playing of the new U2 album before it’s been released.

In a nutshell, the RIAA could track down people, by using Last.fm data, who have played the U2 album after “stealing” it via bittorrent.

That’s fair enough except for the fact that U2′s record companies’ Australian branch accidentally released it early for purchase online.

RIAA and Last.fm have since emerged to deny all of these allegations. But the damage is done.

Trust takes a long time to build in this internet game. I think in this case the mud may have stuck a little.

I’ll be turning off the scrobling software running on my pc (software that logs tracks you’ve listened to and uploads the information to Last.fm).

It was a great service while it lasted. But until I receive assurances (not just quotes in forums) from Last.fm they’ll not be getting my information. Broad usage data is fine. They can make all the money in the world from it as far as I’m concerned, but just don’t give unique data to outside companies.

Privacy is king.

It’s still a great site though.

Digital doesn’t have the mystique. Don’t get me wrong. I love my digital EOS. But I really loved my old one.

I have fond memories of my Dad breaking out his pristine Polaroid instant camera and just marvelling as the photo developed as if by magic in front of our eyes. The colours were amazing.

All of that is gone now. We take our memory cards and wander down to the local department store. Load up a machine. Click to order. Done. No surprises.

That was until I found this. The Impossible Project.

These guys have re-leased a Polaroid instant film making factory and aim to bring it back in a newer, more advanced, more modern way. Their aim is to breath new life into the classic instant cameras of the past. And it appears they’re backed by photographic big boy Ilford.

Lovely.

They’re looking for help. Sign up at their website and they’ll let you know what they need. They’re aiming for 2010.

Any chemical engineers out their?

Anyway I digress. These clips were cut together pieces of movies under the title “funniest movie scenes ever“. Big call. They had the usual suspects – Mike Myers, that guy from Rush Hour (not Jackie Chan), Ron Burgundy, and some Monty Python. Funny? Yes. Original? Maybe not, except for the goonish Monty Python blokes.

So I’ve had another peek to see if I can find some of my favourites:

Peter Sellers asking about a dog

Sorry…Peter Sellers at a Party

Who’s on first?

Steve Zissou does his dance

Oh, I could go on, but I can’t find the clips.

Except for 1 of my top 2:

Fast forward to 4 minutes and see a slapstick master in action (the rest of the clips are great as well)

My other favourite is of Bill Murray’s Bob Harris character in Lost in Translation. He’s on some gym equipment and it’s running backwards while yelling at him in Japanese (if you find the clip send it to me!).

Anyhoo – I’m sure you won’t find my favourites as funny as your favourites, but that’s just taste. Enjoy.

• Take one broadband connection from a participating isp.
• Take one Tomizone compatible router.
• Load up the Tomizone firmware.
• Share your internet connection with the world.
• Earn 50% of the income generated by sharing said connection.

Now the earnings may be ok if you get a bit of traffic past your place, like near the MCG or a busy shopping strip. You’ll be looking at 1/2 of the $3 hour pass/$6 day pass/$30 week pass, as long as the user remains connected to your router. You get pro-rata otherwise.

When you sign up for Tomizone you appear on their map. Just type in your location and shazaam!

Then comes the problaymos!

I thought I’d give the system a go. I typed in my location and found some likely culprits. I then trundled around and like a stalker tried to connect to their hotspot.

Hotspot #1: No hotspot found. Nice. Great to see that the Tomizone map is up to date or could the signal be too weak? Hang on I’ll just climb their back fence and get a little closer. It Rubs The Lotion On It’s Skin. Nah, not doin’ it.

Hotspot #2: Hotspot found! Huzzah! Connecting…failed to connect…wait…connecting…Back fence again? Nah.

Hotspot #3: No hotspot found. Big dog peering through the fence. Definately no back fence action.

So there lies the erm…rub.

People shell out for these “Tomizone” routers and expect to recoup the costs. But the fact of the matter is that if you want to earn cashola you’ll need to upgrade the antenna and make sure you live in a decently trafficked area.

The other side of the coin is that if a road warrior wants to use your connection they have to park outside of your house like they’re casing the joint. Some people may not be comfortable doing that.

I reckon the most legitimate way to go is to get the big antenna or repeater and do a letter drop in to the neighbours. They don’t need to know it’s you but it may get you some cash from their casual use and they won’t feel like stalking.

That’s when I stumbled across a great site called Etsy.

If you’re looking for a gift that is unique, or more particularly handmade, then this is the site for you.

The idea is that if you’re an “artist” you can create an account with these guys and set up your store. You then pay just 20 cents to list an item for 4 months. On top of that Etsy takes a 3.5% sliver for each sale. Nice and cheap.

What can you sell?

• Items handmade by you.
• Commercial and handmade craft supplies.
• Vintage items older than 20 years . Nice slacks!

Etsy.com also utilises some nice features on their site, one of which is the Shop Local feature. Just type your location (e.g. Melbourne ~100 shops) and it will search the ~170,000 shops to find the ones closest to you.

Or use the graphical Colour picker. This helps find gifts that match a colour. Nice touch.

All of these great buying tools are logically placed in the “Buy” section. Creepy.

Azureblues on Etsy.com

As for the selling side of things, I’ve already told you about the costs. As for the funcionality, I’ll try and find someone who’s using it and get back to you. But from the outside looking in, the “shop” Etsy provides is neatly laid out and I’m sure, easy to set up.

Well, check back at some stage and I’ll have a seller to chat to.

Overall, Etsy.com, Nice.

Massive temperatures in Melbourne have caused warping of train lines, train cancellations and now their website’s gone down.

What to do? What to do?

He braketh ye olde mandolin. Comedy gold.

You just pay a small fee per hour. You could link that to their S3 cloud storage. This would give you a remote computer running your software and with a feasibly unlimited storage space. All for, let me find my calculator, um, not much by way of dollars.

Now some bright spark has thought to use this power for evil instead of good. I originally read about this idea on Hackzine and subsequently at the original authors site.

He uses some server side, php based, bittorrent software called TorrentFlux. This allows the server to act as your torrent downloading machine, freeing up your own bandwidth so you don’t get stung by your ISP’s excess usage charges and also prevents your torrent habit ruining your web browsing/VOIP/gaming experience by hogging all the bandwidth. Clever.

For the average user this may take some learnin’ but it could really open up the possibilities of left of centre cloud computer usage. I just can’t think of any at this point in time. Give me a bit and I’ll get back to you.

Cheers.

The first was his brand new baby boy. Not so much a toy as a baby, but I digress. The second one is the one we’re all hanging out to play with. Although the new addition to their family is adorable.

This second “toy” is in fact a super-gadget. An iPhone to be exact. Apart from wanting one immediately I was intrigued by what this little wonder of technology was capable of. It turns out it can weave magic.

With the click of a couple of virtual touch screen buttons this iPhone was transformed into a white noise generator that can simulate the sounds of the rain, fireplaces, the beach and the Amazon, plus others. I didn’t hear the last one but it may be a little scary for the uninitiated if it has monkey screams and snake hisses!

Now to the magic part. Take one restless baby. Place in cot. Turn on sounds of white noise magic. Voila! Sleeping baby.

Just hope the phone doesn’t ring.

For most of us this stock trading is pie-in-the-sky. For the high rollers. Those with a little cash to splash. I certainly don’t have the cashola to be throwing it at CBA or WBC or WTF! At least without a guaranteed return. That’s just not going to happen.

Enter Stockwatch.

What sounds like a site for keeping an eye on stock prices is actually a stock trading game based around the Australian Securities Exchange.

Starting with AU$50,000, you buy and sell shares. Learning about the stock exchange as you go. You earn points as you trade based upon how diversified your portfolio is, how actively you trade, how much cash you hang on to, how the market indexes are travelling versus you, and how successful you are at the end of the day. Once you have all of these factors under control you’ll not only head up the leaderboard but also learn a lot about the intricacies of share trading success. Just try and beat the un-trained monkey! Yes, you have to beat a monkey, Mr Samuel Monk.

Speaking of success. The game offers a reward to those that are successful. After a certain period of trading the game ends and cash prizes are given. 1st place scores themselves $1000 with another 5 cash prizes of $100. Not to be sneezed at considering you can join up for nothing.

Overall the game has a few kinks to iron out but is becoming more feature rich. Share history is courtesy of Google finance and you can trade in any of the top 500 Australian companies on the ASX.

The only catch is that for each trade you’ll be paying a brokerage fee. Who cares, it’s not even your money. Good luck.