It’s Time to Talk

Technology to the Rescue…

To counter the now-well-publicized culture of rape in India, three engineers in Chennai said in March that they are about to send to the market women's anti-rape lingerie, which will provide both a stun-gun-sized blast of electricity against an aggressor and a messaging system sending GPS location to family members and the police about an attack in progress. After the wearer engages a switch, anyone touching the fitted garment will, said one developer, get "the shock of his life" (even though the garment's skin side would be insulated). The only marketing holdup, according to a March report in The Indian Express, is finding a washable fabric.

I knew it was only a question of time…

In March, Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, apparently upset that bicyclists use the state's roads without paying the state gasoline tax for highway maintenance, proposed a 5 percent tax on bicycles that cost more than $500, pointing out that bicyclists impose environmental costs as well. Since carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas, he wrote one constituent (and reported in the Huffington Post in March), bike riders' "increased heart rate and respiration" over car drivers creates additional pollution.

Think we are a little “Law suit” crazy? Read this…

Aspiring rap music bigshot Bernard Bey, 32, filed a $200,000 lawsuit in February in New York City against his parents, alleging that they owe him because they have been unloving and "indifferent" to his homelessness and refuse even to take him back in to get a shower. Bey, who raps as "Brooklyn Streets," said everything would be forgiven if they would just buy him two Domino's Pizza franchises so that he could eventually earn enough to become "a force to be reckoned with in the hip-hop industry." (His mother's solution, as told to a New York Daily News reporter: "[G]o get a job. He's never had job a day in his life.")

Snail Mail: There's an App for That

Wait ... What? A startup company in Austin, Texas, also serving San Francisco, promises to take its customers' incoming U.S. mail three times a week, photograph it and deliver it back to the customers via mobile phone app, for $4.99 a month. The company, Outbox, provides some value-added services, removing the customer from junk-mail lists and paying bills. Still, Outbox's unorthodox business model assumes that a growing number of people absolutely hate opening, filing or discarding pieces of paper. Co-founder Will Davis told CNN in February that at least he does not fear competition: "No one is crazy enough to do what we're doing."

Had enough? Yeah, me too. OK, I’ll stop for today, but I’ll be back…

 

Live Long and Prosper....