Graham J's shared items

A study conducted by researchers at University College London shows that boredom can kill you. The researchers found that people who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study. Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report said, "The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom."

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If a printer doesn't need toner, ink or copy paper, is it still a printer? Well, I guess if a bear still shits in a forest, then yes. Using plastic paper, it's a very green (and pricey) way of printing.

The PrePeat RP-3100 paper is actually made from PET plastic, which means it can be reused up to 1,000—so once your printed document is no longer needed, it can be inserted back in the printer, where the line thermal head prints the ink-less words on again.

However eco-friendly it may be, there are some major downsides to the PrePeat RP-3100. It only prints in black and white, and costs a whopping $5,600—which each sheet of plastic paper costing a further $3.35. Each. I guess you don't need to buy ink for it, but that $3.35 price does sound astonishingly high. [Sanwa Newtec via Crunchgear]

Facebook might be the new Gmail, but now Gmail is the new Facebook, bitches: They're rolling out an update that makes it "easier and faster to share media and status updates with friends," in a new module that shows a stream of status updates. And it'll integrate YouTube and Picasa, somehow. Say it with me now: FacemailGtwitbook. That is the future. [WSJ]

Apple's $499 starting iPad price tag is already lower than many people -- and a few competitors -- expected, but apparently Steve and company have left themselves a little wiggle room: Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope says that Apple told him it'll remain "nimble" when it comes to iPad pricing, suggesting that the price could drop if sales don't meet targets. That's not a hugely surprising thing to say, considering Apple's trying to be the first to achieve real success with a 'tweener device and strong pressure from netbooks, laptops, and smartphones threatens to collapse the space entirely, but a lot of people are taking it to mean some kind of drop is a done deal -- particularly since Apple cut the price of the first-gen iPhone by $200 just a few months after it launched and saw already-solid sales triple. We're honestly not so sure, though: Apple always tells investors that it's confident in how its products are priced but responsive to market changes, and it's not like a smaller price cut boosted the Apple TV into hit product territory. We'll see what happens after the iPad actually goes on sale -- we doubt we'll see any changes for another few months at least.

Analyst: Apple to be 'nimble' on iPad pricing, athletic on pommel horse originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A curious tidbit from VentureBeat: The A4 chip that Apple's pimping hardcore in iPad promos might not've been done by their PA Semi team (which Apple acquired for $278 million). Their source says it was designed by Apple's existing VLSI team, who made custom chips like northbridges for the old G5 Macs.

Sounds possible, since there likely isn't a whole lot "custom" going in the A4's actual design, which by all appearances is an ARM Cortex A9 wrapped up with a PowerVR graphics core and some other parts in a custom SoC. So, new question, if it's true: What's PA Semi, which Apple said would be working on chips for iPhones actually working on? A more customized chip would be interesting, since PA Semi's true talent was in designing chips with ridiculous power efficiencies. [VentureBeat]

Yesterday, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington was driving around Google's campus, talking on his phone trying to figure out where exactly his meeting was. One righteous Googler didn't approve of Arrington's potentially unsafe talking-while-driving, so he took a stand. Literally.

In what Arrington describes as the young man's Tiananmen Square moment, a stand-off ensued between the TechCrunch proprietor and the bespectacled Google geek. Thankfully, this moment was captured in photographs by both participants.

Here's how Arrington recaps the drama:

...this guy, who's wearing a Google employee badge, decides it's time to take a stand against cell phone use in cars. So he stands in front of my car and won't move...Cars behind me start swerving. I back up to go around him. He steps forward, vigilant in his defense of the law. I'm off the phone now, and snapping this picture didn't help getting him to move on. The light changes. The light changes again. Cars are now backed up behind me...I'm not sure what comes next in a situation like this. I can either drive over him or park my car. So I put the car in park, open the door to get out and discuss the situation with him. That's when he ran away. His mission, apparently, accomplished.

The employee in question, Mike Shields, has not backed down in the face of public semi-humiliation:

@arrington If you really want to talk about this, let's do that when your car is not abandoned in the road.

I take automobile safety as seriously as the next guy, but I'm also a fan of a good razzing when its appropriate, so I'm not really sure who comes out on top in this soon-to-be-legendary Mountain View stand off. I'm just glad that I live in a day and age in which camera phones let me relive the high drama as if I were actually there. [TechCrunch via Business Insider]

I thought Google Map Buddy's ability to generate printable, hi-res versions of Google Maps was pretty neat but figured I'd never find a reason to use it. These Google Maps envelops, however, are definitely worth the ink and the effort.

There's not a whole lot to them, but some of the best ideas are the simplest. Beste Miray Dogan, a graphic designer from Istanbul, showed that with a Google Map print out and a little ingenuity, you can make a custom envelop that pinpoints the exact location from which it was sent. How nice.

There's no template on her site, but with some trial and error I trust you'll be able to master the mapenvelope in no time. [Beste Miray via Nerd Approved]

A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly: "Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."

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Gwmaw writes "The space shuttle Endeavour bolted off its seaside launch pad on Monday on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. The 4:14 a.m. EST (0914 GMT) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center shattered the predawn tranquility with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day." HD video of launch attached.

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