Alright, so I’ve been writing a bunch of “Stories of Note” posts so I’m officially gonna call them “SoN” posts to make it easier to recognize.
- Honda discontinues S2000 after 2009
- Apple and Palm Multi-Touch animosity
- Phantasy Star for the PSP
- Google Maps creating documented roadkill
- Taco Bell underhandedly charging for water
- Job position gets 3520 emails
- Jason Chen drinks a Mana Potion
- The Forensics of the Sega Dreamcast death.
- Super Bowl XLIII
In case you wondering how SoN comes about, I am an avid user of Google Reader. Reader is a RSS feed subscription/syndication service. Everyday, I check up on a whole bunch of websites/blogs/news channels through it. On any given day(or any given Sunday, get it?), I have on average of 150 new items in my Reader. When there’s some crazy business going down, like say a giant consumer trade show, I can have up to 500 stories every few hours! Anyway, I sift through them and mark ones that I find interesting. And then, I write a little tidbit about them here. So, let’s get down to it, these are the stories of note to me:
The first story I want to write about is the Honda S2000 and it’s impending demise. Long been a favorite for car enthusiasts, the S2000 was a car with great handling and a fun drive for a fairly cheap price. With it’s 9,000 rpm redline and minimal low-end torque, it was a high-revvers toy. It had a large following in the aftermarket parts industry with a ton of accessories and plenty of engine tweaks to go around. Sadly, the sales of the S2000 hasn’t always been superb. With the Honda Civic Si pulling in the high-rev crowd with a more affordable price, the S2000 has been dipping in sales. After 10 years of being in production, Honda has announced they will be ending the S2000 this year. December sales amounted to only 72 units in the US. That’s really low!!! It’s sad to see one of my old favorites about to disappear from the auto industry, but then again, it’s about time. They haven’t really given it a major re-design, thus interest in it has dropped. Add in competition from it’s own company and it was bound to happen. Hopefully, we’ll see a new comer to the seen, or the Civic Si will have to take it’s mantle in stride.
If you follow any phone news at all, you’ll have heard about the recently announced Palm webOS and it’s handset, the Palm Pre. It basically stole the show at CES (Consumer Electronic Show) and went on to populate my RSS feeds for a long time. In fact, it still does. One of it’s major points was that it offered multi-touch functionality, which no one has implemented successfully besides Apple. Many people speculated that Apple and Palm would have beef with each other over the touch screen technology. In an interview with Apple, stand-in CEO Tim Cook said that Apple would legally pursue those who used their tech. He said they would “suit up and go against anyone” for “…having our IP ripped off.” Surprisingly, right after the interview, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Apple it’s multi-touch license!!! How crazy. So, can we assume Apple will be suing the pants off Palm? Well, Palm said that they’re ready to fight off others with their arsenal of weapons, including an extensive portfolio of patents. The other argument is how long can the fight go? Apple is a huge company now with billions and Palm is kinda dying. Let the battles, begin!
It’s kinda funny cause Arthur just mentioned that a few people are playing Phantasy Star Online. It was a game I never really got to enjoy back in the day, what with my computer being janky at the time and couldn’t handle it. Now with a capable computer at hand, I hear of Phantasy Star Portable coming to the PSP. As you know, I adore my PSP but don’t use it as often as I should, especially considering the extra money I paid to get a limited edition imported over from Japan a couple years ago (totally bragging right here.) I can’t wait till it comes out, I want to play!!! Sadly, no infrastructure support, only wi-fi. So gather your friends over to play!
This next one is kinda sad/funny. I think it’s also sad/funny that it’s noteworthy to me. If you go to this location on Google Maps, it’ll make sense. It seems the Google Van, the one that takes all those street view pics, created a little roadkill. In on direction, you’ll see a deer across the street. In the next view, you’ll see the van has pulled over to the side of the road and you’ll see said deer, post mortem. I never thought I’d see an accident happen to the Google Van, let alone see it published online. The location is getting tons of hits, so you might not be able to see anything, sadly.
With the economy down, we need to keep our morals up! It doesn’t seem to be the case at a Taco Bell in the Town Centre of Marietta, GA. A customer was buying food and noticed a sign telling him that their drink machine didn’t have water, but they were able to sell water bottles. Ok, a substitute in a dire situation, no prob. Here’s the gimmick. Upon a closer look at the soda machine, there was water. The tiny water button had been colored in with a black marker to “disappear” into the rest of the machine. Once depressed, clear goodness flowed forth. Hmm, makes you wonder, did they do this to increase sales of water bottles, or was there something wrong with the water. What’s worse is that if there was something wrong with the water, you’d think they state it expressly. I wonder if there’s a law against doing this.
While we’re on the talk about the economy, here’s another one that shows how down we really are. A property manager in Virginia posted a job for a part-time evening intern. The job would entail only 12 hours a week. In under 24 hours, she received 3520 emails with regards to the job offer. None of it was reportedly spam, insane!!!
If you follow Gizmodo, you’ll have seen Jason Chen ask the readers whether or not he should drink a red fluid that came in a little bottle. That drink comes from Mana Energy Potions, specifically it’s new Health energy potion. Arthur, Raj, and I have tried it’s original blue variant, the Mana Potion. In a word, it’s bleh, tastes like cough syrup, and burns going down. Chen recounts (hilariously) his exposure to it, here. In case you wanted to know, I voted for him not to drink it. It’s totally not a great experience.
I, along with a lot of my Eternity-mates, are avid supporters of the long dead Sega Dreamcast System. You died too young! Dan Whitehead over at Eurogamer has put together a crazy Forensics look at the demise of our beloved. It’s very in-depth, so if you want to read it, head over there. Let the mourning continue.
A little on the brighter side, yesterday a little sports game took place known as the Super Bowl! Pitting the Arizona Cardinals against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was pretty awesome. I don’t want to go into detail cause football is it’s own thing, but seriously, Holmes with the toe tap for the game winning touchdown at 0:35 seconds in the final quarter. Insane.
So, that’s it for this SoN. Until next time, be noteworthy.
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