If you’ve got an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you and yours can keep an eye on Santa, and track his progress as he delivers presents to boys and girls around the world, then you’re in luck — Google Earth for iOS has a special Follow Santa tour ready and waiting. Simply swipe up from the bottom to open the tour tab, tap the Santa button, and watch him go!
If you’re on a Mac or Windows PC, you can follow Santa on the web:
Oil chemistry and engine technology have evolved tremendously in recent years, but you’d never know it from the quick-change behavior of American car owners. Driven by an outdated 3,000-mile oil change commandment, they are unnecessarily spending millions of dollars and spilling an ocean of contaminated waste oil.
Although the average car’s oil change interval is around 7,800 miles — and as high as 20,000 miles in some cars — this wasteful cycle continues largely because the automotive service industry, while fully aware of the technological advances, continues to preach the 3,000-mile gospel as a way to keep the service bays busy. As a result, even the most cautious owners are dumping their engine oil twice as often as their service manuals recommend.
After interviews with oil experts, mechanics and automakers, one thing is clear: The 3,000-mile oil change is a myth that should be laid to rest. Failing to heed the service interval in your owner’s manual wastes oil and money, while compounding the environmental impact of illicit waste-oil dumping.
Scared Into Needless Service
Part of the blame for this over-servicing lies in our insecurities about increasingly complicated engines that are all but inaccessible to the average driver. Pop open the hood of a modern car, and a mass of plastic covers wall off the engine. On some vehicles, the only thing an owner can easily access is the oil cap.
“Vehicles are so sophisticated that oil is one of the last things that customers can have a direct influence over,” said Matt Snider, project engineer in GM’s Fuels and Lubricants Group. “There’s maybe some feeling that they’re taking care of their vehicle if they change their oil more often.”
The 3,000-mile myth is also promoted by the quick lube industry’s “convenient reminder” windshield sticker. It is a surprisingly effective tool that prompts us to continue following a dictate that our fathers (or grandfathers) drummed into our heads: It’s your duty to change your oil every 3,000 miles — or your car will pay the price. But as former service advisor David Langness put it, the 3,000-mile oil change is “a marketing tactic that dealers use to get you into the service bay on a regular basis. Unless you go to the drag strip on weekends, you don’t need it.”
click to read more via Stop Changing Your Oil – Edmunds.com.
The old cliche trick for getting over stage fright is to imagine the audience naked. We like to imagine everyone naked. That’s what this app is for—except it censors out all the dirty bits and pieces.
What does it do?
Nudifier turns a photo of a fully clothed (or not) person (or animal) into a nude with TV-like pixel censorship around their private parts. Simply use the app’s eyedropper to select the person’s skin color, draw that color over their loins, and let the app turn that region into pixelation. Now share it with all your friends to the chagrin of the subject. Funny!
Why do we like it?
Because there just can’t possibly be enough photo gag apps in the world. They’re only improved by the illusion of nudity. Plus, we like the idea that you might use this app to blackmail one of your enemies.
via Nudifier: Turn Any Photo Into a Hilarious Censored Nude.
Sea tornados off the coast of Australia are not new. But this one is particularly striking and huge. It was filmed this Sunday at Batemans Bay, in New South Wales.
Sea tornados happen when a funnel cloud touches the sea surface and they don’t last long, usually dissolving in the same way they started. Whatever. I would have been running the hell out of there the moment it started. [Gracias Oscar!]
via This Spectacular Sea Tornado Will Shrink Your Gonads.
AT&T recently allowed FaceTime over cellular for iPhone users on tiered data plans but reports are coming through that AT&T iPhone users on unlimited data plans are also getting unchained from FaceTime’s Wi-Fi only shackles. Is this happening to you too?
Previously, when you switch on the toggle for “Use Cellular Data” under Settings>FaceTime on your iPhone, users on unlimited data plans would receive a warning pop-up notifying them that FaceTime requires an active Wi-Fi connection “or an eligible cellular data plan.”
If you’ve been wanting to upgrade to Windows 8 but baulk at paying then, firstly, you’re a bad person but, secondly, now your opportunity’s here. Microsoft just screwed up and handed out a free activation key for the OS.
Microsoft is letting Windows 8 Pro users upgrade to Media Center for free until January 31st. Neat. But in so doing, it’s handed out a code that will fully activate any copy of Windows 8. Oops. The Verge has even tested it out and is confirming that it works.
If you want details of how to do it, head on over to Reddit. [Reddit via Windows Wave viaVerge]
via Microsoft Just Messed Up and Gave Out a Free Windows 8 Activation Key.
Google (GOOG) has already conquered the software side of smartphones and now the technology giant is reportedly in talks to take over the airwaves. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that Google has held talks with satellite television provider Dish Network (DISH) regarding the possibility of a venture that would see Google launch its own cellular network and compete directly with the likes of Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T). The Journal says the talks are not in advanced stages and could lead nowhere, though Dish did confirm that it is discussing the launch of a new cellular network using its spectrum with a number of potential partners ”who would like to be in the industry.”
via Google Dish Negotiations: Google Wants to be a Wireless Carrier | BGR.
Many iPhone owners expect that incoming call blocking is a built-in feature of the iPhone. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Such a feature is controlled at the provider level. Furthermore, most providers fail to offer call blocking to their customers. Providers that do often charge an exorbitant rate for this feature, such as AT&T in the US which offers a service called “Smart Limits” which includes call blocking but comes at a pricey $5 per month.
There are a couple solutions/workarounds that you can implement:
1) For those of you that are jailbroken, there is an app called iBlacklist that will allow you to filter incoming calls and SMS text messages. This is not a free app, but at it’s current price of $12.00 (one-time purchase), it can pay for itself fairly quickly vs. pricey provider solutions.
2) Don’t block calls, but silence them with a silent ringtone. This will still allow the calls to come through, but will silence the ring so you won’t even notice. To set this up, download this iPhone silent ringtone (be sure to right-click or cmd-click and “Save As”), import it into iTunes, and sync it to your iPhone. On your iPhone, add the number you want to block/silence to your contacts and set the silent ringtone as that contact’s custom ringtone.
via How can I block incoming calls on my iPhone? | The iPhone FAQ.
The slow demise of cursive handwriting is not a new story, but lately the death knell has been tolling a little louder. In a recent example, the State Board of Education of Kansas is about to debate the role of cursive lessons in the schools amid a nationwide decline in those lessons.
School districts large and small have been phasing out cursive. Verona, Wis., will phase out most third-grade cursive instruction by 2014. Indiana formally de-emphasized cursive last year in favor of pushing proficiency in keyboard use.
Common Core State Standards for what students are expected to learn have been picked up by most of the states in the union. Those standards don’t require cursive. Keyboarding skills, however, are featured in the writing standards. That means most states no longer have a mandate for teaching cursive.
Read more via Curtains for cursive? Typing replaces handwriting in schools | Crave – CNET.
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