Miguel Carrasco's Real World

How To Chill A Beer, Soda, or Wine in 3 Minutes

So have you ever needed to chill some nice cold beer fast?  How about that bottle of Champaign or wine for that special night?  You usually have to wait at least an hour to make sure the drink is cold enough to enjoy.  Not anymore!  Here is a quick trick that will have you enjoying your cold beverage of choice in under three minutes!

What you will need:

1. Steel Pot
2. Water
3. Ice
4. Salt
5. Wooden Spoon

What to do:

1. Put the drink in the steel pot.  Make sure that the beer or other beverage to be chilled fits in the pot and does not protrude over the top.
2. Take the ice and completely cover the drink with the ice.
3. Fill the pot with water to the top.
4. Add two cups of table salt.
5. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the salt is dissolved.
6. Place the steel pot in the freezer for three minutes.
7. Take the steel pot out of the freezer and enjoy ice cold beer!

Just a small piece of warning, make sure you do not try this with Soda Water, or you will be in for an explosion.

How does it work:

The salt creates Brine, which has a lower cooling point.  Creating ice uses more energy, therefore the energy is used to cool, rather than create ice.  The ice also starts melting, which needs heat to melt.  The heat is drawn from the warm beer, etc, and causes everything to get colder faster.  Cold (Ice Cold) Beer.

Source: Mythbsusters

The Most Hi-Tech Toilet Seat

The Washlet is a toilet seat probably has more in common with your laptop than it does with your current toilet seat.  You have to see this thing to believe it!  It basically turns your bathroom into the most hi-tech room in your house.  The Washlet warms you, washes you, dry's you, purifies the air, the water, cleans itself, and even senses your presence! Walk up to this toilet and it opens itself up, warms you up, washes you with purified water, then dry's you.  It then goes into air purification mode, flushes itself, and then closes itself up!

You have to check this thing out, it turns going to your washroom a spa experience!

Check it out here:

CleanIsHappy.com

Want to order one today?  Call 1-800-350-TOTO

Scheduled Downtime for AdWords and AdSense Starts

Now I realize that Google had planned maintenance, because I check up on this regularly, however, their message is not very clear that they are performing the maintenance.  And if you haven't been keeping up to date, as a user, you would not have a clue that they are performing maintenance.  They also do not list any ETA for when the site will be up again.  Broken image links... *shiver*.

Google AdSense Down for Maintenance.
http://adsense.google.com

I also don't understand why sites are just pulled down like this.  If the Internet is to be like the water running through your house, and electricity to a building, this cant happen anymore.  Maybe this will be a thing of the past in the Web 3.0 world. I can see smaller companies having to take down their sites like this, but Google should be able to at least give you access to historical data while they perform the maintenance.  The problem with this approach?  This tells me that they are doing updates to live data.  What happens if the update goes badly!  You get more unscheduled downtime!

One interesting thing is if you look at the AdWords explanation page, it is much more clear!

Google AdWords Down for Maintenance.
http://adwords.google.com

Whoever wrote the copy and created the page on AdWords, great job!  Anyway, I love Google, I'm just surprised at the approach in this case.  If this was a Microsoft Site, the flames against Microsoft and news articles would be RAMPANT! Any thoughts?

Search People Fast

The new people search engine, Spock, launched today to the world! Spock already had over 100 million people in its database.  Sounds simple, like another Google clone, but think again!  Spock is purely about people search.  While wink, LinkedIn, and ZoomInfo.com have been around for a while now, Spoke's approach is to use meta tagging, in combination with a wiki like interface.  The result is extremely accurate searches, with a lot of pertinent information on the people you are searching for.

Try a search for someone in Google, and you get everything for someone's name, a lot of things which are useless.  Search on Spock, and you get extremely specific information about the person you are researching.  Instead of just searching information that is crawled, Spock is smart, and try's to "read" the document for information, and stores the information.  It's actually a really cool system!

Check out Spock today during your lunch hour or break!  While you're there, make sure to upload your picture and set up a profile if Spock hasn't found you yet!

Also, please leave your comments behind on how you liked this new service!

50 Cent to Debate Kanye West Live on TV

So I'm fairly confident I have heard everything now.  I love listening to the occasional rap tune, but this is a little much.  Days before the two rappers songs will hit the stores on September 11th, 2007, the two rap superstars are set to collide on national television.  50 Cent will be debating that his Album "Curtis" will outsell Kanye West's "Graduation" Album.

"I accept the challenge," 50 Cent told millions of viewers on Friday (August 3 2007) on BET's 106 Park countdown show. "Kanye, he's not going to want to show up. Just don't be asking me if I am a conscious rapper. I know exactly what I am saying - so I am conscious."  If you can even make sense of what he is saying there...  Stay tuned for the official debate date!  While you wait, feel free to place a wager on Bodog.com, the odds are currently 180 to 140 in favor of "Curtis" by 50 Cent!

Also if you haven't seen the 50 Cent pulling a Mili Vanily caught lip synching, check this video out:

 

Hoverboards are Coming Soon!

Unless you were living under a log when Back to the Future Part 2 came out in 1989, you will remember Marty McFly's amazing hoverboard!  And if you were like most people that saw that movie, prayed that you would live to see the day that hoverboards would replace skateboards!  It turns out we are not too far off!

Physicists in Scotland have 'solved' the mystery behind levitation.  For the longest time, levitation has been thought of as science fiction, however, the University of St Andrews team has created various levitation effects by reversing the forces of nature that usually cause objects to stick together.

In this article in the Telegraph, the new technique is referred to as Casimir force.  There definitely will be a lot of great uses for this new technology, however most importantly, this means Hoverboards!  I for one am already disappointed we still don't have flying cars, but maybe we will have the Hoverboards before 2015 after all!

Of course, you can pick up some self tying shoe laces already!

Watch TV for Free - Part 4

If you want to watch TV and movies from your computer, this is the list for you.  I have divided the Free TV sites into two sections.  The first section lists sites that are large popular sites that are completely legal (minus Joox that seems to have every movie under the sun in streaming DivX quality!).  The second section lists Free TV sites that are in the grey area as they provide links to blockbuster movies, as well as television episodes, and other national network television.

Free TV and Movie Sites

Joox.net is pretty awesome!  All movies are sent via DivX and show fantastic.  Watch one of my favorite movies, AntiTrust!  Or how about taking a trip back in time to watch one of the movies that made Angelina Jolie famous, Hackers!  Or if you’re in the need for a laugh, why not watch Jackass 2!  Want to watch a movie that is still in theatres, then check out The Simpsons Movie!

 

Created using the award winning Azureus technology, VUZE is an amazing TV on the Internet application that delivers true HD and DVD Quality videos to your computer!  VUZE has recently also partnered with Showtime Networks, BBC Worldwide, Bennett Media Worldwide, G4, A&E Networks, National Geographic, and Starz Media.

http://www.vuze.com

 

Created by the same people that brought you Skype and Kazaa, Joost brings you the best of television, and delivers it over the Internet.  Joost has also included some social networking aspects to the application, allowing you to share your TV experiences with your friends. What you can watch: Comedy Central, MTV, CNN, Sony Pictures television, CBS, and National Geographic http://www.joost.com

 

Babelgum is a new way of conceiving television, a free on-demand TV over the Internet that lets you watch whatever you want, whenever you want as often as you want. Although Joost brings you existing television channels to the web, Babelgum brings you original content including independent and short films.

http://www.babelgum.com

 

Although the entire site is in Chinese, this is quite an impressive P2P Streaming Television Network.  It is extremely fast and responsive.  If you have a high speed broadband connection to the Internet, try this site out.  The software is easy to install, and the quality of video is quite impressive!

http://www.ppstream.com

 

Zattoo offers sports, news, and entertainment from around the world at great quality.  Zattoo lets you create a roaming profile that allows you to keep your preferences anywhere you can get on the Internet.  Zattoo has over 50 free TV channels, predominately focused around Europe.

http://zattoo.com

 

With VeohTV, watch video from thousands of web sites, in one easy-to-use full screen application. Watch streaming video from major television networks such as Fox and CBS, to independently-produced content available on sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Veoh.com and MySpace. Navigate with a keyboard and mouse or use a PC remote control. VeohTV is like a free DVR for web video. Watch video on-demand or record it to your hard drive to watch later.

http://www.veoh.com

Grey Area Television and Movies

While all the links above are relatively legal, the ones below have links to questionable content that actually provides television shows and movies that would be considered illegal in most books.

• TV Video
• WWITV
• TV Links
• Streamick
• Free Movies Cinema
• PeekVid
• ChannelChooser
• ShareTV.org
• Your TV Links
• Freetube
• My Easy TV

Of course one of the best ways you can watch TV on the Internet, like HBO, ESPN, and CNN is to download software that allows you to do this.    You can get Satellite TV for PC, Elite Edition here.  It’s by far the best software I have found, and will save you a lot of headaches.

There is also a program available at TV Show Downloads that lets you specify exactly what you want to download (Movies, TV, Music, Games, etc.) and download it extremely fast!  They even have filters that will ensure you do not get any spyware on your machine.  Instructional videos are also available here, which makes it VERY easy to use the software.  Check them out here.